Ingram the Conqueror: Wednesday March 13th, The Downtown Aquarium!

We had all the intentions of getting up very early Wednesday morning and heading to the Texas Gulf Coast for a little fun on the Keemah Boardwalk, but our plans changed a few different times! First, we (me and the kids) all slept in again and then we had a few errands to run before we could make our way out of Houston. We made our first stop to the Donut store and Ingram and Madison were in Donut heaven! Of course, Lindsey only ate the icing so we had to pick up some other breakfast for her; she is not a fan of donuts and I'm with her. One of the other stops was G-Mommy’s church to drop off some things and then the kids got some drawing paper for the car ride. The next stop was Cavender’s Boot City to pick up my boots; we were soooo excited about the boots and couldn’t believe they got in so quickly! Finally with our errands done, we were ready to head out of Houston when our plans changed yet again. Traffic is normally bad but today it was horrible; so horrible that it wasn’t even moving on the highway out of towards the coast and we had to figure out a new plan for the day.

We were about to pass the Downtown Aquarium and decided that we’d stop and play around for the rest of the day there. With all of Houston’s schools on Spring Break too, it was quite packed but we were determined to make the best of it. It had a train, a Ferris Wheel, a few other rides, a white tiger, sharks, fish reptiles, and a huge underwater restaurant. What could be better than that?? We decided on the train ride first and waited for about an hour in the line, but the kids were having fun while we waited and the time seemed to pass quickly. The train ride itself was great and Ingram was so excited about riding a train through the water and in the big tunnel with all the sharks.

Next up we headed to lunch and spent a couple hours inside the restaurant eating lunch with the fish. The kids were able to walk around the aquarium while we waited and couldn’t believe how big some of the fish were. There was a 400 pound Grouper that wasn’t even full grown; they were expecting it to keep growing until it was between 750 and 1000 pounds! The best part of our meal was dessert and Lindsey the Artisan came out in full force! She and Ingram ordered the “Paint Sharkey” and Madison ordered the Chocolate Chip Cookie filled with ice cream. Sharkey was a rice crispy treat in the shape of a shark that came with liquid fondant in red, blue, and brown, mini M&M’s, and sprinkles; they worked on their Sharkey's for about half an hour but didn’t feel like eating their masterpieces. Madison’s cookie came with M & M’s too, but she didn’t decorate her cookie, but instead ate them one by one as she ate her cookie.

After lunch, we headed out to the rides and had to wait in the longest line ever to ride the Ferris Wheel. While we waited in line for over an hour, the girls did their little hand games and Ingram kept trying to mess them up and make them start over again. They were definitely keeping the folks around us entertained! Once we got to the front of the line, four of us were super excited about the ride but one of us wasn’t quite sure about getting on the ride. G-Mommy has done all sorts of things and has ridden Ferris Wheels many times in her life, but for some reason the idea of riding high above the group was not on her list of “I really want to do this today!” Since she waited in line so long, she went ahead and got on with us and was happy until we started moving up. Madison was being a stinker and trying to trick G-Mommy by telling her we were going up when we were going down. Needless to say, G-Mommy only believed me with the direction we were going and was very very happy once we were let out of the basket and on the ground!

After more rides, we headed home and met G-Daddy at the house with dinner. Since we didn't need to get up early the next morning, the kids were all crazy and acting like goofballs all over the place. Of course G-Mommy and G-Daddy were loving it and hated it when they realized the kids were already upstairs in their beds for the night. We felt bad for Daddy though because when we were settling down and going to bed, he was on the West Coast heading down for dinner while he was at a business trip. The reason we felt bad for him was that he woke up in our time zone and since he flew West, he added 2 hours to his day and would be a little more tired than normal. He loved getting pictures and messages of all the fun things we were doing and I think that made him a little more sad too. But only two more days and we'd see him again!