The beauty of a big city...

...is that you can drive to the opposite side of it and make a mini-vacation out of it.

Jeff had a weekend long meeting close to the Gulf so the kids and I crashed his hotel room and made ourselves comfortable. We maybe saw Jeff awake a total of an hour but the kids and I had so much fun. The first night we ate dinner on Kemah boardwalk and then rode the Ferris Wheel. They actually call it the Century Wheel...which is fitting because the amount of rust on it makes me think it is 100 years old.

Kimberly is my thrill seeker and she loved every minute of the ride. I took a mental snapshop of her 'eat a bug' smile* Every time it started to slow down and stop, she begged for it to stop at the top. I do not have her adventureous spirit. Even low key rides like the ferris wheel freak me out. I am not, however, going to instill my irrational fears (read anxiety) into my children. While she was hoping and praying that we would get stuck on the top, I was hoping that our little carriage wasn't going to a: start swinging so hard that it dumped us out and b: have the rusty supports snap under our weight and plummet to the ground. I kept smiling and saying wheeeeeee! Kennen was sitting on my lap facing me, scared shitless and trembling but even toward the end of the ride he gave me a feeble, "one two three....blastoff! wheeee."

The next day we went to NASA. It.was.awesome! It really wasn't that great for the kids, but I was amazed. I got to touch moonrocks, look at real spaceships, astronaut suits, and go on lots of tours of different space expeditions. It usually takes a day or more to see everything but we did it in 6 hours because we walked out of most of the speeches given by the employees. "Boooooorrrriiinnngggggg," as Kimberly liked to say. We also got to see the real mockup of the international space station that the astronauts practice assembling before they get zoomed 250 miles up in the air to the real space station orbiting the earth. Also the main underlying theme of all the tours are that all humans are one race, Earthlings. Live long and prosper. Nanu-nanu.

The one part that was fun for the kids was the 5 story climbing playland. This was the one part where I thought that my kids had been kidnapped for sure. This thing had 3 different exits and I spend 45 minutes watching the exits frantically. Sure enough though, the did eventually come out happy, sweaty and smiling. Plus there was no pedophile lurking and waiting to prey upon them while they were up there.

Oh, a quick story...Last weekend Kimberly went to a birthday part at an inflatable bounce party place. I wasn't watching her and all of the sudden she came running up to me crying, 'That boy bonked me right there!', all while cupping her crotch with both hands. I freak out and started asking if he took her to another room, thinking that some creep was hiding in the linen closet. She looked confused then said, "no, a boy was at the bottom of the slide and when I got to the bottom, he didn't move and I hit him." Then she pointed for a 4 year old little boy. See how my mind works? Worst case scenario all the way.

Long story short...I am trying to find a balance between letting my kids have the freedom to, now brace yourselves, actually play without me hovering over them all the time. I know I am never going to stop worrying and stressing myself out over their safety, but I want them to see me cool as a cucumber and happy. Not stressed out and irrational. What is the balance?

All in all, I had a great weekend. My kids are at such a fun age, and it was really easy for me to enjoy them. There was no stoller, diaper bag, or special kid food to carry around with me. They were inquisitive and adorable the whole trip. After spending the day at NASA, we stopped and rode the ferris wheel one last time.

When we were driving back to the hotel, Kimberly said, "Mommy this was the best day of my whole life." Kennen chimed in, "whole life!"


*Jeff named her super big smile when she was 8 months old and we put her in a swing at the park for the very first time. Her smile was huge and precious and Jeff was laughing and telling her to close her mouth before she swallowed a bug. :D