We split up the drive and stopped in Dallas for a night. We went to the Dallas Zoo. Someone had an extra ticket for a pony ride, which Vanessa was really excited about. It is something I would not have paid for because it was literally less than two minutes. The kids favorite thing about the Dallas zoo were all the animal statues they had. They may have loved them more than the real animals. Except the birds, they really enjoyed feeding the birds.
Benson has an obsession with turtles right now. He sat and talked with this turtle for over five minutes. He stroked it, hugged it, protected it from Brigham. I think they bonded. He wants a turtle for real.
In the mornings, we walked across the street from the hotel and played in the sand while Jon was at his conference learning about all things anesthesia. The water was too cold, but they definitely liked the sand.
Our plan was to go to a place called Moody Gardens, but there was also a flight museum right next door so we stopped by there for a quick look around. It was pretty cool to see all the planes.
On a different day, we went to the Rainforest pyramid at Moody Gardens. It is a giant pyramid with plants, birds, butterflies, fish, turtles, etc typical of what would be in a rainforest. Vanessa was very excited for the butterflies. She has an obsession with butterflies. She loves that her name means butterfly.
We kept the rainforest theme going and went to Rainforest Café for dinner. Never the best food, but it does entertain the kids so there is a tiny bit more peace during the meal. Brig was asleep when we got there and was quite surprised when he woke up. He was shaking with big eyes, pointing at everything; but barely getting a word out. He was also quite startled by the thunderstorm.
One of the nights back at the hotel, Brig was being crazy and disappeared into the bedroom for a second (since the hospital pays for our hotel, we got a nice one with two rooms;) I went to check on him after a few minutes of silence and he had just passed out. I guess that means we had a fun day!
It was a first for our family doing a vacation like this. We have spent plenty of time in hotels with all three kids (we spent three weeks in Arkansas in a hotel while Jon finished up clinicals). But it was our first vacation to somewhere other than Utah with all three kids. It was fairly exhausting. Brigham is a runner. He loves to take off and he thinks it's pretty hilarious. That basically means you have to be on your toes with him at all times. I also felt like I should be providing non-stop entertainment and they seemed to share that feeling. So sometimes it was a little challenging to keep them having fun so it would be something memorable. But overall, I think we had a lot of fun. I'm also thinking for the next couple of years we may stick with camping. It's just so much cheaper and the kids love playing in the rocks and dirt just as much as they like an expensive aquarium. We'll see. It's hard not to want to go somewhere new when the hospital will pay for travel and room expenses. Thanks Mercy for a fun vacay!
