Today was Whitney's second day of school and James' third day of vacation.  I took Whitney to school and then headed to the studio to get a little work done.  Its been a few years since I was moving about when the rest of the world does too.  Most days I don't even get to the studio until 10.  I was able to get a bunch of stuff done and made it back home in time to chill with little man.

Mommy was busy so we watch Yo Gabba Gabba.  This is the absolute strangest show but James just loves it.  I think the only thing cool about the show is that I saw The Diabolical Biz Markie for a cameo.

Now if you don't know Biz Markie he is an old school rapper form the 80's.  He had a smash hit back in 89 called "Just a Friend." 

I personally think he was at his all time best when he tore up one of Elton Johns classics "Bennie and the Jets"

Back to the day with James.

We gathered everything up and headed over to the Houston Children's Museum. This is a really cool spot to hang out for a day.  They are renovating the museum so some of the fun outdoor stuff was not available.  They are actually building a second facility and upgrading their water park outside. 

When you first enter the museum they give you this little sticker after you have paid.  Not real sure why they do this but everyone seems to obey and wear the sticker.  I have often wondered what they would do if I was to remove the sticker.  The best part is what you do with the sticker when you leave. 

Because of the construction being done they gave all the kids little yellow hard hats.  James went right to work having a good time.  They have a big train that seems to immediately slow the kids down.  You don't get 5 feet in the museum before everything stops. 

After the train we headed over to the grocery store.  James had a big time here.  My buddy Farrah was testing out high ISO settings the other day so I decided to do the same thing.  I shot some of the images at 1250 ISO and others between 1600 and 2500.  They were all pretty grainy but it was fine for this purpose. 

We moved on to the invention Lego station.  They had the really cool blocks that you could build all sorts of things.  James thought they were rather tasty too.  And people wonder why their children get sick. 

Mommy enjoyed the building games too. 

After we were done playing with the block things, we went to a new exhibit where we built our own rockets and shoot them in the sky.  James never wanted to leave this area.  He even requested a second visit before we left.  You place them on a launch pad and stomp on a air trigger to make them fly.

This was a really dark area of the museum so I had to bump the ISO way up.  The images were super noisy but you still got the full effect.  (Tech note: White balance is not easy to control at such a high ISO.  I don't think even using a grey card would help.)

After we finished with the rockets we went to the Lego car derby exhibit.  The object here was to build your own Lego car and then race it against other kids on a track.  James was hitting 5:1 odds on anything in the middle track.  He was able to pull in a little extra to buy his mother a sandwich. (I am just kidding....  he bought me a sandwich too). 

So after we stomped all the other kids in the museum we headed over to the cafe for a snack.  James had his favorites Cheetos and Kool Aid.

Next we were up for a little face painting. James was timid at first but then realized this was a lot of fun. 

He was not very good or creative so I managed to clean his face and do the paint job right.

He thought he was super cool and Denise said he looked regal. So we found a kings crown and took his portrait ot the throne.

He can be a pretty sweet kids when he is getting all the attention.   

Next up was the telephone world.  We played with the TV phones but apparently the only thing James could hear was fuzz and all I heard was "What?"

We were busy making our way out of the museum but we had to check out the gift shop.  Luckily we didn't buy anything but they had the super cool Kalidascopes.  This one was like a giant fish eye lens that made the area around you get all distorted.

If you look close you will see that this is actually Denise in her pink shirt .

Here is another one that I took.  Shortly after that the lady at the counter was watching me closely.  I just knew she was looking to see if I had my sticker!

So we headed home but had to dispose of our stickers first.  On the way there are stop signs and light poles covered in these little stickers.  I guess it is a neat way to decorate the city around the Children's Museum. 

We got in the car and headed out to Roberts to pick up Whitney.  She had a great day and came home with a green ticket.  After she gets ten she gets to visit the treasure chest.