Hogwarts in our home!

Our family is enjoying entering the world of Harry Potter and Hogwarts. Lydia has read three, Gloria the first two and we've seen the first two movies. My mother who was Pinterest before it was a thing wanted to host a Harry Potter party and this the amazing result.

The whole house was amazing decorated with potions and pictures and more.

We invited a small group of friends who we know appreciate the world of Hogwarts enough to enjoy the activities. Including question games, making owls fly with their wands, magic drinks, Berties' Every Flavor Bean (yummy and yucky and I was afraid we were going to have some real vomit on our hands)

Potions class with Snape's female cousin.

Creative snacks-pretzel wands, pizza wands, pumpkin pasties, treacle tarts, chocolate frogs and a flying snitch!

They ended by playing Quidditch. It was such a lovely day with friends.

SpiritFest 2016

Just down the road at the Circuit of the Americas racetrack, our local Christian radio station hosted SpiritFest. We had never been (previously it has been in Round Rock) but this year TPWD has a booth with Faith Anglers so after church we headed to the festival, parked, walked and the girls really wanted to bungee jump!

The day was beautiful and there were lots of fun things to do including a petting zoo, which we went to 3 times!

Then we met a friend, Valerie and she had gotten fourth row seats for Hawk Nelson. It was so fun to be that close. We knew several of their songs from the radio-Diamonds, Drops in the Ocean, Words, and then they sang one I hadn't heard before (Lydia said she had but their live version was so fun and meaningful at the same time). It is my current favorite song. Listen here

The girls really got into clapping, dancing and singing along.

Mandatory festival food!!

Gloria stayed at Caleb's booth while Lydia and I saw Jordan Feliz at the main bigger stage, not quite as close this time. Lydia's first favorite song was his, the River, so it was cool to see him perform.

All of us then watched For King & Country, we know most of their songs from the radio and they are such amazing performers. A great band and two brothers running and singing with lights, coming through the crowds, climbing around, banging on drums and Australian accents. During one of the times they were talking about how we are priceless and should remember God made us that way, one handed a necklace (that you could buy at their booth) to someone in the crowd  and Lydia really liked that. They also talked about the importance of racial reconciliation and I liked that.

They also had us use our phones as flashlights as we sang Amazing Grace. The songs and words were all glorifying to Jesus. And I can't remember the last time I'd seen so many Christian T-shirts in one place.

Me and Valerie.  It was so great to finally make it out to COTA and enjoy a great festival and concerts. I told the girls they needed to remember these bands because when they will older they will be asked what their first concert was :)

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)