Hiking in Texas

So what if it's 100 degrees outside? It's a beautiful day for a hike! 

We explored 5 miles of trails winding through shady wooded hills, rushing river bottoms, and slippery slopes. We discovered a very fun suspension bridge (Which totally gave the girls the willies! It didn't help that the boys all bounced together on the bridge to make us sway in the air!), climbed a steep mountain, and crossed a little river. 

It was a long hike, but the scenery was beautiful and we enjoyed the adventure. It was such a bonding way to spend a Saturday morning. 

Nature and Science Center

My kids beg me to find excuses to drive into 'the Big City' just so we can visit this magical place.

What is it, you ask? In a nutshell, it's an educational complex nestled in the heart of the sprawling metro park in downtown. 

It has a mini nature museum (which is all hands-on for kids...the 'awesome' points just skyrocketed for that detail), a small zoo, nature paths to explore, a dinosaur dig for kids to excavate giant fossils, and educational activities. Did I mention it's all free?

If you time the trip just right (which we make a point of doing), you can catch the professional Naturalists who staff the center.

They host a super-nifty area called the Trade-In desk.

Kids bring treasures they've found in nature (sea shells, fossils, rocks, bones, bugs, etc) and learn more about it with the Naturalists. 

Here Sarah shares some of her recent findings from our pasture- some animal bones. She was able to learn what animal each bone came from and what type of bone it was. 

Can I just say, we LOVE the Naturalists here.

 They never just straight-out tell a child what the object is. They help the kids discover for themselves all the information they can. 

Instead of saying, "That's a raccoon/possum/deer/cat skull", they show the child a dozen different skulls and ask them to find out which one their sample matches the best. When they have a match, they learn what animal it belongs to. Then they discuss in detail what every little orifice is for, or why the teeth are shaped the way they are to accommodate dietary habits, or why the eyes sit on the head a certain way, or a million other details about zoology you ever wondered. 

Our kids love the exploration process here! Here Sarah and Matthew review their notes to figure out what animal they discovered.

The naturalists make exploring nature a grand adventure with their contagious enthusiasm, and even grown-ups enjoy listening to the details. 

Kids can trade in their treasures for points which they use to 'shop' the Naturalists' store. 

The store is a wall of shelves stocked with all the treasures other kids have brought in (see the background in the pic above? That's part of the store.)

Here Matthew and Daniel deliberate over potential prizes to cash in their points for. This is the hardest part of the visit as they agonize over their choices. Which is better: polished rocks or fossils? A huge cow skull or butterfly collection? Should they just save points for a bigger prize the next time we visit? 

Usually my kids have collected animal skulls, turtle shells, and various antlers or horns. 

For years Sarah also had her heart set on getting the most expensive prize- a preserved butterfly collection.

For years she had been saving up points for this goal.

Today was the day she finally earned it. 

We have one VERY happy girl.

Bucket list- Sea fishing and Dolphin watching

 I'm posting this as a story without words. 

I'm busy prepping for Sarah's birthday party and have no spare time to type. 

I'll give just minimal notes, okay? 

Yup. I'ts alive. I threw it in the sea right after this pic was taken.

We fished for 4 hours on the bay and brought home this:

We actually only caught 3 of them- the rest caught by the captain and first mate.

Most of what Nathan and I caught were inedible saltwater catfish.

We still had a blast and the sea was peaceful at night.

We held live rays, fish and starfish during the dolphin tour..

We also enjoyed feeding Sunchips to seagulls while the boat chugged around looking for dolphins.

The birds ate out of our hands. That was really exhilarating.

Less-than-flattering picture. I was trying not to gag. Try doing that and smiling sometime. 

The starfish feet were groping wildly in the air....it looked surprisingly gross.

 We had a great time. We spotted a few dolphins and a calf with its momma. It was pretty cool, but hard to catch on film. We stopped trying to catch a shot of the dolphins and just enjoyed watching them. 

Ooo- we ate seafood all week at different restaurants. (that's a big deal, because I really don't like seafood of any kind. Not even lobster.)

For the first time, I enjoyed eating shrimp. I never liked it before, no matter how many times I tried. 

The Gulf shrimp we ate was super-fresh and monstrously huge. 

It took THREE BITES to eat one shrimp. 

