Houston Vacation

Justin and I were lucky to take a short trip to Houston this past weekend. Justin's parents graciously baby-sat Sierra for us, and we took off Thursday evening for a weekend of fun. We had never been to Houston so we were excited to see some of the sights it has to offer. We spent Friday at the Natural Science and History Museum and it was AMAZING. We had no idea how much they would have on exhibit and ended up spending the entire day there. We realized afterwards we could have spent another full day there as well! One of the special exhibits was the Lucy fossil, which was pretty cool to see up close and in person. After a full day at the museum (complete with lots of field trip kiddos there to entertain us), we were exhausted so we called it a day.


Saturday, we headed downtown to the Downtown Aquarium. Again, we were impressed. We saw amazing (and HUGE) fish in an assortment of exhibits and then enjoyed a late afternoon lunch in the aquarium restaurant. I have to say it was a really neat experience to dine right next to a huge floor-to-ceiling aquarium. The biology teacher in me sure had a great time (especially imagining the cool field trip I could plan for my aquatics class!). After our fun at the aquarium we headed back to our hotel room for some Saturday evening college football. I will admit, one of the fun parts of staying in a hotel is having cable TV!

This is a view of the Houston skyline from our fun Ferris Wheel ride.


This is us on the "Shark Voyage" train. It was a neat little trek through a shark aquarium tunnel. Very cool!


This is a shot of the coral reef. Beautiful fish!!

On Sunday, we headed back to Austin and picked up our precious pup. Upon picking her up we learned that she is, and I quote, "A VERY sweet dog, just not a great house guest!" Thankfully she didn't cause too many problems, she just had to adjust to another house and another dog to hang out with. I think she was just as happy as us to return to the comforts of her own home =).
Well, that's the most recent excitement around the Halvorsen household!