Grandma and Grandpa

Mom and Dad Wilkerson came for a whirlwind visit the second week in October.  They drove in late Tuesday night.  I knew the visit would be short, so I let Luke play hooky on Wednesday.  We took Grandma and Grandpa to the neighborhood rec center and play ground in the morning.  Then we drove downtown to meet Dada for lunch.  He took us to the underground tunnels where we found a Korean restaurant.  Happy Stacy.  We wish we could have stayed with Dada longer, but he had to get back to some very fun doc review.

So Grandma, Grandpa, the boys, and I moved on to the zoo.  Here we are at the sea lions where we watched for quite a while.  Right when we arrived the zoo keeper was feeding them, and that was neat to see.  It was also cool to watch them glide around in the water.  The boys liked the sea lions, but what REALLY kept them fascinated were the drains in their tank.

We explored the monkeys for awhile, and we ate a snack over by the tigers.  Then we went to the children's section where there is a playground, petting zoo, and carousel.  We were the only people on the carousel, so apparently Wednesday is a great day to go to the zoo.  At least while school is in session.  There were "regular" fans mounted around the carousel, and Luke really REALLY wanted the man to turn them off.  The man told Luke to close his eyes and say the magic word, "Abracadabra!" and the fans would turn off.  While Luke had his eyes closed, the man snuck into the control room and flipped the switch.  Luke thought he was magic and kept asking how he turned the fans off.  I finally told him that the man had just tricked him so he would STOP TALKING ABOUT IT!

We stayed for a little over 2 hours and didn't even come close to seeing everything.  It was a much different experience than the Amarillo zoo where you can see everything in 20 minutes.  Both zoos have their good points, but overall the Houston zoo is more fun.  We tried to beat traffic by leaving around 4:30.  We didn't.  It was pretty backed up, and I just followed the GPS directions and got on a tollway that was EZ tag only.  I'm not at all familiar with the downtown roads, and I just figured the signs were for 1 or 2 lanes while the others would have a booth.  I was wrong.  So I'm just waiting for that ticket to come in the mail.  Boo!  Overall, a very fun day though.

On Thursday we didn't do anything special in the morning.  I had meetings at Luke's school.  When I came home Mom and I went shopping to get fabric for living room curtains.  Our windows are very tall, and we needed them to be 120 inches.  Can't find that in the store, so we had to make them.  I was lucky that Mom has that kind of talent because I'm still a novice in that department.  We found the perfect fabric at Walmart of all places and then rushed home to meet Luke's bus.

After Luke got home we went to the boys' favorite hangout:

BASS PRO SHOP!

And then home for dinner and boys' bedtime.  After the boys were in bed and the kitchen cleaned up, Mom and I got to work.  It took until 1 am to finish the curtains, but we got them done.  I say "we" but to be honest Mom did all the sewing.  I cut and pinned and practiced threading the machine.  I need to make some more pillow cases and things like that before I make anything that is going out in the open.  Or anything that costs that much per yard!

They turned out beautiful.  Pictures to come soon.  Thanks, Mom!

It was a wonderful visit, but we wish it had been LOOOOONNNNNGGGGGGEEEEERRRRR!

Next time we'll take them to Space Center Houston.