(check out pictures and videos) Things have been incredibly busy the last couple of months. Usually summer is time to rest for us, but this year, there have been projects, speaking opportunities, staff conference, Lisa working, busy, busy busy. After thinking about it after school started, we realized that hadn’t taken any time to do stuff together and take a vacation as a WHOLE FAMILY. So the week before, we decided to pack up our family… and go to… HOUSTON! Jonathan and I have been watching a series on the Apollo program and we thought it would be fun to go on over to NASA.

So we got I got online and got a great deal on the Residence Inn and on Labor day, we hopped in our car and drove on down to Houston. On the way down, while driving by the prison facility in Huntsville, TX, we ran into a HUGE and I mean HUGE and important man in Texas history. We stopped into the HUGE statue of Sam Houston. Going there was a wonderful opportunity to talk about Texas history and the type of man that Sam Houston was. (He was an incredible general)

After leaving old Sam, we drove through the city which bears his name. Looking at Google maps on my iPhone, there seemed few routes that did not have Red, which denotes BAD traffic to get to our next destination, Galveston. We took a round about route… only to find that the places that were supposed to be stopped up were indeed clear… Thanks Google…

We were able to go to Galveston by early afternoon and our plan was to go to the beach. None of our kids ever swam in the ocean before. We passed the really crowded beaches around the Galveston Strand and drove a little further up the island to Galveston Island State Park. It was wonderful there. The water was not too rough and was very warm (thanks gulf), the sand was very fine and soft, the beach only gradually sloped into the sea. Honestly, it was a better “beginner” beach than anything that we grew up with in the LA area. The kids had a blast! They swam, they built sand castles, they ran, they dodged waves. One especially fun activity was digging up live sea shells and then watching them dig themselves back into the sand when the water came up. It was great… the wonder in their eyes… I was never a beach guy… sand gets everywhere. But this day was especially nice. After a filling meal at Olive Garden (the incredible sea food restaurants in Galveston were incredibly full this night…), we drove up near NASA to spend the night (and lots of showering off the sand) with everyone extremely tired but very happy to be together.

After visiting University Baptist Church, a partner church in our ISI Houston ministry, we went to NASA space center. All the images from Tom Hank’s video From the Earth to the Moon about the Apollo program came alive as we toured the Apollo mission control, etc. The kids really enjoyed all the videos, interactive displays, etc. The highlight of the day was the chance to touch an actual moon rock.

After a long day of exploring the outer reaches, we went below the sea as aquanauts as we had dinner at the Aquarium restaurant at the quaint (but super crowded that day) Kemah Boardwalk. We ate next to the sea but also next to several sharks, rays, morey eels and an especially large grouper in large blue tank as big as the restaurant. The kids had a lot of fun, often out of their seats looking at the wonders of the sea more than each other.

The next day, after a dose of late morning TV cartoon, we piled into the car and headed home. I remember on the last evening as the children slept, I was reflecting on how nice it was to be able to get away from computer, phone, and all the stresses of the typical week and just spend time together. It really was a huge blessing in so many ways. In some ways, it is during these vacations that we see the progress that our kids make: physically as well as as a person. It was fun seeing how much they have grown but also how much they (and we) need to grow.