They were delicious! There's a first.

It was an adventurous day. 

I felt so incredibly blessed to be alive and able to enjoy the wonder of God's creations. 

Sand Castles for Fun

Nathan and I left all our responsibilities behind for a few days while we ran away to South Padre Island (on the southernmost tip of Texas, right next to Mexico) to celebrate our 10-year anniversary. 

(I know- our ten year anniversary was technically last year. We couldn't run away at that time though- Diego was still too little to be left behind. So technically this would be our 10.8 year anniversary. Don't bog me down in little details like that.)

One of my focuses on this trip was to see how many items I could cross off my bucket list. 

(Just in case you're wondering, we did a dozen items on my list. Yay!) 

Hidden among my bucket list was to build my first sand castle on the beach.

(Did you know I had never built a sand castle before?).

Check out our first try effort:

We worked on this baby for a looooong time. 

Are you impressed?

Do you notice anything wrong with the picture below?

Look closely.

Did you catch the impossible problem?

There's no way he could be stepping on those two towers. 

One tower is from the back wall and one tower is located on the front wall.

Not happening.

You're right. It's a trick. 

 Here is the true perspective on our sand castle:

Beensy.

That's what we get when our only building tools are a plastic dixie cup, a spoon, and our smuggled ice container from the hotel room. (No worries, the ice box was safely returned home and was not harmed in the making of our castle.)

The trick photography was really fun to arrange though.

I really loved living near the beach for a week. The ocean has its own captivating magic that entranced my heart and made it so hard to leave. 

We missed our children dearly (we were constantly saying, "Oh, the kids would love to see this!"), but I was secure and at peace knowing they were being watched over by my angelic mom-in-law. She's a much better mother than me, so I knew the kids would scarcely notice my absence for a few days. 

(Did I mention that she is in the middle of moving across the country, but she dropped everything and came to serve my family? Words are useless to describe her. She's unbelievable. Everyone who knows her adores her. If I can just become like her I would consider my life a success.)

I have so much to share about our trip and the thoughts I had. 

 My spirit was full of joy to spend all my waking moments with my best friend.

It was wonderfully rejuvenating.

Lessons from the Baseball Diamond

Nathan and I decided to expand our children's cultural experience.

What's that you say? Aren't we cultured enough?

Oh sure, we celebrate the Indian Holi Day with feasts and powdered dye fights.

We like to make sushi, Russian borscht and piroshki, Turkish food is a delight, Mexican cuisine is a main stay in our menu rotation, and Indian food reigns supreme in our kitchen. 

We love to do British tea parties. (Herbal teas, of course.)

Our favorite music albums are sung in Turkish, Italian, or Russian. 

Our favorite books are written by British authors such as Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, A.A. Milne, Lucy Maud Montgomery, and C.S. Lewis.

Nathan keeps a large collection of books written in Russian, and subscribes to a Russian magazine each month. 

(He lived in Russia for 2 years on a mission for our church.)

We take our kids on field trips to see the professional ballet and opera every year.

We adorn each room in our our house with rugs and art from Turkey.

My absolute favorite shirts are Indian kurtas. I love wearing them! They are so comfortable and modest (Shopping for modest clothing in Texas is a joke. Everything is sleeveless, transparent, or has a plunging neckline. No good for a Mormon mommy!)

And finally, the best kicker of them all:

Our roosters. 

They are named Luciano Pavarotti (my favorite opera singer), 

Papageno (our favorite character from Mozart's Magic Flute opera), 

and David Bowie (British pop star... the rooster just looked like him. Imagine David Bowie's character from the Labryinth....that's what our rooster looks like.)

Culture enough? Nah.

 We needed to spice things up by including something iconically American. 

Professional baseball. 

I know it's hard to believe- but here's the confession: I have never watched a baseball game, not even a high school baseball game. 

I was excited to introduce our 'littles' to this sport. 

There's cracker jacks, cotton candy, hotdogs, and soda. Cheering and laughing crowds.

What's not to like? 

Well...

"Everything", according to Sarah.

She hated it. 

Dan hated it. 

Matt tried not to hate it, but didn't actually like it either.

Diego had his first taste of soda pop and thought life was perfect, but didn't care about the game.

Nathan and I were not impressed. We tried gamely (pun totally intended) to make it interesting.

