Jesus, My Father, the CIA and me...

I really need to blog our trip to Mexico, but next best thing, I read this book while in Mexico :)
Jesus, My Father, The CIA, and Me: A Memoir. . . of Sorts
by Ian Cron
This book made me laugh and made me cry.  I love memoirs, even memoirs of sorts.  I love someone telling their story with the ups and downs and heartaches and joys and in these types with redemption weaved it.  Unlike (most) Christian fiction, you can't map the plot after reading a chapter.  And even with the redemption, it doesn't always wrap up nicely.  So in the same vein as Anne Lamott and Donald Miller, Ian Cron adds his story of finding faith and the struggles and triumphs before and after.
He tells about his childhood with an alcoholic father (many of the tears) and growing up and leaving his faith and coming back to it.
One of my favorite parts was when he was talking about his divided life in college of drinking too much too often and going to the Christian fellowship as well and he described the interactions he had with those Christians: "A few of them were overzealous.  Some were gloomy, and others were way to nice...but not one was insincere.  They were fine souls who sensed the anguish of my dividedness and wanted to help."
Though this might be a spoiler, the book ends with Ian helping others in the same way and overcoming many of the issues of his past.  I highly recommend this book and I look forward to reading some of his others.  
I received this book for free by agreeing to review it on my blog from Thomas Nelson's Book Sneeze.

Art Days

 The Austin Symphony hosts Children's Art Days in the Park.  We took Kylie to see the Teddy Bear Picnic.  For kids who are easily sensitivity overloaded this place is a nightmare.  People walking around playing instruments, clowns, balloons, huge crowds, $.10 lemonade (there isn't even a cent sign anymore on computer!).  Its wild.  We got there early and got balloon animals.

 Then sat and enjoyed the storyteller, clown, woodwind quartet and Teddy Bear Music.  There was a contest about the bears the kids brought and Lydia got one of the cutest bears!

 Then across the street was a tent with crafts (we skipped it), face (and arm) painting, more lemonade and a creek they played along.

 A few weeks later we met some friends for the Singing Zoologist.  There is an 'instrument petting zoo' I used my clarinet skills to replace a reed!  And the girls LOVED the violins.  Gloria played it for about 10 minutes and kept saying it was her favorite.  More balloon animals and fun music.

 This time we wore water shoes and they got soaked!

 On a Thursday when its free we went to the Blanton, the art museum on UT.  It was crowded (I had gone on a weekday before with an international friend while the girls were in MDO and it was so calm and quiet) which is good for taking kids.  We quickly went through the rooms with a scavenger hunt (great idea Carrie) of colors, shapes and pictures.

Besides the gift shop, this was their favorite because you could touch the pennies.  Gloria also enjoyed going around the statue room saying-he is wearing a leaf, he is not wearing a leaf!  As we left Lydia remarked-I am surprised they didn't have the Mona Lisa!  Though they did have a Picasso drawing.

Fun times in July

 Not many of my creative ideas are originals but they say imitation is the highest form of flattery.  Anyway, this is a PJ run, from the Inspired to Action blog.  We put the girls to bed, and in a couple of minutes threw open their doors and yelled-out of bed, PJ run, get in the car, let's go for a treat!!!  Lydia said for a minute she was scared there was a fire (to be honest the blogger said you know your kids temperaments so you might not be too boisterous the first time, but I thought this is fun, it will be good for them to have a shock-does this make me a bad mom....?)  Anyway again, this is summer in Texas so they go to bed while its still light, but we went to Sonic and got shakes and they had a great time.  We even cruised a little (which as good environmental hipsters we don't do) to go by a field that was growing real wheat.  I told the girls PJ runs are magical so they can't ask for them, they come when they least expect them!

 Austin Public Library is amazing!  They have special events for children at all their branches all through June & July.  We saw Birds of Prey and a harris hawk (above), the Singing Zoologist (below with friends-we didn't really stalk him this summer as we only saw him twice), a young Mozart puppet show, an amazingly funny Tap Dancer (I really can't remember that last time I laughed that hard, it was so therapeutic) and a Latin folk Songstress.  And we also went to same regular story times too.    

Gloria said this is her new look because she is tired of people saying-I love your blonde hair, I love your blue eyes!  We had a nice talk about God making us special and for a reason :)

USA festivities!

 For the first time in a long time we did not have a Boyd picnic for the 4th of July.  But fortunately, Grandpa/Father Jon was able to come to our Friendship 3rd of July party and lead the children in the march of the flags!

 On the actual 4th we went to Longhorn Caverns and enjoyed the cool weather underground.

 The girls did great in the cave, which is a fast water cave instead of a drip cave, so not many stalatites or mites, but lots of cool history of prohibition bars and kidnapped pioneer girls... the geologist who did our tour was a cool old guy.

Then we had a picnic and played around on the CCC tower and old headquarters.  Of course the gift shop was a hit too!  Caleb left town that evening for an event the next day.  I did a very unAmerican thing and put the girls to bed early before dark and fireworks (there is always next year) and watched a British movie!  Love the US of A!

Surfside!

 What seems like many moons ago, but was really just June 23, we took the girls to the Texas Coast.  Every year of Lydia's life we have return to Port A, but this year we did something crazy and went to a new place!  Caleb has LaQuinta points so we searched for the closest one to water and got Lake Jackson & Surfside!  The Sea Center (a Texas Parks & Wildlife place) is there and we began our trip visiting their wetland, touch tank (above) and pretty cool aquarium.

 In a funny turn of events, after we booked our hotel, Caleb's cousins asked him if he wanted go fishing with them in Surfside this same week.  The group of them had a condo on the beach for the whole week.  We enjoyed playing with cousins!  The older sisters were into creating sand art, the younger sisters enjoyed playing with the critters they caught.  They let us borrow their river rafts (floaty with mesh bottom) and I took the girls out one at a time into the waves.  This also showed their personalities, Lydia wanted near the shore but Gloria was thrilled to go out deep (me too it was better on my back than bending over in the shallows) and held her breath when the breaking waves crashed us.  It was fun!

 

 Sweet sissies (most of the time)

 And in Lydia we now have someone to take our picture too!

 As always Caleb brought nets and caught fish, not any big ones or shells here but they still enjoyed making a home for the minnows.

 Most meals we had gourmet treats of pb&j, chips and fruit but we did go out to eat once sitting over the beach at the Pirate's Alley Cafe.   LaQuinta's have great breakfasts!

 We walked to the very end of the jetty!

Another tradition, feeding the sea gulls!
This evening we stayed for dinner at Rex & Beth's.  They did fajitas, on the late drive home, our car went off the edge of the bumpy beach road and we busted two tires.  Didn't get the kids in bed until 11.  Gloria slept the next morning until 10:45 while Caleb got new tires.  The fishing trip got canceled due to rough seas....

but we had one more nice afternoon on the beach with the mermaids before heading home.
One of the funniest moments of the trip was the girls remarking how this hotel was the best ever!  We have stayed in some pretty nice hotels, and even the Omni in Corpus.  This LaQuinta was fine but it was motel style with peeling paint and worn carpets, but I like the girls attitude-whatever we are doing now is the best ever!  Also each time we came back from the beach they swam in the little hotel pool, they liked going underwater better than splashing in the waves.  When asking what was their favorite part-the pool!

Family

 The week after Memorial day, Granddaddy (aka James Stephens, my mom's dad) had a stroke.  We had seen him that weekend, when we had dinner in Salado coming home from our camping trip.  So in the next few weeks, I got to see ALL of my family on both sides.  Kathy came right away and stayed for the whole time, we saw her here in the hospital (she also came to visit us in Austin and came to Friendship).

Then when Granddaddy and family made the decision for him to come home, Angela came with her parents to visit.  This is the last picture I have of Granddaddy, surrounded by many who love him.  This was Sunday morning so we had a little service around his bedside, singing hymns.  

 Since we are close, we got to come up when various family members from other states came to visit.  Kimberly and her husband James (who I didn't get a photo of) brought Noor and baby Roman.  The girls had a blast playing-rearranging the furniture, painting, playing in puddles.  There was a lot of life in the home that evening!

 Granddaddy passed away on June 14, and since some family was out of state/country, the funeral was held June 28 and lots of family came.  There was a lunch in the church gym after the very nice funeral.

 My cousins and spouses.  We got to meet Cathy Stephens for the first time.

 Tracie (no picture) came to the visitation and my Dad's other family came to the funeral.

Family that loves the Lord and each other is such a blessing!

June Fun

 I am really behind on the blog so here is an assortment of fun from June.
On a Sunday Lydia put out all all the 'comfy' stuff because it is a day of rest.

 The kids built an amazing city called Workin'ville with the train set and Playmobile and other random toys.

 Lydia's Sunday school teachers, the Liebs, had a party with a pool, bunny....

 big puppy, lots of food and a cool old house in Taylor to tour.

 Y-E-S for VBS!  It was an awesome week.  And so much fun that Lydia got to be a real part of it and not just in childcare (like Gloria).  We brought two neighbors (and looking at these make me sad because during the summer we haven't seen that much of them) and had a picnic each day after by the beautiful lake seeing fish and turtles and ducks.

 On the last day we got a cd of the week's music and the kids jammed the whole way home, while vacuuming out the car and then for a block party!

We had 12 kids in the front yard enjoying the music, doing volcanoes which of course lead to needing to get the hose out.  I was so exhausted but okay because I hadn't sat down yet :).  Really a wonderful week and I am thinking about renting a 15 passenger van for next year!