15 year trip!!

 We had a fabulous trip for our 15th year anniversary. Caleb found a place to stay on Lake Buchanan and it was lovely. After dropping the kids off in Salado and enjoying a fish fry with Bill and family, we stopped by HEB in Burnet to stock up and then arrived at Lakeside Lodge where we enjoyed spending the evening on the pier. The lake breezes were amazingly cool. 

Saturday, we woke up and had a super yummy breakfast. Then we headed out on our two man kayak into the windy chopping waves. We paddled up shore into a creek, we went under a bridge and found our own backdoor of a small waterfall where we waded around for a while. We didn't bring the camera but later got out on the bridge and took a picture of somebody else's kayak in the same spot.

After lunch and cleaning up we headed to a Hill Country winery where we sat around a bunch of barrels. The grapes were pretty and we tried 3 red and 3 white all from Texas and the 'estate.' It was fun but I think vineyard tours have been marked off my life list. I'd go with friends but won't need to seek them out :)

We grabbed some dinner (at HEB) and went to Inks Lake State Park. Neither Caleb or I had been there. We rode our bike for a few minutes, my knee was still too stiff to ride much.

We hiked a bit and then sat in the shade chilling until the Starry Night hike.

Here we are on a group interpretive hike around the lake from dusk to 10. It was fun to be out and learn about stars but the mosquitos were really bad!

Sunday morning we had our own breakfast out on the pier before heading to the Canyon of the Eagles. We did a little hiking, added to our bird count (35 different species total) and started getting hot.

We had a nice lunch in their Overlook restaurant. It is a nature preserve as well as resort.

This is a show picture showing our fabulous view as well as my healing knee!

Next we went back to Inks Lake for some swimming. We didn't take the camera but I got this off the web. It was so lovely. There were tons of people and dogs at the waterhole with kids jumping off cliffs. We climbed over the first smallest waterfall and it was like we were in our own world. Cool breeze, warm sun, running water. We floated in private pools and scampered around for a while and decided it was almost as cool as Wadi Shab in Oman.

We came back to our lodge for the evening. The wildflowers were just gorgeous. We had dinner in the room and watched a James Bond movie.

Monday morning we woke and had another yummy breakfast from our friendly hosts.

We took a quick kayak trip down the shore this time.

And after enjoying the great breeze we packed up and headed back to Austin. We had a wonderful getaway.

May

 May was supposed to be my favorite...tons of great activities and trip and my birthday and Mother's day and school events...but I was sick and run down for most of it, though that didn't stop most of the activities from happening which is probably why I got sick the second time! But as always we had fun neighbor times such as centaur rides.

We celebrated May the 4th (be with you) with Rey hair and lightsabers.  

OneFest was fabulous, Nana and Grandpa came and I worked the ticket booth the whole time.

We went to the cheesecake factory for my birthday and Lydia got fashion glasses which she has been wearing pretty much daily since!

Ironman! After years of training this was the big event. We went to The Woodlands to cheer Caleb on for the 13 hour swim, bike and run. We did lots of walking around, saw The Jungle Books, sweated, were glad Grammy came for the run, then got rained on for the last four hours. But he did it!

We hope to learn to snorkel this year...we went to the beach (see its own post)

The Saturday of Memorial day weekend we went to our local lake to kayak and sail, it was a beautiful day!

May - Beach

 Caleb had a work event on a Saturday in Rockport so we joined him. Our hotel was close enough for us to walk to the beach so that was super fun. This was the day of the jellyfish, these pictured are the non stinging sea cabbages. Unfortunately the next day we got into the stinging ones.

Catching more along the seawall.

The seagulls enjoyed our lunchtime.

Last year when we came we bought sandy and a little dolphin, this year we bought their moms at the aquarium...its a good cause and my kids seem to love stuffed animals!  Caleb got back with us and we cleaned up at the hotel and had dinner at a restaurant that we walked to, then we watched some Blue Planet and went to bed.

Sunday morning we had a short time at the beach as a family. We had slight sunburns, and the grass we had to go through between the car and beach was full of biting bugs-ahhhh and then near the end we got stung by jellyfish with tentacles. but in spite of all of that, we had a great time.  

We got tons of hermit crabs and little fish.

Back to the hotel to clean up, pack up and head home while listening to the last Narnia book!

April

Hey another beautiful month is in the books.
ADS had their adults fundraiser Slow Feast in the Field, Caleb was working (in all the events if he is not pictured you can assume he was working or training for his upcoming Ironman, it was a buys month for him) so I shipped the kids off to slumber parties and went with the Herdemans, we had a great time.

 Caleb had an event in Blanco so we joined him and went camping. It was great weather and pretty flowers and a nice break to unplug and enjoy each other and being outside.

Another spring of Killdeer babies. This year we only checked on the eggs for a week or so and then they hatched, but after for a few weeks we got to see the baby chicks run around. There were four eggs, then three fuzzy babies and after a large storm down to two. The whole family left after a while so we never got to see the babies fly but it was fun to see a different stage of life from last year. 

 Baseball month, we were pretty consistent about going on Tues afternoons, the day I keep Chris & Travis, sometimes the kids felt like playing other times not (but Nick and I always had fun).

 I continued to my substitute teaching career and got to be in Gloria's class the day they hiked to the river, muddy wet fun.

 We finally got their pictures taken and this is how they killed time, Lydia reading and Gloria finger knitting with yarn.

 Then we went to the Turkish cultural festival and enjoyed henna and Turkish food!

 My cousin Kyle got Teacher of the Year at his school and we all went to the celebration with dinner following.

 ADS had an Earth Day performance. Lydia got to be her class ambassador in doing the sun salutation to being the celebration. It was really an inspiring event and I love that the school is trying to go to zero waste!

 An ADS fundraiser at the skating rink, as this is their 4th time the girls are really getting the hang of it and enjoying it! I was very proud that both of them joined the race for their age! Neither won but they were in the arena daring greatly!

Caleb had a work event in Seguin complete with helicopter and cutting up fish.