Tyler travels to Houston! (week 94)

Warning: This post is HUGE and contains a ton of photos and videos of our recent trip to Houston. Don't worry, I won't be offended if you end up skimming through and just checking out the photos and not reading the text. This blog serves as our diary for events in Tyler's life - so I gotta make it pretty detailed so we don't forget stuff!

Hello! Wow, what a great long weekend we had. It was a whirlwind! Our visit to Houston to visit my older sister was jam packed of fun kid-friendly activities. We hit the downtown Aquarium, the Houston Zoo, the Museum of Natural Science as well as the Bayou Wildlife Animal Park. Also, Tyler had a great time playing with his cousins (except when he wasn't sharing...)!

Will and I took off a few days from work and headed out to Houston Wednesday morning with Tyler in tow. This was Tyler's second plane trip, and I was really nervous about how he would do. Last year (incidentally, also a trip to Houston!) he was still a baby and slept/nursed most of the way. This year though, with him being prone to tantrums, I was very nervous. Wednesday morning - he woke up in a GREAT mood (whew!) and seemed to know something was up. My girlfriend Trina picked us up super early (thanks Trina!) to give us a ride to the airport. Thank goodness we're so close to John Wayne! Here's Tyler all smiley with Trina - excited about his trip!
Turns out my fears were unwarranted. The flight was completely full so we had to check his carseat at the gate, but Tyler didn't seem to need it anyway. He colored for a bit, then fell asleep watching an Elmo video on his iPod touch. Awesome! Sweet! Will and I even got to watch the in-flight movie (The Day the World Stood Still, or something like that). We both agree that we love Jennifer Connelly. Here's Tyler knocked out between us on the flight. The older lady in the background was very nice to Tyler and would play this Lithuanian children's game with him - we couldn't understand a word but Tyler loved it because it involved his fingers and tickling him! By the end of the flight, when he woke up, he was sitting in her lap playing with her!
Tyler was energized and in a great mood when we got to Houston. He was squealing as we walked through the airport. My older sister Grace picked us up and then we all headed to pick up her kids from school. It was so cute, Tyler immediately took a liking to Annie and they held hands walking out! Here's a photo of all the kids in the minivan. There's Annie (4), Ryan (1 - 2 months older than Tyler) and Adam (3). This was a much better carseat arrangement than last year, where the two little ones were in the middle row and Will was smushed between the older kids in the back! Tyler LOVED having the DVD player in this car, and would start yelling 'dee-vee, dee-vee' everytime he got in. Only sucky part was that I sat in the middle row between the 2 seats (there's a seat that you can put in and out) and the kids in the back would always yell that they couldn't see. I had to crouch a lot... but still - minivans are so awesome and roomy!
When we got to their home, Grace set up a little table in the yards for the kids to have dinner. She gave them each a bowl of rice with meat and sliced carrots. I laughed because there was NO way Tyler was going to eat carrots! HA HA HA. He doesn't eat any vegetables and hasn't forever! I was actually even surprised when he ate some of the rice since he usually doesn't like meat in his rice! I asked if he wanted some carrots, and he replied 'NO!'. No surprise there. Then I asked Annie if she wanted to feed Tyler a carrot (last ditch effort?). She did...and to our amazement, Tyler ate the carrot without a second thought. I think I must have sat there stunned for a few seconds. She offered him another one and he ate it again! S H O C K . My child...eating vegetables again? The craziest part? After that, he ate his entire bowl of carrots by himself AND more of Annie's. I almost cried. The trip was a success in my book already as far as I was concerned. :) Here's a collage of photos. First photo (top left) is Tyler eating some rice. Second photo (top right) is his look when I asked if he wanted carrots (kind of like, "Really? You really think I'll eat it?" Third photo (bottom left) is Tyler eating a carrot from Annie's spoon, and last photo (bottom right) is my look of amazement that my son just ate a vegetable. :) I decided at that point that I was taking Annie home with me.
Here's a short video of Tyler getting fed carrots by Annie. Vegetable eating documented!

After dinner, the kids had blackberries! I've seen Tyler eat blackberries on occasion (from YogurtLand of course) but didn't know if he was a huge fan. Boy was I in for a surprise - he ate them like there was no tomorrow! It was really cute, Annie would feed him one and then Ryan would feed him one and then he'd feed himself. He was quite a mess after he finished. Here's a video of Tyler eating a bunch of blackberries. We'll have to add that into our fruit rotation now!

After dinner, the kids played in the yard. My sister has a REAL yard out there in Texas, with lots of grass, plants and a swing set! Surprisingly, Tyler wasn't all that into the swing set, but he was ALL over watering the plants. We must have been out there an hour or so just watching the kids water the plants and play with some buckets of water and plastic shovels. Here's Tyler with a giant watering can and Ryan. Tyler would fill his up and then go around filling up the smaller watering cans of the other kids! Thank goodness there weren't any mosquitos out - but there were a lot of 'love bugs' though. After dinner the kids all took a shower together. There's something about kids showering together that I love - maybe because they're so young and everyone is so innocent? Anyway, Tyler at first wouldn't even get in until we tempted him with some bath toys. It's weird, he was totally fine with the handheld shower nozzle thing, but at home he freaks out when it's on.. Anyone that has met Tyler knows that he LOVES music. He just loves to get his groove on. He's been singing a lot more songs lately, like the ABCs, twinkle twinkle little star, itsy bitsy spider, wheels on the bus, etc., and even some Chinese ones I sing to him! It's really exciting when Will and I can tell what he's trying to sing! Anyway, Grace has a piano and Tyler could NOT get enough of it. I've been meaning to buy a used piano and now it's totally going to be bumped higher on my list of priorities. And Tyler seemed to know exactly how to pretend to play the piano also - he'd play some notes, stop and turn the page of the music book, and then play some more notes! haha! Grace was nice enough to give us her toy piano - I'll get some photos of it for next week's post. It's like a toy grand piano! That night was Tyler's first night sleeping in a toddler 'bed'. Well, it was actually an inflatable twin bed, but it wasn't a crib! Big step, since he's always slept in his crib or the pack-n-play. He did good though - he woke up super early and I let him get into bed with us. Hey, we're on vacation!

Day2 (Thursday). Destination? Downtown Aquarium - an Underwater Adventure. Wow, so this place is kind of like an Aquarium built around a restaurant. It was really cool! Not like a full scaled public aquarium, but definitely more than enough to keep the kids (and adults!) interested. It was super clean, and had a ton of animals on display. Tyler loved it! Here's a family picture of us outside the aquarium. They had this bench with a giant fake shark next to it with the name of the Aquarium, but Tyler was NOT interested in getting anywhere near it.. There were a ton of sealife exhibits as well as land animals. There was even a petting zoo with things like starfish and horseshoe crabs. Here's Tyler checking out the turtle exhibit. Here's a video of him saying Hi and Bye to the turtle. He was so excited running around to see all the exhibits. I think this was the first time where he could actually say the names of a lot of them, and it was great for him to see them in real life.

Here's all the kids in front of one of the fish exhibits. Tyler was so excited he was clapping! Ooh I remember this picture. Right before Grace and I had gone to the bathroom and Tyler went into the large stall with Grace since Annie was with her (they were holding hands a lot of the day!). Anyway, Tyler started looking for me, and I said something like, "Don't worry, Mama's here" since I was in the next stall, and then Tyler crawled on the floor over to my stall. ACK! DIRTY! Ok, so the bathroom was actually really clean, but still! As I was freaking out about him crawling on the floor, he turned and crawled back. Sigh. We washed his hands/elbows/knees for quite a bit before we left that bathroom...
The aquarium had this really nice and healthy looking white tiger behind a glass wall. We were there right when they opened, so there were very few people around. It was kind of freaky, because you would move around and the tiger would watch you - you could see his head move as he followed your movements! Here's Adam, Tyler and Annie checking out the tiger.
Outside the aquarium, it was like a small amusement park! They had a train ride that went around the aquarium and into the Shark Voyage exhibit. This part of the ride brought you straight through a huge tank of different types of sharks. It was really cool! Here we are in the tunnel.
My favorite shark was the sawtooth nose shark - their noses are so long and pointy like a chainsaw! It was fun pointing the different shark out to Tyler and having him actually interested in them.
Next stop? The merry-go-round! The last time we attempted a merry-go-round was at South Coast Plaza around Easter. Will took Tyler and it was just a bad experience since he wanted off immediately while I watched hopelessly, counting down the number of rotations left. I was surprised that this time he was fine with getting on the carousel - although I didn't try to put him on an actual animal. He was happy on the bench and would wave at Will everytime we came around. Yay!
I loved Annie and Tyler together! Tyler doesn't play with a lot of older girls, and Annie was SO sweet to him! She would hold his hand and run around, and Tyler would always try to keep up. Sometimes she'd go too fast but he'd laugh and giggle. Annie is such a great big sister/cousin!
I forgot to mention how hot is was. Now, mind you, it wasn't hot compared to Houston's summer, but it was still hot for me - plus humid! I put this picture in so I'd remember how we needed to take a break from the heat inside and replenish the kids with fluids. Everyone's got a sippy cup!
Tyler got a kick out of the crocodile (alligator?) floating in one of the thanks - it barely moved! It was kind of creepy actually...
Here's a cute photo of the kids in a little boat with a swamp background. I liked how Tyler is looking at Annie - so cute! Too bad my sister lives so far away - Tyler would love to have an older cousin around - plus Annie is so well behaved that it would have to rub off on Tyler... right?
Outside they had one of those rides that pick you up and drop you, over and over again. For some reason, I was determined to go on it - its been a while since I've been on a ride at all! It was fun, although I screamed every time we dropped. This picture is hilarious if you look at Adam's facial expression - he was not enjoying the first couple drops. But then he loved it and even went on it again (once, however, was enough for me!).
We had lunch at the aquarium and guess what - Tyler ate GREEN BEANS! Of course he said No at first, but Annie (oh, sweet Annie) fed him one and then he seemed to remember that he used to love green beans! He ate his entire bowl and even the rest that we had brought. He wasn't interested in the full carrots - but I'm not complaining! Here's a photo for proof. :)
Whew, what a day that was. We spent the rest of the day at home with the kids running and playing around the house. What I love about visiting my sister is that her house is super kid friendly with lots of toys! We can literally just let the kids play and lounge on the couch, with the occasional (ok, frequent?) interruption of a crying kid due to lack of sharing. Tyler LOVED this scooter that they had, and was even happier when one of his cousins would sit behind him while he steered. Only problem? Everyone wants to be in the front! We actually saw Ryan be quite sneaky/smart. Tyler was driving with Ryan in the back. They got to the stairs and Ryan got off and sat on a step. He patted the step and motioned to Tyler, who was still sitting on the scooter. Tyler said 'Yeah!!' and got off the scooter and sat down next to Ryan on the step. What does Ryan do? Get up and make a beeline for the scooter. Then he looks at Tyler and motions him to sit behind him. ... Wow! Will and I were impressed. :) It took Tyler a couple seconds to realize he had been tricked - and then the whining started. hahaha.
I love that the Tyler and Ryan are so close in age. It's like they know that they fit the best together or something, because they would play together. At one point, I didn't hear them for a bit, and then they both came out of Grace's bedroom EACH with a Guitar Hero strapped around their necks! Silly kids. It's too bad they don't get to see each other more often!
That night, Tyler slept better than the first night. He woke up but instead of coming to our bed, I went next to his inflatable bed and patted him for a bit. Unfortunately I fell asleep next to him (on the floor of course, didn't want to pop the kid bed!) and woke up super sore. Doh!

Day 3 - Houston Zoo and Museum of Natural Science! This was an awesome day! We headed out bright and early to the Houston Zoo (have you noticed, when you have kids, you do everything early in the morning?). I made sure Tyler (and myself) were well lathered in sunblock.
Ooh, Tyler LOVED the zoo! Even more than the aquarium I think, since he knew more of these animals. One thing I remember, he had a snack cup that all the other kids wanted snacks from, and he was SUPER possessive. Not that Ryan or Adam cared. heehee. We really need to work on his sharing skills. Tyler owns one tank top, which he wore the day before. But no problem - we just borrowed some of Ryan's clothes - could things be any more convenient?
Here are some photos of Tyler checking out the animals at the zoo. My favorite animals that day were the giraffes - there was a baby one that was just SO freaking cute! Here's Tyler and Annie at the sea lion exhibit - the first of the day! Tyler's already excited and happy. :)
It was so funny, Tyler would see the different animals and laugh and point at them. Here's a photo of him cracking up after seeing the cheetah (not sure what's so funny about that!). Next stop - another merry-go-round! I didn't think he'd want to ride on an actual animal, but when I asked him and he saw the other kids on the animals, he actually said Yes! Yay! Tyler's first time riding an animal on a carousel! Well, last year he rode this exact same merry-go-round, but I was sitting on it with him...
After that we checked out the petting zoo. I think Tyler's been at a petting zoo before, but he never wanted to get too close to any of the animals in there. He's quite the chicken - loves animals but doesn't like getting close to them. So, I was really surprised when he didn't show any fear at all this time and was excited to see all the different goats and sheep. Here he is feeling the ear of one of the animals. We did a lot of hand washing afterwards - I'm quite paranoid.
Lunchtime Tyler ate more green beans. Yay! We ate at this mini ampitheater type place that had different rows to sit on. Tyler took a fall and hit his lip - both top and bottom bled a little. Eeesh! Thank goodness they were small cuts. Afterwards, it was water play time! The Houston Zoo has an area for water play that Tyler loved even last year! Here's a photo of myself and Tyler sitting on a turtle that spits water. The kids loved sitting on it!
Here's Annie with Tyler and Adam on the turtle. They got quite wet - perfect since it was such a warm day!
Here's a video of Tyler when he first went into the play area. It is so cute how he runs away from the spraying water, then goes and pets one of the turtles, gets sprayed with water, and runs away again! Heehee. Tyler LOVES water!

Here's a family picture at the zoo. It's the only one we got that day! By this point, Tyler was pretty pooped. The heat and humidity were pretty draining, and it wasnt even that hot!
After we left the zoo, we took a train ride that took us around this HUGE park. It was cute since there were lots of stops along the way, and we'd wave at people as we went by. There was even an area that reminded me of Washington DC since it had this huge water fountain area. I do remember Tyler eating every last drop (shared with Will of course) of his frozen lemonade...

Next destination? The Museum of Natural Science! Super close to the Houston Zoo. We went to see the Butterfly exhibit - one of those huge biodomes that are super humid with a ton of butterflies flying around! First we went through an insect exhibit though - yikes! Here's Tyler checking out the giant Madagascar hissing cockroaches. GROSS! They had other cockroaches that looked straight out of the prehistoric ages too!
I'm not sure why we didn't get a photo of Tyler with a butterfly - there were SO many of them! Here is a photo of him at the bottom level of the exhibit next to the waterfall. I was kind of taken aback by how old he looked. There's this little rock ledge around the waterfall that Tyler would try to sneakily get onto - one little footstep at a time until we caught him and were like 'Tyler!' to which he'd back up immediately. sneaky sneaky.
Outside we hung out a bit around a fountain. I'm starting to see more and more that Tyler has a lot of upper body strength. He likes to swing on things and support his own weight! He'll do this on slides as well, where a lot of them have a little bar at the top to hold onto while you swing yourself down.
Fast forward. Day4. Destination? Bayou Wildlife Animal Park. It's a privately owned animal park - kind of like a small-scale San Diego Wildlife Animal park. The awesome thing? The animals are free roaming and you can go up to them and feed them! Even on the truck ride around the park, the animals will come right up to you to eat from your bucket of feed! This is a photo of when we first got there. Tyler is totally a chicken when it comes to animals not behind bars! He didn't like this deer sniffing him.
This video is of his first deer encounter, and is hilarious since he runs screaming away from the little deer.. TWICE! haha. Will and I were cracking up it was so cute/funny.

Also very cool? Free pony rides! It was seriously a weekend of firsts. I was for sure that Tyler would be too afraid to take a pony ride, but he was really excited about it! I think I'm going to have to have pony rides at his 2nd birthday party now... heehee. I couldn't believe what a big boy he was, riding the pony all by himself! I walked along side him, but he didn't even need me there! My baby boy, growing up! sniff sniff!
After the pony ride, we got onto the tram (which was really a pickup pulling a trailer) and headed out to the open fields. Here's a family photo of us before the animals started crowding us. There was a really chubby kid behind me that had bad body odor. yuck!
It was really cool feeding the animals! They were totally not afraid and would come right up to your bucket. There were ostriches and emus, ostriches, and other weird animals I don't know their names of. Tyler wasn't even scared they they were so close! I didn't like when the emus popped up suddenly though. Those things look like they have shark beaks!
Here's a video of us feeding some animals. They aren't afraid of people at all!

Before lunch, we fed some of our extra animal food to some goats behind a fence. I was trying to get Tyler to feed the goat the same way I did, with my palms flat holding he food. I was worried that Tyler might get bitten! But Tyler wasn't scared at all, and fed the goats directly from his fingers one by one!
Here's a video of Tyler hand feeding the goats. It was funny because he'd say Thank you to the goat after he fed it. Silly.

Another petting zoo! This time Tyler was even more brave and really enjoyed playing with one goat that was trying to take a nap in a giant bucket.
Here's a video of Tyler and Ryan playing with the poor goat. I don't know what they were doing, but they were taking turns putting both boths of their hands on it! Poor goat!

Ooh, there was a mommy goat that had just given birth to two baby goats, literally an hour or so before. You could still see that the baby goats backs were still wet from, eh, amniotic fluid? They were so tiny and adorable. Tyler was excited to see goats his size!
But the mommy goat didn't like anyone getting too close. Here's a video of Tyler super excited around the goat family causing the momy to walk towards him, which resulted in a screaming running off Tyler. haha. If you listen closely, you can hear the baby goats bleeting! So cute!

Here's Tyler looking through a zebra cut out. He wasn't interested at first actually, and it wasn't until his cousins were poking their heads out in the various holes that he wanted to go play also. He actually went up to this zebra hole, and, I can't remember which cousin was there, shouted Mine! Sigh. SHARE Tyler, sheesh!
Last picture from the Wildlife park - Tyler sporting Will's sunglasses. Doesn't he look like such a rebel here? He's so cool, heehee.
Whew! So many adventures right? Usually we'd do like one adventure a weekend, and wouldn't smother you with so many photos - but I had to! Houston is so kid friendly! I am SO glad that we visited them out there, we all had a blast and I know Tyler did so many things he's never/hasn't done in a long time! I think we'll have to make it an annual trip out there - it's just so super convenient!

I'll leave you with a couple photos of Tyler and his cousins. Tyler was Mr. Popular with his iPod touch, and the other kids would crowd around him to watch videos. But you know Tyler, doesn't like to share (argh!) but he eventually came around.
And lastly, group shot on the couch! I can't wait to get the kids together again - they always have so much fun together. Tyler had a blast this past weekend and we did too! Thanks Grace and Ken for being such great hosts!
I was looking forward to a nice flight home, just like our flight out there - but no such luck. Tyler napped on the drive there (bad idea!) and wouldn't sleep on the plane! He decided that he didn't want to sit in the seats with us, didn't want to watch his Elmo videos, etc. Ack! I think I almost went insane from exhaustion. He finally conked out for the last hour of the flight, at which point I was almost cried from happiness. We did see the movie 'Yes Man' on the plane though, pretty funny! We were lucky enough to have my girlfriend Mariam pick us up (Thanks Mariam!!) but I forgot to get a photo since we were so frazzled. Whew. It is GOOD to be home!

Have a good week everyone!