Around Texas in 6 days

This summer both my brother and my sister moved to Texas.  It's funny, because for 6 years it's only been Chris's side of the family here, but now, even though we all grew up in Kansas, 3/4 of the Porter children live in Texas.

I thought it would be fun to go and visit everyone before school starts and baby #4 shows up and things get really crazy.  So, despite a few days delay due to the broken arm, last week we set out on a tour of Texas. 

Our first stop was Houston to visit my brother Garrett and his wife, Heidi.  We visited NASA while we were there and took a fun tram tour of Johnson Space Center.  

Colton was beyond thrilled about everything he saw.  Including this random cloud picture.  

We saw some rockets.  

And the massive Saturn V rocket that was used in some of the Apollo missions.  

We all touched a real moon rock.  

And Jaxon built a space station.  I think Colton liked NASA the most, though.  He has now decided that when he grows up he wants to be a "space guy." 

The second day we were in Houston we visited the beach.  Madison made and decorated some fun "sand cakes" with a cute mold I found at Target!

Jaxon got buried.  

Uncle Garrett took the kids swimming in the ocean.  

And Colton pretty much just hung out with me because he can't get sand or water in his cast and even though I wrapped it, we had to be careful.  We did spend a little time in the water riding the "bumpies" as he calls the waves.  

Then we went to the nearby Kema boardwalk where the kids rode a couple of rides.  Colton loved the airplane, of course, and said "Look, I can drive with one hand." 

And we all rode the ferris wheel.  Which was awesome because we could see all the sailboats in the ocean!

The third day of our trip we drove to San Angelo from Houston.  We stopped through Austin on the way to San Angelo to see the state capitol.   We did a little bit of a lesson on how laws are created.  Madison was confused why we would need new laws since we already have so many.

The Texas state capitol is the biggest in the U.S.  It was really quite an impressive building.  

Then we made it to San Angelo, which is in the middle of west Texas.  The kids all did a great job camping out on the floor and sharing a room, although Colton and his heavy cast are a little dangerous at night :)

In San Angelo we visited the lake and went swimming.  The kids loved jumping off the dock!  

And of course we spent some time loving on baby Milo.  Madison is going to be the BEST helper with the baby.  She is super helpful and so excited to be with the baby.  

After San Angelo we returned back to Dallas.  In 6 days we drove over 1,000 miles.  We visited 3 Texas cities and 4 different Texas climate zones: the beach in Houston, the wooded areas of Austin, the dessert of San Angelo, and the prairie of Dallas.  The take away lesson from this adventure is that Texas is HUGE.