When we checked in at the hotel we asked about a great place for seafood and, "Gaido's  - the Casey side - look for the giant crab," is what we were told. So we did and when we arrived we were greeted and seated right away - which surprised us considering we were visiting on a Friday of a holiday weekend.

We knew it was going to be an awesome place even before we walked in with their huge shrimp and crab on the roof - what a fun place!
Our waitress was so nice and brought us all kinds of things - even told us about her favorites and what other people liked the best too. She was really nice and brought us all kinds of things to try.

If you like seafood, you should really go there.

Extending our familiy vacation so that we could go to the beach was well worth all the extra time in the car. When we drove down to Seawall Street and all we could see was water, we all got so excited. All of us kids started cheering. Our baby brother had never seen the ocean and when our sister was at the ocean she was so little she doesn't even remember it. We could hardly wait to  get in the water.

Once we finally got everything together to go to the beach, we just had to walk across the street from our hotel and down some big steps on to the sand. The beach was clean and the sand was warm. There were some older boys who had thin boards that they were tossing into the shallow water, jumping on, and then riding as they slid across the water. Another man was fishing far out in the waves and not too long after we build our first sand castle of the day a whole group of college kids came with their music machine on wheels. They were a party looking for a place to land. It was kind of fun watching them dance and be silly.

There was so much to do playing in the water... a little airplane even flew by with an ad for everyone to read. Now that's not something we see everyday.

We rode the Metro from Preston Street, because we knew that it would thrill our son named Preston, and then we walked about a mile down to the zoo. It was hot and we were pretty tired by the time we got to the entrance, but right at the front (the entrance we came in were near the hospitial) were giraffes that were being hand fed lettuce.

Walked around to the big cats and got to see the lions upclose through glass. It was really cool to be able to be that close to the boy. The children's area was neat too, with a few playgrounds and a funny ground hog thing where you could stick your head out of the hole like a ground hog. There was so much there, even though it's a very small zoo - even Diego and Dora in 3D!

To make the visit even better we read Houston Zoo Blogs and looked at theDaily Activities Schedule oniline. The zoo even has an app for iPhone and Andriod with more tips and ideas about how to make the most of your visit. At the zoo timing is everything so knowing when and where things are taking place helps you to plan your day.

Recomended by a friend that lives in Houston, we stopped by Niko Niko's for drinks and dessert after a long day walking and riding the Metro over the downtown area. Here's what Clayton had to say about it:

More Information
Market Square
301 Milam (at Congress)
Houston,
Texas
713-224-GYRO (4976)

Monday - Friday 7am - 9pm
Saturday & Sunday 8am - 9pm

http://nikonikos.com/

A visit to the Houston aquarium was about way more than just looking at fish. We
had dinner, rode a train, did the Dare to Dive ride a ton, took the ferris wheel
up over the highway, and even saddled a fish on the carousel.

Entertainment
They have a few interactions each day and we got to see them feed some fish and feed
and "trade" the tigers. There weren't just a whole lot of times to hear someone
talk or to see something out of the ordinary. I think that those two were it. We
got to see a lady feed a bunch of fish and she told us about each kind in the
huge fish tank that went up onto the celing over our heads. Then the same lady
fed the white tigers. I don't know why the white tigers were at the aquarium,
but they were. When the "new" tiger came into the exhibit, it was walking up
close to the glass and my little brother made a gun out of his fingers and said,
"pew! pew!" Those tigers are endangered and he was acting like  he was shooting
them. It was so embarrassing, but all the people there to watch the tigers
laughed at him because they said it was so
cute.

Amusement park type rides outside were my
absolute favorite. The best one was the Dare to Dive ride where it made you feel
like you were falling. My mom really liked the train ride through the shark tank
that went up over our heads. It was cool to see all of the sharks swimming all
around us. The ferris wheel went up so high we could see on top of the highway
and the two little ones really liked riding the fish on the carousel.

Price
We bought the City Pass (which made the tickets mor than half price) and added an all you can play pass for each of us for only $5 - it was well worth it too! All of the things outside like the train, carousel, ferris wheel, and the Dare to Dive Ride would have cost extra!

Dinning
There is a very nice (sort of expensive) restaraunt in the aquarium. The waiter said that they dont serve any of the fish that are swimming in the giant aquarium in the middle of the dining room, which . The coolest thing was the big dessert that had a cookie in the shape of a fish on top of it - it looked great and tasted even better.

We can't wait to go back there to see the fish and ride the rides!

The Natural History Musuem had stuff in it from animals and fuel to minerals and fossils. It was neat to walk in and see the huge dinosaurs and we even got to look at some shells with a fossil guy. We learned how to look at them to tell what kind of shell it was and he even taught us about why they looked the way they did for each animal.

Our dad's favorite part was the huge "clock" thing on the floor that has a pointer that swings from the celing knocking down a block every minute until it knocks them all down everyday.

We watched a movie about fuel and how we get it and what each kind does to and for our enviroment. Then we rode in an evelator thing down to  where they were drilling for oil. It shook and rattled and then when they got the oil to flow it shot us back to the top. That was pretty cool. You could see the oil and rock layers through the windows.

We saw shiny gems like gold and stuff and we saw stuffed animals - not the kind you have on your bed - but like these used to be alive. Some were set up to look like they were chasing the other animals and that looked cool.

We chased down some McDonalds inside the Musuem for lunch too.

We even went down stairs and got to pretent to do the weather for the people that live in Houston. The monitor told us what to say about the weather and the map of the area on the monitor showed that bad weather was coming.

A great way to spend the day is to go explore all of the floors at the Children's Musuem of Houston.

We really enjoyed our time at the Children's Museum. Although because of the number or people we almost missed the kidopolis exhibit completely. According to several others that are from the area, there are always that many people at the museum.

In kindergarten we studied space, memorized the planets in order, and even made a paper astronaut. Being a the Johnson Space Center made it really cool. Looking at everything that goes on there was amazing -and to think that they don't even launch from there, but it's so big!
We took a tram ride though a lot of buildings, heard about the past and future of space travel - the tress planted for the astronauts that died was the saddest part - we even got to try some things that astronauts do in simulators. Trying to drive floating space car-thing, to land the space shuttle, and to wear a super heavy space helmet - were all really awesome. They said that we would spend at least 4 hours there, but we could have stayed for days and not seen everything. I really would love to go to a NASA TweetUp event or have lunch with an astronaut some day.
I wanted to be an astronaut after we learned about space in kindergarten and now that I've been to Johnson Space Center, I really want to go to space - or at least back to NASA in the meantime.
- Preston