We left before the last inning.

We learned an important lesson:

Take us to an opera any day, but sports just isn't our thing.

Sunday country drive

Recently we took a Sunday drive through the countryside near our home. The wildflowers have carpeted the landscape for the past month, blessing us each day with bright colors and cheerful thoughts.

We collectively ooo-ed and ahhhh-ed over each new field full of flowers. It's so picturesque. It's the best time of year to see Texas. Look at this field. It is several acres just full of bluebonnets.

We enjoyed exploring "Get Lost" roads. We haven't done this tradition in a loooong time, thanks to rising gas prices. We used to regularly pick a random country road and say, "Let's get lost! Let's go find out where this road goes!"

In the past we've discovered some amazing places. One time in Idaho our Get Lost Road took us to the tippy top of a volcano. I'll never forget watching the sunset from that viewpoint!

Here are some of our Get Lost views this year:

Isn't this just gorgeous? It's only a couple miles from my house! I feel so lucky to live someplace beautiful. My heart just sings every time I drive into town and pass all these beautiful views.

We packed a picnic and made our drive into a day trip. We found a lovely little park where we feasted and played near a river. Nathan taught the children how to skip rocks and climb trees. I cherish these moments. I loved watching the adoration in my children's faces as they learned from him.

I'm so thankful the Lord blesses us with beauty all around us and lazy afternoons with time to enjoy being alive. I hope your week is full of good things and you are able to take a moment to enjoy the beauty in your spot of Earth!

Art Museum Scavenger Hunt

Since we had already checked the boys out of school for dental appointments in Austin, we decided to also play hooky on all other responsibilities for the day and go visit other sites in Austin. Thursdays are a special day in Austin because the Blanton Museum of Art is FREE that day.

Sarah and Matt have been begging me for months to take them to this art museum (Matt even asked for that as a birthday gift instead of doing a party with friends...but his birthday is still months away). Oh boy, were they excited for this family trip!

I made worksheets for them to fill out in the museum. I wanted them to be thinking about the art, not just looking at it and passing by without a thought. I had questions such as, "What story was the artist trying to tell?" "What paintings did you like and which one did you dislike?" "Which ones convey a feeling of anger? Happiness? Sadness? Peace?" "Which one would you like to create?"

I also had an extensive scavenger hunt list on the worksheet. They were to find certain types of art (pottery, sculptures, woven art, wooden art, bone art (yes really. There is a room full of cattle bones as an art piece)) and certain random elements within paintings (different types of animals, babies, jewels, a house, bread, royalty, a cowboy, etc.) Luckily I was a bit familiar with this museum, so I knew some of the specific permanent art exhibits in the collection, so I could give them particular pieces to find along our journey.

Sarah and Matthew were both so thoughtful as they pondered the art. I'd talk with them and teach them how to analyze the piece based on composition and color choice. It was so interesting to see what they noticed.

It was so fun to see how in tune they were to the color cues from the artist. Matthew would say things like, "This painting makes me feel happy because it's full of cheerful yellows" or "This painting makes me angry because of all the red choppy lines and black clouds."

I also found out they despised the same paintings I do (you know, the type of modern art that is just a big splash of black paint on a bare canvas? Yeah....I always think my kids could make one better. Matthew agreed heartily with that opinion. I guess that style of modern art just isn't for me.)

Daniel was bored after 10 minutes. He spent most of the time loudly whispering how his legs were tired (even though I offered to push him in the stroller) and how boring this place was since he couldn't run and shriek. He spent a lot of time just staring at the ceiling, complaining how boring it all was. I think if I stared at the ceiling I would be bored, too. I'm sorry he was too little to enjoy this place, and the older kids were sorry he couldn't be more patient. All well...someday he'll enjoy it.

We visitied our favorite vintage candy shop, The Big Top Candy shop, on Congress Avenue. Nate and I had told the children they'd be given a dollar to spend for having appropriate museum behavior and another dollar for finishing the worksheet/scavenger hunt. Sarah and Matt were delighted. Matthew picked a box of Bernie Bott's Every Flavor Beans and Sarah filled a bag with different flavors of rock candy.

Matt could hardly wait to start tasting the bad flavored jelly beans. He tried them each as soon as we stepped out of the store. That story is told through pictures in my next post.