The Buddies and Coach Steve

This season, we decided to forgo the individual pictures and just get a group shot of our three boys. Because we already have albums full of t-ball pictures with this being our 7th season and all. Aren't they cute?


Of course, they would have looked even better had they worn this season's uniform and matched the rest of the team. Now that we have seven sets of these uniforms (most in varying shades of blue), it is easy to be confused. Whoopsie!!

Music Under the Star

Tonight, we picked up Dad from work and headed downtown for Music Under the Star at the Bob Bullock Museum.

This is the star we are talking about. Not the cute one in front, but the big bronze one in the background.

We danced to some tunes from Omar and the Howlers.

And enjoyed some free food from Rudy's, free popsicles from Good Pop, and free ice cream from Blue Bell.
Then, a quick (and free!) tour of the museum, four more Good Pops, and we called it a night.

The Blue Hole

The Blue Hole in Wimberley is just the kind of summertime adventure that the buddies and I like. We packed in a picnic and just enjoyed swimming and playing in the clear blue waters for the afternoon.


A few of us were brave enough to try out the rope swing. Another declared that he needs to be "at least 6 or 7" before he tries.


We ended the outing with a sno-cone, as is our cousins' tradition. Ben chose "Worm Guts" (of course), Ace went with Rainbow, and I had a Mocha (for obvious energy-depletion reasons).

Wimberly Glassworks

Today we enjoyed yet another field trip with our fantastic cousins. And it was another full day of adventure where I didn't have to plan a thing and didn't even have to drive. Early in the morning, we piled all 7 of us in her car and headed to the hill country.







Our first stop brought us to Wimberly Glassworks for a glass-blowing demonstration. We arrived early and spent some time oohing and ahhing over the merchandise. They had some really lovely glass...all way out of my budget.







Then, we watched with interest as our two friendly glass-blowers pulled oozing glass out of 2000 degree ovens and shaped it, blew it, cooled it, added colored glass to it, dipped it again, shaped it some more, until they'd created this beautiful fluted lampshade. Amazing!

Museum, