Houston Adventures

I tried to do as many fun things with D this summer in Houston.

Houston has SO many amazing things to offer, and I knew once I got back to New England, I would regret it if I didn't get to take advantage of these things.

And while Boston also has a lot of fun things to do, the cost of parking in the city is ridiculously expensive, and I am NOT comfortable with taking the "T" anywhere!

Both of these places I'm about to mention also offer military discounts!

I posted back in June about our trip to the Houston's Natural Museum of Science.

The museum is HUGE, and we didn't get to check out all the exhibits there.

There's a gem stone, ancient Egypt, Dinosaurs, Early America, planetarium, butterfly exhibit, and a few more that I can't name off the top of my head.

When Nick came down, we went back to take D to the butterfly and bug exhibit.

They have sort of a "butterfly sanctuary" within the museum where they have butterflies of every color imaginable fluttering around freely. 

It was gorgeous!

It looks like a greenhouse, but the climate control they had inside made the weather conditions perfect for people to comfortably stroll through.

 Just a random, gigantic, orange iguana they had caged up in the midst of all the butterflies.

 D had a blast. She was a little freaked out by all the butterflies. They tend to fly right past your face.

 A panoramic view (courtesy of my iPhone5) of the dinosaur exhibit.

 The next place we hit up was the Houston Downtown Aquarium.

 This was a totally awesome place!

It's not your average aquarium!

The aquarium is actually built around a restaurant where you can dine with an underwater view of the aquarium all around you. 

There's also an outdoor fair with carnival rides and games.

We didn't eat there, but we did go through the walking tour of aquarium, the shark exhibit, and checked out the fair.

I would say this is a "must see" attraction if you're ever in the Houston area (with our without kids!).

The shark exhibit was way cool. The only down side was that we had to pay an extra 6 dollars and wait in line for an hour to get on a train for a 15 minute ride through the shark tank.

A cool thing about this aquarium was that they had a TON of strange freshwater life.

I have never seen catfish so big in my entire life!

I saw a lot of the fish that Nick and I watch on the show River Monsters!

 We had a blast checking these places out, and definitely making a trip back when we go to Houston again!

I wish we were there a bit longer though!