Houston Weekend

A few weeks ago we went down to the lovely city of Houston to visit my aunt, uncle, and cousins who live down there, and to do the ever-important BLUE BELL FUN RUN. We are fully converted Blue Bell ice cream fans and we are even willing to drive four hours to Brenham, TX to visit the headquarters for their annual fun run race. We did it two years ago and have fond memories of it being an almost-perfect day, doing the race with my cousin and spending the day with her family afterwards. And we basically recreated it this year! We went down to Houston a day early and visited NASA the day before the race, because I was interested in seeing it and we thought the kids would enjoy it. It was a really great short weekend trip down there. 

NASA. So cool to see the space shuttle and go inside it!

They had a tram ride around inside the NASA headquarters. We did the super-short version, and I think it would be fun to go back in a few years when the kids are older so we can do the longer version and go visit Mission Control. 

I love this little walking girl!

I had to share these pictures of the boys touching the moon rock, because we have an iconic Murphy family picture of Bethany touching the moon rock at the Smithsonian in DC with the worst angry face. Dane and Graham enjoyed it a lot more than Bethany did. 

The boys' favorite part of NASA was some interactive exhibits they had inside the space shuttle showing how they landed it on top of an airplane to transport it between places. It was super interesting. We were going to stay a little bit longer and we were even hoping to buy some astronaut ice cream from the gift store but the power went out in the whole place, so we ended up leaving!

This is such a cute picture of the kids on the swing in my cousin's backyard!

After NASA we drove back to Katy and ended up going to my cousin Brittney's house to hang out with their kids in the afternoon. We went to a park with them and played and had a great time with them. Brittney is amazing and her kids are like my kids' dream come true. 

The next day was the Fun Run! We signed the boys up for the kids' one-mile race and they were so excited. Actually, just Dane was. Graham had to be coaxed into it (but we knew if we didn't sign him up he would be throwing a fit about not being allowed to do it). Tommy ran it with them and helped Graham along. 

Dane did SUCH a good job! Two years ago he fell and gave up after about 100 yards and it took a really long time for him to finish (haha). But this year he ran the whole time and finished the one mile in about twelve minutes. I was so proud of him!

And after another six or seven minutes, Tommy and Graham came trotting down. LOOK at this cutie. He looks so proud (even though he definitely did not run the whole mile, haha!). 

The best reward is the free ice cream. We left Dane with the cousins to eat as much ice cream as he wanted while Tommy and I ran the 5K with the jogging stroller. 

Tommy was a champ! He did it pretty fast. Neither of us trained a ton, but I did it in about 29 minutes and Tommy was in maybe 26. 

After eating as much ice cream as we could at the race, we headed over to the factory store to get a free scoop of ice cream there too!

The kids were super proud of their medals. Reid even got second place in his age division. 

This girl was a big fan of the ice cream too. Look at that face. 

We found an enormous field of bluebonnets and HAD to stop and take a picture. The drive down there and back was just wildflowers all the way down on the sides of the highway. I was so excited to get some pictures of bluebonnets!

We had a picnic lunch at the Washington-on-the-Brazos site and spent a while playing soccer. Then we drove home and Graham and Lucy slept the WHOLE WAY home and it was perfect! We were not thrilled about the drive and it worked out great. I think things like this go smoother the more kids we have because we are less stressed about things working out perfectly. So it was a great day and a great weekend in Houston!