Recent Texas Adventures

Since we've been here, we've done lots of fun stuff, despite the heat. It was really nice to have 2 weeks together with out little family. no school. no work. Just family vacation time in our new home. It's fun to be in a new spot, too. I feel like there are so many things to do and see. Truston's program is downtown at the Medical Center; a huge complex of hospitals, schools, research facilities, etc.Herman Park is next to the Medical Center, a big downtown park. While Truston was at orientation, the boys and I came downtown with him and took advantage of Herman Park.
One day we went to the zoo. The highlight for everybody was watching Baby Baylor get a bath. Baby Baylor was born earlier this summer, it was super cute to watch him and his mommy with the zookeepers. --sorry for the fuzzy picture. It was so humid and wet that was the best we got.
One day we played at the parks and rode the train around Herman Park. Do we look hot? I was totally ready to spend the morning outside playing, but after 1 hour at the parks, I gave up and determined we would just ride the train until Truston was done. too hot.
We spent a Saturday at Brazos Bend State Park. This place is AWESOME. I'm telling you all right now- to anybody who comes and visits, this is one place we will bring you. Brazos Bend is a huge plot of land that has been left for the alligators, a reserve. We have a favorite lake we like to walk around and look for alligators. It's also a very popular birding spot and we saw a ton of interesting birds, but alas, we don't know anything about birds. We walked around the lake and saw 10 alligators (which is a pretty small number, my family was disappointed in us) and then visited the nature center to see some baby alligators. oh yeah, no fences.
The volunteer working there let us all pet one of the baby alligators. Logan, obviously not attuned to fear, reached out and grabbed this little guys foot, almost ripping it off. haha, sorry baby alligator. This little guy is almost 1 year, same age as Logan.
Here are some pictures we took at Brazos Bend. This little guy was about 2 feet long, which means he is about 2 years old. Pretty cute.
Just in case you are ever enticed to enter alligator-infested waters, you would have to cross the webs of death, as we like to call them. In addition to alligators, we saw plenty of HUGE spiders. One of them was eating a moth before our eyes...gives me the shivers. I took this picture because in between two trees there were at least 10 webs with HUGE spiders sitting in the middle of them. If you have sharp eyes, maybe you will see a spider or two.
This guy was staring right at us, kind of creepy. The people walking around before us, said this guy started coming out of water towards their little rat dog. Scary. Seriously, who would bring a rat dog to an alligator preserve? You are just asking for it to be eaten.
We watched this guy swim up the side of the lake and turn around. Apparently, he crossed into another alligators territory because he and another alligator jumped out of the water at each other with their mouths wide open, ready to fight. It was like watching national geographic, I was waiting for the slow motion replay, it all happened so fast.
We've spent PLENTY of time at the pool. This is our favorite pool, the beach club. It has a sandy, shallow entry that turns into a pool. Logan and Talmage have a blast in the sand. There are lots of pools around here and every one has a separate kiddie splash pad. We've visited most of them and ranked our favorites. Nothing beats a good pool!