The Adventures of Lilli: Vacation Day 1: Flying and NASA

For this trip we had a pretty decent flight time, I think it was 9:30 or so am. Thankfully we didn't have to get up too early, but for some reason the airport was PACKED. We left a little later than we planned to, and then the closest parking lot was full and we just missed the bus on Lot B and then when we got in the airport (finally) it was NUTS. Some of the area schools were out on fall break last week, so there were tons of families flying. And all the luggage we carry slows us DOWN.

Add onto that the stroller (Lilli was in it) and then two backpacks and another shoulder bag. That's Lilli's car seat in the bag and it is SO awkward to carry along with everything else (one large suitcase, two huge duffel bags and a Pack n Play). UGH. It's a workout getting it all into the airport and we tip people WELL. By the time we got checked in (since we have an under-2 you have to go through the slower line for her special boarding pass) we were down to about 45 minutes before our flight. Sounds ok, right, but stupid Southwest boards SO early. Our gate was right across from the great kid's playground and Lilli literally got to play for 5 minutes before we needed to all start taking turns going to the bathroom. I took her to change her diaper about 35 minutes before our plane was to leave and saw people boarding the plane when I came out! She and I literally RAN down the terminal to catch up with Brent and only missed our turn by about 12 people. CRAZY!!! Once they got us all on there they told us we had to wait for a plane that was late and had several passengers for our plane. That was SO frustrating. We were on there, crammed in, forever before they arrived. And literally every seat on this plane was full, so we already had a guy sitting with us. It will actually be pretty nice when Lilli has to have her own seat so we have a little more space to ourselves.

But she actually did great on the flight and the guy sitting with us complemented her on how well behaved she was as he took a nap the whole time! Her favorite thing right now is sticker books, so she spent the 2 hour flight putting stickers on the window (they all came off), eating pretzels and looking at magazines. We landed in Houston on a gorgeous day, the first trip we've had with her where it wasn't pouring when we landed.

We got our rental car and we weren't even out of the lot before she was asleep, poor thing! Literally, this picture is taken in the rental car lot. We ended up with a little Ford Escape which was so nice. It had room for all our luggage and we could fold down the other seat in the back and use it as a changing station when we needed to.

We stopped for lunch at WhataBurger. They are EVERYWHERE in Texas.

Then we headed over to the NASA Space Center in Houston. On our way in a guy was in the wrong lane and very nearly almost side swiped us. That was almost wreck #1 for the trip. We finally got in there and this is pretty much the whole thing. This was honestly the only disappointment in the whole trip. I wouldn't waste my money on this "museum" again, and we did think about asking for our money back. Basically instead of being a place where you can learn more about space it's a large indoor playground where people let their kids run absolutely wild. Most of the place is a big playground and also a large Lego Playground. They have a small museum tucked in the back that we literally had to ask how to get to. Awful.