Daddio: Staycation- Day 4

Oh my god, oh MY god, OH MY GOD!  Staycation Day 4 was completely and totally perfect.  What a great day we had today.  Thanks so much to Mommio for setting up such a great vacation for us.

Today started with us getting the last of the packing done and putting it into the car.  We got on the road at 10:00.  Where, you ask?  We left for Houston, good sir.  Why, you ask?  Because my awesome wife realized that Houston's Museum District offers free admission to the different museums and attractions on the first Tuesdays and Thursdays of the month.  And this being the first Tuesday of January, admission to the Houston Zoo was absolutely free if you showed up after 2:00 pm.  Well guess what?  We pulled into our parking spot at 1:50 pm and, by the time everyone got out of the car, were in the front gates at 2:05.  Mommio is the best.

So the Houston Zoo isn't the biggest zoo we've ever been to, but we were surprised at how nice all the habitats were and how well it was set up.  For a mid-sized zoo, it was really, really nice.  As we came into the zoo, Connor thought he was too cool for this zoo-baby-crap:

However, once we got through the front gates, you can see that everyone was having a great time:

The first order of business was to check out the map and plan our attack to see all the animals.  As the following picture shows, I was in way over my head:

See Connor's wheelchair?  That's his walker on the back, plus we had the dual stroller and filled waterbottles for everyone plus dinner which we were going to eat after the zoo.  We knew we were going to get a workout from this trip:

Ava was our resident photographer for most of the trip, and she took a bunch of cool photos of the animals, including the elephants and their weird-snouted cousins, the tapir:

She also got some great shots of the lions which were really well done:

Even though we've seen longhorn cattle, they had these big-horned yak-like things (I forget their names) that had horns that made anime-vikings look like weenies.  Check these bad boys out:

Ava also got a good shot at this Malayan Tiger.  It's sleeping because I jumped into the habitat and wrestled it to the ground until it gave up and promised to spread the word amongst the other tigers that attacking Sigfried and Roy is TOTALLY not cool:

Ava tried the same tactic by wrestling a goat, but it wasn't intimidated and just tried to eat her:

Ava didn't discriminate in what types of animals she took pictures of. If she saw a cool dog- then by God, she took a picture of a cool dog:

Max and Jack really like the meercat exhibit.  Those little buggers just stood there looking vapidly at nothing for the longest time.  The meercats acted weird too.

The kids like the prairie dog exhibit that let you pop up through a burrow like a prairie dog.

Ava wanted to really get Max up in the bubble for a shot, and lifted him up, smashing his head on the top of the bubble.  We laughed really hard at his pain:

The reptile house was one of the coolest things.  They had a komodo dragon that was freaking huge, and monitor lizards that were... well... freaking huge too.  Here's Kiki and Red looking at the poisonous tree frogs:

The kids also really liked the giraffe exhibit, but they were in a smaller area because their new habitat was under construction:

The cool thing about the Houston zoo is that it's in the heart of the museum district, so you look up and see giant skyscrapers towering over you while you're an arm's length away from an ocelot:

Another cool thing about the museum district is that the park is beautiful.  So we walked to a picnic table and ate our dinner of sausage, cheese and crackers while looking out at the lake, giant fountain and city.  It was beautiful and the weather couldn't have agreed with us more.  It was overcast and 65 degrees.  It looked like it was going to rain, but it didn't until we were in our car halfway to the hotel.  It was perfect zoo-going weather.  Here we are eating dinner:

And so we were done and we headed back to our La Quinta hotel for the next two nights.  It was really the greatest day so far of our Staycation and it's all because of our awesome Mommio.  So until tomorrow's update, here's the four youngest wishing you goodnight: