Houston, Part 3

It just occurred to me last week that I never finished chronicling our trip to Houston. So here we go!

Following our trip to the zoo, we spent the next day at Houston's Natural History Museum. I wasn't expecting much more than just another history museum, but I was amazed at just how incredible the dinosaur section was. It was easily the best display of dinosaurs I've ever seen. I eventually read that one of the curators of the museum was Robert Bakker, who was the inspiration for the main character in Jurassic Park, so I guess it makes sense it's going to be a good exhibit.

I won't bore you with too many "museum pictures" since they probably aren't that thrilling to look at.

I saw this notice on one of the entrances to the museum. Is it just me, or is it kind of sad that people need to be told not to bring a gun into a museum?

Given my arachnophobia, I gave this display a big thumbs down. That's a big NO!

This charismatic guy welcomed us to the dinosaur exhibit.

I can't recall if this was a stegoasaurus or one of its cousins, but I had to take a picture since it's my favorite dinosaur. I even recall being a (young) kid, wanting to be a stegosaurus when I grew up.

This must be a distant relative of mine.

This was just a fraction of the dinosaur room, to give you an idea of how big the exhibition area was.

I can't recall where this was taken at the museum, but it's the only picture I have of Lucas there.

And the only picture I have of Marilu, reveling in chemistry.

After the museum, we headed over to a nearby craft brewery, the oldest one in Houston.

Lucas enjoyed what I believe is a reuben sandwich.

Jon and I enjoyed a couple of beers before embarking on the brewery tour. You can see the brewery in the background.

Jon and Marilu check out the equipment inside the brewery.

Earlier in the day, I took a picture of a sign for a closed-down restaurant that we kept passing on the highway. Given Lucas's longer hair and his penchant for wearing a Bass Pro Shop hat, this was his nickname for much of the trip.

And that wraps up that day. There aren't too many more pictures so I will try and get the rest of them uploaded in the next post, which should be up this week.

Finals Results

The finals for Lucas's hockey were at 11 this morning, and I had to pick Marilu up at the airport at 9:30 since she was coming back from a math conference in San Diego. We had him sleep over at a teammate's house last night, and they brought him just in case we were running late. As it turned out, we had plenty of time since the flight was almost a half hour early.

Despite the fact that Lucas has been feeling fine since mid-week, we followed the doctor's orders and held him out of the game. That said, he was still part of the team, going into the locker room and he even joined them on the bench. I took this picture of him during the pre-game warmups. He's a little hard to see, but that's him on the right, next to the blue thing.

Unfortunately, the magic of last year's finals win was not replicated in 2019. The Skull Troopers put up a good fight but ended up losing 4-2. It was a bit frustrating since 3 of the goals were scored by one of Lucas's teammates from last year, a kid who at the very least should have been sorted into House A, if not competitive. No one else on that team was much of a threat and without him it would have been a wildly different game. But it's all over and time to move on. Besides, Lucas did get a silver medal to pair with his gold medal from last year, and it's all about the hardware, right? :)

As far as sports go, next week is the year-end tournament for basketball and then after that, lacrosse should be starting very soon. So no rest for the wicked.

Finals Bound

Last night was the semifinals for the Skull Troopers, and once again, they kept on winning. During the regular season, their record against last night's opponent was 0-0-3. That's right, 3 ties. Last night kept their streak going as it was 0-0 at the end of regulation. This being the playoffs, however, someone had to win and so it was the Skull Troopers as they scored at 3:25 of overtime.

Lucas was in the locker room before the game, helping pump up his teammates and then he watched the game intently with me from the stands. After the win, he ran over to congratulate his team as they came off the ice and went into the locker room again to celebrate.

He's been feeling fine for the past couple of days so I'm flirting with the idea of seeing the doctor on Saturday morning to try and get him signed off to play, but it's probably not going to happen. Whatever the case, we will once again be at the game rooting the team on and hoping for the best. The game will be at 11 AM on Sunday so stay tuned as I will announce the results as soon as possible after the game.

Semfinals bound

So the good news is that even with a 1-0 loss in their last round robin game, the Skull Troopers made it to the semifinals. The bad news is that Lucas had a helmet-to-helmet hit on his first shift that hurt his head enough that he sat out the rest of the game. It's been bothering him off and on for the past couple of days so Marilu brought him to the doctor earlier tonight. While she didn't specifically say he had a concussion, he's to sit out tomorrow's game plus stay home from school. If he is pain-free on Thursday and Friday, he might be able to play in the finals, should they make it that far.

Whatever the case, he will be at the game tomorrow night, cheering his team on, and I'll keep you updated on scores and his health.