Moody Gardens

 

Moody Gardens

September 2, 2011

 

A lady from church  was so kind to give us the free tickets to Moody Gardens that she had gotten from a radio station because she was unable to go. There was seven tickets so we decided to take along my sister and her kids who have never been. We drove the two hours it takes to get there and one of the coolest parts of the trip is getting to ride the ferry from Crystal Beach to Galveston Island.

 

While we were waiting to board the ferry (along with all the other cars) we started messing with the seagulls that were nearby. We tossed a crumb of a pop tart we had, out the window to a lone seagull that was wandering by. Unfortunately we forgot about the fact that seagulls hunt in packs so in a matter of seconds we had a flock of seagulls swarming our car. I am sure the man ahead of us who had just got out of his car for a quick smoke sure did not appreciate that very much…oops!

It was not a very long wait until we boarded and of course if you ride the ferry you just have to feed the seagulls off the back of the ferry! This time the swarming was expected! The kids liked holding the crackers and letting the seagulls snatch them from their hand although it was kind of spooky at first.

We enjoyed the ride on the ferry and then headed to Moody Gardens, first stop the Aquarium Pyramid!

The kids pet a Sea Star (aka Starfish.) The lady there said that they try to educate the public to call them Sea Stars because they are not a fish at all! (learning moment!)

The seals were a favorite for us. They would swim at us in the window then flip over and swim upside down away. Their flippers were funny looking!

 

Austin of course is always soaking up the information available! There were several different viewing windows for the seals some from above and some from below. Yep, I was enjoying watching them play as well!

There are several tanks along the walls of the hallways with different things in them. The sea anemone are really pretty.

Adam was excited about the sea turtle and Anna like the Seahorses!

 

 

Of course my silly little kids had to pretend to be “swimming with the fishes!”

 

 

One of the coolest places in the Aquarium is the tunnel. Sharks swim right over your head, it is an awesome thing to just sit there and be engulfed in the underwater world for a moment.

My niece saw the stingray and said, “Oh no, something bit it!” I laughed and said, “No those are it’s gills, where it breaths.” But after looking at it I can definitely see why she thought it had been but, it does look like a perfect  bite mark!

 

 

If there is something to climb, these two are in it!

 

It was neat to see how the shark lurks around in the deep dark waters, waiting on unsuspecting prey. They must keep him well fed because we never saw his eat anything.

I believe Austin could have stayed in the aquarium all day, kicked back watching this underwater world, but after two hours here it was time to move on to the next pyramid.

When you first walk in to the Rainforest Pyramid you walk through these neat little interactive things. You stand in the foot prints and you can hear bees buzzing, mosquitos swarming and all kind of sounds that you would hear in a real rainforest. Images are cast on the floor of different creatures of the rainforest along with the “canopy” over your head showing different kind of plant life.

Then you walk through the rain and lightening area when was pretty neat with the lighting.

We walked the upper level bridge way first. There were several kinds of birds flying around.

Anna was so excited there was a room of butterflies, “just for her.”

In another part there were some nocturnal creatures just hanging around. These guys were pretty large!

Our favorite part was the parrots that would talk to us. Anna swore, “Mom! It said my name!” They did say hello and goodbye very well and some other things that we think they said but it was really neat to be able to play with them vocally.

 

The little Saki Monkey were pretty cute too, they let us get right up to them, but the person working there was kind of annoying and would not let us get to personal with them, The guy would keep saying, “Really they just don’t care.” each time I would smooch to them and talk to them. It was like he didn’t like me doing that.

 

It was time to move on to the educational pyramid.

 

This go-around it was about bones.

The first little bit was educational and the kids investigated what all they had to offer.

 

Then it was time to get silly! Anna with a “broken arm.”

 

 

Mr. Operation was broken, so Anna commenced to trying to revive him and give him CPR. There was an overhead camera projected to the screen showing her best efforts to bring him back, but alas, no such luck, he was still broken.

 

Then of course there was “dress-up” time!

 

 

“Mom, that just ain’t right!”

 

 

Anna lays down beside the skeleton, “Move over dude, I want to watch TV too! Adam of course had to try that too!

We spent two hours in the Aquarium, one hour in the Rainforest and thirty minutes in the educational one, can you guess which on we liked best!

The kids wanted to go swimming in the ocean before we left so we went to Galveston State Park. We got our permit with our park pass and went to look for a place to go that we could drive our car to the beach. The park apparently does not allow that. I am glad with the yearly fee of buying a park pass we didn’t waste money on this park because we were greatly disappointed. After changing in their changing rooms, we all loaded back up in the car. We decided to just go back to High Island where my father-in-law has his beach house and swim there, at least we would be close to the beach and have a hose to rinse off with when we were done.

 

Across the ferry we go again! We were so excited when we spotted dolphins playing in the ocean!

 

On our way across this morning we spotted “Fort Travis Park” so we wanted to check it out on our way back. There wasn’t much to see, it looked like they had everything locked up where you couldn’t see in the buildings, so we gave a quick drive-by and headed on out. We were in a hurry to get the kids in the water before it got to late so we didn’t stay and investigate any history about the place.

 

Finally in the water! Anna is jumping waves! With Tropical Storm Lee out in the Gulf we were getting some nice waves!

 

Stewart and Adam were hoping to find some sand dollars washed up on shore with all the rough water.

 

After no luck finding sand dollars, Stewart decided to hit the water too!

 

Adam was no so crazy about the salt in the water.

 

Austin & ‘B’ were having a blast battling the waves as they crashed against them.

 

 

Anna catching a ride on her daddy, those waves just about did her in.

Everyone (except me) was thoroughly wet and exhausted from fighting the waves and it was time to head home. After rinsing all the sea shells out of swim suits and wrapping cold kiddos in towels we now had two hours to drive still to get home.
Needless to say, the next morning I had some kiddos complaining about being sore from the workout they got fighting those waves!

Thank you Ms. Sarah Fant for giving us the tickets, we had a blast!