Ashlyn's first Plane Ride and a trip to Houston

With all of Zac's travels, he has started to accrue some airline miles to be used for flight vouchers, and since his work pays for his airline travel, he gets to use the extra miles to take some of his favorite people on trips.  We have decided that now that some of the kids are getting older, that it might be fun to start getting them on planes and showing them the world.  Since Ashlyn is the co-oldest and the least of the two afraid of flying, she got to go first and we took a trip with Zac to...

Houston/ Galvaston Texas!

Ashlyn was excited/ nervous to get on a plane.  Unfortunately, on the way to Houston, Zac thought he had booked her a window seat, but it actually ended up being the only seat on the plane without a window!!  She tried so hard to look out other passenger's windows, but they kept closing the blinds.  So frustrating.  On the way home, she finally got her window seat!  We left Zac at the Houston Airport to leave for his trip to the Philippines while Ashlyn and I headed home.

The flight left on time and went smoothly and we started in on some movies.  About halfway through the flight Ashlyn started jerking and convulsing.  I looked over and it looked like she was having a seizure!!! Her eyes were dilated huge and she was unresponsive.  I started freaking out and trying to call a flight attendant, and couldn't get the button to work, so I started slapping Ashlyn and yelling her name.  Our seat mate got up and flagged down a flight attendant and by then she had come to, but was as white as a ghost!  They moved our seat mate to another seat so that Ashlyn could lay down and they brought her an oxygen mask with some oxygen.  You better believe that when I sent a picture of her in an oxygen mask to Zac that he was in panic mode!  But for the rest of the flight she got all of the snacks and drinks that she wanted.  And she made it though just fine.  What a scare!

We got a hotel on the beach in Galvaston and Zac treated us to dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, which was amazing.  It was completely decked out like a rainforest with robotic realistic looking animals.  There were beautiful aquariums everywhere and an occasional rain storm would roll through.  It was awesome and so was the food!

While Zac did meetings, Ashlyn and I spent our day on the beach.  I loved running out into the waves, but Ashlyn felt much safer on the beach.  She was sure that a big fish was going to get her... it might have had something to do with Zac showing us The Meg in the hotel the night before.  I tried to convince her that it was safe, but then a big fish jumped out of a wave right next to me.  After that I felt a little safer close to the beach too!

We laughed when we saw this diner right outside of our hotel room, because Ashlyn work's at Kittie's Kitchen back home.  She thought she could escape work for a week.

On our last day in Houston, we went to NASA!

We got to see and walk through this plane that carried the space shuttle across the nation!

And tour mission control.

This is the room that mission control actually sat in when Apollo 13 was in crisis.  So cool!  I watched Apollo 13 on the way home from our trip.

These rockets are SO huge!!

We also stopped by the Houston Temple to walk around the grounds and stepped into the foyer but did not have time to do a session or baptisms.

Houston is SO huge.  We drove through town and past the stadiums where the Houston Astros and the Houston Rockets play.  Both teams were in their stadiums the nights we were there.

Overall, it was an incredibly fun trip.  I have realized that trips are so much more enjoyable when you have more people to share them with.  It was so fun for Ashlyn to get out of small town Idaho and go see a big city with a different climate and we had so much fun together bonding and being good buddies.  I can't wait for the next trip with our kids!