Dino Pit & more

to celebrate our last day of dino week (only learning to read by sight and not being very good at phonics is a really drawback to being able to read dinosaurs books!) and Gloria's last day of being two, we went to the Austin Science & Nature Center. Inside the visitor center they growled like dinos in the cave.

digging up fossils
getting buried in the sand
getting mauled by a bear, really Gloria stood and petted this stuffed bear for a long time while Lydia looked at fossils, through a microscope, felt rocks, etc. We had a picnic on a bench and also saw their animals
the parking lot is by the Hike & Bike trail bridge so we walked over and enjoyed the cool breeze.

Gloria Friend Party

Jackson was born the day before Gloria also at the birthing center. He often travels for his birthday weekend so we had a weekday playgroup party at our house today. 8 moms and 16 kids! It was Toy Story/Tinkerbell themed. The early birds colored some.
Waiting for their cake.
Once all the guest arrived we packed into the kitchen (I love my big kitchen) sang Happy Birthday and ate cake, then had lunch.
All the kids got a sticker and we played pin the sparkling star on Tinkerbell (a big giftbag), some went outside to play but it is still too hot. A fun time was had by all and all had a sugar high as well. Toy Story or Tinkerbell fruit snacks were the favors
Some of the big kids, I never got a group photo of all the kids or one of me with Gloria, so not a good photo shoot but a great party!

Dinos!

Caleb looking up at us in the train area.
T-Rex
A Dino you can ride on!
Gloria was ready to get off quickly
playing with life size eggs. We also enjoyed the other exhibits and had fun with the crazy crowds (where were never captured in these photos but it was packed!)

Learning

Since Caleb has gone back to school, and we've gotten back into our regular routine the girls have been a little giddy, fighty, dare I say it bored? So I decided we need to start doing something a little more structured at home so they would stop hitting each other and to help the days pass in more productive ways. Some friends suggested some good preschool websites and we are off with a learning theme each week.

First Lydia picked space. We read books from the library, looked at a harvest moon, ate phases of the moon into cookies, watched a Tad Math Moon adventure (good) and the Jetson's Movie (I just picked random moon dvds from the library and one was horrible but the girls like the cuddly creatures at the end) of course we talked about pretend and real things about space, we did slow moon walking to the Chariots of Fire theme and played 10, 9, 8...blast off rocket ship space jumping (counting, blasting off and jumping from 'planet' pillows around the house). It was great first week.

Second was BUGS, again library books and Elmo, Diego and A Bugs Life (too old for them), we tried a few nature walks but saw the most bugs dead in the pool, we had an exterminator come and kill fire ants (expensive but perfectly timed), we made ant hills (see above), Lydia made a bug mobile.

Now we are doing dinosaurs and kicked it off with a (free-yay Austin Museum day) trip to the new exhibit at the Children's Museum (see next post)

Surprised by Oxford

Surprised by Oxford by Carolyn Weber

When I saw this book offered on Book Sneeze (where I get books for free from Thomas Nelson publishing by blogging about them), I thought it looked neat, an inspiring, engaging little book about a lady becoming a believer as an adult. Well I was right about the inspiring and engaging and really wrong about the little. Surprised by Oxford is a book worthy of an Oxford graduate and is a brick. She includes introductions by various authors and intersperses quotations throughout. The writing itself is a work of art. And the subject is wonderful. Caro grew up in a normal Canadian home and went off to Oxford for graduate school. The way that God weaved together people at perfect times and places was beautiful. She is very real with her thoughts and struggles to accept something not normal in academic circles. The conversations often flow like a CS Lewis essay. She addresses grace, joy, pride, love and how life becomes more real and more thoughtful in trusting Christ. Taking us down the halls and streets of Oxford was a delight, and there is even a little mystery wrapped up neatly in the end. I was hoping to speed through this one, but really enjoyed taking my time, seeing how my life has paralleled hers, stopping to contemplate the sacrifice, the hugeness, the joy in Christ and in relationship with other believers (as messy as that gets). At the end I wasn't disappointed that Surprised by Oxford was so long, I was sad she didn't just keep going.

10th Anniversary!!! 7-25-11

No we didn't get married on 7-25 but that's when we were able to celebrate our anniversary this year! The girls went to grandcamp and had a wonderful time as always and we had a nice getaway. It was hard for us to decide where but Living Social's coupons helped us out and we had a nice time in Burton Texas the Knittel Inn (we recommend it)

http://www.knittelhomestead.com/

After dropping the girls off the first stop was HARRY POTTER, 7.2 (I cried, it was so good).

Then we drove to Burton, the deadness of the countryside was pretty sad. We arrived and had their small house to ourselves! We played a board game, ate a pizza from the Inn, then explored the 200 people town by foot. Cotton gin, restored homes, a couple of churches, dried creek beds, closed restaurants=nice relaxing walk.

Day two, woke up, nice breakfast with our hosts, off to the big city of Brenham for a greenhouse, Bluebell Ice Cream tour with scope, lunch in a shop downtown (we were TOURISTS), bought a dinner at HEB, then out of town to...

a really big gun store, I like this photo because our car is so small among the trucks and Caleb was unsure about our bumper sticker (these people don't think like we do and they all have guns!!!) We then drove through the country back to the Inn, saw tons of HUGE homes with land. Had our dinner on the porch, relaxed the rest of the evening (and didn't brush anyone's teeth but our own).
Last day we woke up and drove to Round Top and the Music Festival Center. Crazy in the middle of nowhere is this artsy place for musicians, fun walk about their grounds and to the town for a famous pie cafe which was closed so we had WhatABurger, Caleb loves the PattyMelt on the drive back to get the girls to be in time for dinner at church on Wed night. Fabulous days away to play and talk and enjoy each other.

Thailand 7-17-11

Our Thailand day was a good example on the importance of flexibility in dealing with travel plans and other cultures. Jon & Pam decided to join us and knew there is a Buddhist temple not far from us in Del Valle and they have a Market Day on Sunday! In June we pick a date to go, well the night before I'm looking for directions and see the market days are off for the rest of the summer, quick late night call, no problem, let's go to this on in Dobie Mall, check the website all is good. Stacey has to pick Russ up from the airport so she joins us, in two cars we park in the garage, walk inside (remember is over a 100 outside with two hungry girls after church). Oops its closed for summer but they didn't bother putting that on their website. Call Jon & Pam (after paying for parking) and pick Madame Mam's, drive and park again. Have a nice meal and talk to the waitress who is touring the country by working at Thai restaurants. The 0 spice is too much for me, so while I try the girls and I mostly end up eating white rice again :) We enjoy the decorations and the above photo was all I got, not sure about G's face. Back home we look through some Thai books and watch a video about a day in the life of Vietnam (they are close and Thai wasn't available at the library!) My favorite part is that evening I was walking Flower and stop to talk to our Thai neighbor to tell him about eating at Madam Mam's. He politely sneers and says that place its Tex-Thai, not authentic, not spicy enough for real Thais!