Rodeo Parade and Sam's First Play

We went last weekend to visit Martha and Clark in Sugar Land. We always love to visit and it had been too long.
We loaded the kids up after Michael got home from work on Friday night and headed out around six. Around seven, Davis was ready for bed. Not sleep. Bed. His bed, to be specific. He wanted his bed, his covers, his pillows and he wanted to lie down. He refused to try and sleep in his carseat. Instead he told us how he felt over and over again and through increasingly greater decibels. We arrived in Sugar Land with two wide awake children shortly after Davis informed us that Grandma and Grandpa needed to move because they lived too far away and after I swore never, EVER again to ride in the car after Davis' bed time.
We all slept hard and long and had a better perspective in the morning. We woke early and bundled up and headed for the Houston Rodeo parade. Clark is part of the exchange club and our job was to go with the exchange club ahead of the parade, but after the runners and hand out little American flags to all the children.
It was very cold and windy, but it was fun to walk the parade route and see all the children gathered for the parade.
We pulled over at the end and got ready to watch the parade ourselves. Davis and Sam both really enjoyed it. Davis loved the sparkly floats. I had to restrain myself from running into the street and shouting, "GIVE ME SOME BEADS!". Actually I did do that a few times to some very odd looks on the street, but it two parades in two weeks didn't give me time to switch parade etiquette that fast.
After the parade we walked over to the Aquarium and had a fantastic lunch. The food and the atmosphere were fun. Then we walked through the aquarium itself and saw all the exhibits. After that we went outside and rode the train and the carousel.
We headed back to Martha and Clark's tired but happy.
We spent the afternoon with Michael's Uncle Roy which was really nice and we all had supper together. It was a really wonderful day and great to spend time with family.
The next morning we played together until eleven and then headed back for Austin. We had tickets to go see Bob the Builder, Live! at the Long Center. The tickets were gifts from my parents and the kids were extremely excited.
We arrived just in time. Sam had never been to a play before, but he followed his brothers lead and really got it. They sat in our laps and were mesmerized during the first act. Intermission was a crazy sea of children trying to get the sillies out. And then the second act began. Sam was done at that point, but I gave him snack and he did fine. Davis sat quietly through it and was thoroughly engaged. The actual play was boring for adults but great for kids and had almost life size tractors and construction vehicles all over the stage which impressed the kids.
It was a nice weekend and I'm glad we went, though our house has been seriously neglected for weeks. This weekend we have lots of projects to do! Enjoy the pictures!