Judd Family Summer Vacation

**I just tried my hand at doing a slideshow, but they don't seem to be showing up and I'm too lazy to fix them right now. You may be able to click on the "view" button that's in the bottom right hand corner to get to them. Sorry.

We're back from our summer vacation. We went all out this year. Friday we hit the zoo and today we went to Galveston to visit the aquarium at Moody Gardens. We had planned on going to the beach and then to Kemah boardwalk in the evening, but by 2:30, someone in our party was ready to call it a day. Plus, it rained on and off during the day, so we came home early.

Becky and Leah joined us on Friday and we had a lot of fun at the zoo. Clara hadn't been to the zoo since she was 10 months old, so she had mixed feelings about all these animals. Chris witnessed her epiphany at the giraffe exhibit. She seemed a bit scared when we walked up to the giraffes. Chris walked over to the information plaque about the exhibit and pointed to the picture and told her "giraffe". He asked her, "Where's the giraffe?" and she pointed at the picture. Then it happened. She looked up at the 30 foot tall "thing", then back at the picture, then back up at the giraffe and pointed to the real thing and said "giraffe". He said it was awesome to watch her realization that giraffes aren't the tiny things in her books or the toy she carries around.

Chris, Clara and Leah fed the pigeons the food that's supposed to go to the koi fish, the girls and I climbed through a tunnel in the aquarium, we brushed goats (Clara thought they were doggies) and Clara refused to sit on the carousel that Mommy spent $2.00 on. Then we rode on the little train that goes all over Hermann Park. That was really fun. We saw ducklings and a bum.

We took a vacation from our vacation on Saturday and Sunday. Glenn and Becky felt the need to be nice to us and offered to take Clara for the night on Sunday. Chris and I hit Market Street and went to a pub for dinner. We were dissapointed that there were no movies that looked worth watching, but we had fun anyway. It's so nice to have a break from the little one. I will say that by this morning, I was missing her and ready to see her, though.

She did awesome at her little slumber party with Leah, (or so I'm told). I'm so glad that she's never had separation anxiety. I was trying to say goodbye to her last night before we left. I just didn't want her looking up after a few minutes and freaking out because we weren't there, but she was busy playing and wouldn't even give me the time of day. Oh well, it could be much worse.

Then today we went to Galveston. We spent some time at the aquarium first. Clara was not impressed with the seals. She was ok with the above water viewing, but seeing those huge things swimming through the water scared the crud out of her. One was huge and came right up against the glass. Clara was not happy about that. She eventually warmed up a little, but not much. They were feeding the peguins while we were there, so they were all stuffing their faces instead of swimming, which was too bad. I really like watching them swim. Clara did enjoy looking at the fish for awhile, but got bored pretty quickly.

We headed over to the Mosquito Cafe and had a nice lunch. It was a quaint little place that some old friends, Wes and Cindy, recommended to us. (We ran into them at Market Street on Sunday night and sat and talked for awhile.) We went to the Strand for my caramel apple and went into a few of the shops. It was past naptime at this point and was still raining some, so we decided to come on back home.

And there you have it, our thrilling vacation. It's not over though! Chris took tomorrow off as well and we have big plans for our final day. Mowing the lawn, a garage project, storytime..... and much more. Can't wait!