The Houston Zoo and other places that everyone and cousin Brandon decided to visit yesterday

We had such beautiful weather yesterday, so we decided to get out of the house and go to the zoo. Keep in mind, we live in Houston, which is the 4th largest city in the United States. Within this bustling metropolis, we live in our tiny little microcosm--made up of neighbors, friends, acquaintances, co-workers, etc. It's not uncommon at all to run into people who we know at the grocery store, at the library, at a restaurant--in fact, it's sort of expected. So, you can imagine how much it surprises us when, on occasion, we get smacked in the face with the shear aggregation of people in this city. This happened to us yesterday. It turns out that our idea to visit the zoo on this gorgeous day was not entirely ours alone. We drove around the zoo and the nearby parks and museums for about an hour today, just looking for a parking spot. As we watched the dashboard clock tick away our precious minutes until an impending nap time, with each lap we made around Hermann Park--we made a virtuous decision: we would instead go and check out the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, which only happens for a few weeks out of the year. At the very best, we figured that we'd at least be able to find a parking spot there. Wrong. The good news was that we were instead able to park a little farther away from Reliant Center, but we got to take the Metro Lightrail--which was a fun experience for the kids.

The Livestock Show and Rodeo was a fun time. The kids seemed to enjoy it and it was nice to take advantage of something that we probably wouldn't otherwise have done, if our plans to visit the zoo hadn't been squashed by 2.5 million other people, this fine day.

Anna and I enjoyed the baby chickens. They were so cute and so sleepy! They're going to haunt me while cooking dinner next week, I'm sure.

Mr. Handsome enjoyed all of the sights and sounds of the rodeo


He also enjoyed his first Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Sausage-On-A-Stick
(not to be confused with his first Wurstfest S-O-A-S)

The most interesting thing of the day, happened as we were leaving the rodeo. Anna, who is usually pretty reserved and wary of trying new things, spotted a ride at the carnival that she wanted to ride. It was age-appropriate for her and Kevin asked her several times if she was SURE she wanted to ride it and she insisted that she did. As she and Kevin stood in line for this ride, I wondered if she was aware that parents couldn't ride this ride--only kids. I was sure that this realization would cause her to back out (just like I saw several other kids doing before her). But nope, my girl marched right up to the pirate ship vessel (that she wanted to ride in from the get go) and hopped right in. No reaction as Kevin strapped her in and walked away. She rode the ride and enjoyed herself as it flew through the air. When it was over, she wanted to go again, but it was time for us to leave and the line for this ride was too long to endure again.

Now, if you're unreasonably bored, (and hopefully not already suffering from vertigo) I invite you to click below to watch the 2 minute 46 second long video of Anna on the carnival ride. Seriously, it's just her going around, and around, and around, and around, and around...and me saying things in a strange, bleating, sheep-like voice, like "Yaaaaay, Aaanna!" as she looks straight ahead, like she doesn't know us. This is not required viewing and merely serves as extra credit. Honestly, it's really just for the grandparents...they live for this shit.