Winter 16 & 17

We had a lovely winter in Texas, our family joined some friends for the Mozart's Christmas light show. 

We got together with my side of the family and held the annual living nativity.

With Caleb's family we all went roller skating!

Gloria's dream came true and we got family chickens. They started as sweet puff balls and 

the entire neighborhood came to enjoy the sweet babies.  

Mineral Wells State park-Caleb had a job interview and we enjoyed the park, there are awesome rock cracks beside the beautiful lake.

School kept on going, Lydia did a horse exhibit for science fair, they hiked and I subbed on Fridays. Here they are with a friend in the chicken coop. 

We also got tennis rackets for Christmas and went to the middle school to hit some balls around.

The chickens kept growing and moved from their little tub in the garage to their fancy coop that Caleb built in the back yard. 

Laura from France's parents came to visit, we had them over for a Texas fish fry as well as meeting them for the annual take Dad to see Baylor play at UT basketball game. It was a nail biter but the Lady Bears won.

Caleb's last event with TPWD was a community fishing event. The girls wanted to wade and fortunately we had too small clothes for them in the car to get wet :)

Stacey K had a birthday party/Academy Award watch party out. It was formal or pj, I did formal then changed into pjs and had a great time out on the town!

Houston - Museum and more

Gloria had 'go to the Houston Museum of Natural Science' on her summer to do list and we never got around to it. But we made it on Christmas break! We again saw everything included in our ticket. The foyer had a video on the wall of you with dinos going by. Then we walked past Train models all over Texas.

Next was the Dinosaur room and a friendly security guard told us how to tell real bones from replicas. There were a lot of real ones. The real ones have steel around them and replicas have steel bars going into them.

Pendulum in the lobby. We saw it from every level and saw a few of the stones get knocked over.

Cabinets of curiosities.  This temporary exhibit is a bunch of random stuff from storage put out without labels including a display you could step into.  It was fun to open the drawers and touch stuff.

The gem room, we spent a lot of time here. The girls were awesome, they went from each case and together examined the gems and minerals.  They stayed so long that we had to take a lunch break-McD in the lobby-before seeing them all.

The Egypt room included three mummies (there was a whole mummy exhibit but we didn't have time and it cost extra). Then we finished with Americans.

This day was so cold so we didn't spend much time outside. Caleb and I went to Houston on a date before we were married and have a selfie from this same spot.  Over the years we've added some crazy stuff.

Our hotel was in Pearland (half way between the museum and Moody Gardens). We got to see our friends from Pearland. Trent and Kelly invited us over for dinner. The kids had a fabulous time together and we enjoyed talking about books and politics and religion and kids and life. We ended with Indian tea, a fire and youtube party.

Our final morning we again enjoyed the hotel breakfast and the work out room that was right next to our room and we were the only ones who used it in the mornings. We went to see Rogue One: A Star Wars story. 

Then PHO for Gloria as she has a friend who this is her favorite food. Then a drive back to Austin. Having a mini-December vacation was great!

Moody Gardens - Ice Land Adventure

I have never been to Moody Gardens in Galveston so we added it to our mini-Dec vacation. I expected to see the pyramids but being December it was over run with Holiday fun. This day was really warm. We had to go inside to get cold!

To Ice Land - a Caribbean Christmas.

We were given parkas and explored the ice sculptures made by experts from China!

Ice chairs.

We all took a few turns down the ice slide.

We warmed up with a hot chocolate and then onto our next fun. 3D movie of Tiny Giants-a chipmunk and mouse in the wild.

Then to a paddle boat that slowly took us around the bay. The sun was beautiful and we ate our packed lunch.

Then into the being renovated Aquarium, though a lot was closed, it was still super neat with sharks and seals and lots of fish.

Rainforest pyramid.  This one was hot and humid and so much to see.

including butterfly area.

birds

and birds being fed.

The day before I was chatting with Gloria's super good friend's moms at their holiday party and we both mentioned we were going to Moody Gardens the next day!! So we got together in the Rainforest and our girls showed them again all the cool things including twin one day old Pygmy Slow Loris babies (tiny primates from Vietnam).

Our 4D movie was a short one of the Rudolph story with snow blown in our face. This began it being super crowded and we had to wait in line.

Discovery pyramid including a Sponge Bob interactive 4D movie and art dinos in motion.

We then had a nice buffet in the garden restaurant and headed out to the line of people walking through the Trail of Lights or Festival of lights or whatever they call it.

It was nice and we were so glad the weather was good.

On the drive home, I can't remember the last time they both fell asleep in the car!!

Lost Maples Backpacking Trip

Our first family backpacking camping trip to enjoy the fall leaves of Lost Maples State park. The girls get a week off of school for Thanksgiving so we got them an hour early on Friday and made the drive out. It turned cold this weekend but as we had reservations since March (when none were left in the regular campground) we kept them and hurried to get to our site before sun down. 

Aptly named Monkey rock.

It has been a warm fall and then there was a big storm so it was the least colorful Thanksgiving in a long time but the fall foliage report said you could still see some and that the fall leaves swirling at your feet were beautiful. 

We camped Friday night and then Saturday morning hiked back to our car to check in and have lunch at a table. 

Then we did half the loop including by the lake.

And up a super rough steep hill to the overlook (they mean it when they say rough, I should have had thicker soled shoes)

By our campsite was a nice field and the blondies looked like lions playing in it.

Mornings were cold but we layered up and drank hot drinks. 

Next morning we hiked back to our car and then did the other loop. Over the weekend we totaled 18 miles!

A spring.

Trail map.

Our dinner rock, both nights we took our meal to this great area over the creek. 

Last breakfast before breaking down the camp and hiking back out through the lovely fall leaves to our car and home. Our camp had a compost bathroom and was only a little over a mile in; twice Caleb made two trips and once I went out to get more water, so it was a great intro to primitive camping and backpacking.