Our last day in Texas and it was pouring with rain this morning. Darrell was working but the rest of us went to the Johnson Space Centre, just south of Houston. Olivia and Rachel took us both on their respective teams for their ongoing game of spot the beetlebug (new shape Beetle) Rachel and I got quite competitive and many new rules were invented.... The space station was really fun. There are a lot of children orientated things but we also watched so...

Darrell had a job in south Houston so he sropped us off in the museum district this morning. The Houston skyline is quite dramatic, there are only a handful of skyscrapers but they are all clustered together, looking like they've been bound up by the concrete flyovers that surround them. Everything else is pancake flat. We went to the Museum of Natural Science and stayed there for 3 or 4 hours. I was very impressed with it - loads of buttons to press an...

After packing a 101 things into the van we set off to Galveston to camp on the beach. Galveston is a peninsular island south west of Houston. The roads were pretty busy and when we got there to meet Serena and Darrell's friends, Colin and Fiona and their son Angus, we weren't camping on the beach but near the bay. So we threw a few things onto the campsite and headed for the beach. The beach itself was nothing to write home about, as everyone warned us, but...

Got up this morning and went straight outside to sit by the pool. The weather is lovely here, like we were warned it is humid but not oppressively so and the 20 degrees difference in temperature means it feels warm not boiling. It was about 98 today. Had guests over tonight, which was good fun. All friends of Serena and Darrell's as well as Darrell's dad and stepmom. His dad used to ride bulls in rodeo! Didn't think we'd actually meet someone in Texas who di...

It was soooo good to sleep in a bed last night! Serena took us to the mall this afternoon, we had planned to meet her, Darrell and the girls later at a place nearby and we hadn't 'done' the mall experience yet in America. People seem to be continuously buying things in this country. Maybe its because many cities (esp newer ones) or the areas around them are set out around retail parks - they are everywhere, and you can't walk around most places, you ha...