September

We got some great Texas swimming holes in the beginning of September, including McKinney Falls on Caleb's lunch break. 

Krausie Springs on Labor day, such a pretty place and our first time to go.

The first day of school finally came! Austin Discovery School was renovating old buildings all last year to be our new school buildings on the property behind the current school as KIPP was taking over that. It was scheduled to be finished in July, then plumbing problem, added to a super wet August and it wasn't schedule to be finished by the Aug 22 first day of school, we pushed it back to kick it old school starting the Tuesday after Labor day, but oops the buildings still weren't ready, but the kids and teachers were so they scheduled two weeks of field trips. Above is their first day of one of those. Then one more week off and then two weeks at another charter school's campus and we were finally in our new buildings!

Caleb and I continued our 3rd annual Take the first day of school off and go on a date day.

I went on a field trip with both girls, this day they both were at Inner Space Caverns, a place I had also been on a field trip too as a child. 

Caleb had a bike race in Corpus so we went as a family to enjoy the beach and cheer him on at the finish line.

In case, I am looking back at this online scrapbook, it would be horrible to forget what we were talking about constantly-Election 2016. It kept getting crazier, but here I am standing in Warren's place to represent smart strong women.

Nana and Grandpa came to celebrate Gloria's birthday.

A group of friends went to Hamilton pool on our last week off of school.

Friends at Gloria's bday slumber party!

The drive to NYOS school campus was long but there was a nice pond behind their school.

ADS ice cream fundraiser and our international UT friend Laura from France came with us.

August - Colorado trip!

Lydia, Gloria and I loaded up and drove west! We had a long day of wide open spaces and Harry Potter on audio before camping at Santa Rosa Lake State Park in New Mexico. Next day we headed into Santa Fe where we walked around the center of town and went to Meow Wolf art experience. 

Then we made it to Pagosa Spring Colorado for a fun few days with Kathy, enjoying her cabin in the mountains!

We loved the cool, the water, and waterfalls.

One of the best things we did was a two hour horse ride with Larry in the San Juan National Forest. 

Pagosa is a nice town and we ate at restaurants, got in the cold river and hot springs, went to a wildlife park.

The cabin was the perfect place for afternoon reading/rest times, meals and we loved the neighborhood with pond, lake, river, mountains, speed bumps and beautiful flower. 

After some fun days we drove back home and stopped at the Rio Grande River Bridge Gorge, camped again at Santa Rosa and make it back to a very wet Texas. (I normally do a long day by day account of trips, but when I got home I had a coupon for a photo book so all my creativity went into that, anyone is welcome to look at it with us)

August

 August was a full month of summer since school didn't start until Sept. We had some down time with books.

 Grammy came to visit and we spend a hot evening in Zilker-picnic, train, wading and Shrek the musical~

 Saw purple martins with Harper, Abby and Keandre.

 Our lifeguards this year were from Russia, Ukraine and Turkey and give a great international flair to our summer. Here Janine from Germany and Jasim from Afghanistan were visiting as well.  This is when the Olympics began and we were the world too.

 Caleb had a work event where he was part of a time that got an award and he nominated one who got a big award, it was a fun night out.

 Another ADS skate party, adult race time.

 Our Nepali neighbors invited us to a Teej Festival celebration.

More lifeguard fun, this time we took three to the Zilker Botanical gardens.

Barton Hill Farms Fall Fest

Just east of us is a farm that puts on a huge fall event. I have been wanting to go for years but we never had a free weekend, today was the day and it was beautiful. It started out foggy and after lunch turned out really warm.

 What the maze looks like from above, we went through all of the three different parts.

 Random flowers and gourds in the maze.

 Funny hamster wheels, you can see the Colorado river in the back.

 Pumpkins!

 Leading the way through part two of the maze.

 Super healthy fall fair food.  We had an amazing view of the river with cool shade and breeze and could hear live country music.  I said, Yankees you may have fall leaves but we have this. Lydia said-yep including the country music.

 A historical style fort, they really enjoyed climbing.

Gloria's favorite-pies and goats.

Beach ~ Corpus Christi

We had a nice family trip to Corpus and Port A in July.

We headed straight to the city beach in CC. And rejoiced to be on the seashore again.

Kinda deep in the water, Gloria started screaming, we had been stung by nettles before and they are mild, as we were helping her we thought she was being dramatic until one got me on the arm as well and WOW it hurt. She only got a spot on the leg and we got back to the beach in one piece. Might have been a tentacle of a Portuguese man of war.

After lunch and lots of playing we headed to our fancy hotel on the sea wall. We swam in the indoor/outdoor pool and then up to our room to clean up. 

View from our room!

Also in the garage there were bats near our truck.

We walked down the sea wall, past the Selena Memorial and to Joe's crab shack to meet Lari Jo and Taylor for dinner.

Selfie!

Next morning we stopped at the flagship Whataburger for breakfast. The girls said they didn't like the fancy hotel because there is no breakfast like LQs :)

We drove over the bridge to Mustang Island to spend the day...fishing...

playing and floating in the way...

catching crabs and little fish with the net and even finding a mermaid!

We then went into a very crowded Port A for shark pictures, and a drive past Lydia's birth home.
Then dinner at Virginia's with a view of the Lydia Ann Lighthouse.

We watched birds (no alligator this time) at the Birding Center, then back to the beach for a walk down the jetty and a few more splashes in the waves. 

Sunday Caleb had a workshop so he dropped us off at the Aquarium. We had a great long day of dolphin watching, seeing all the tanks 3 times, other shows, touching everything we were allowed, lunch, dipping dots, standing on the pier and seeing wild dolphins and explaining to a family from Kansas that the bay is part of the ocean so they aren't in captivity and what a jetty is. Caleb got us and we journey back to the interior of Texas, thankful for another great trip to the beach!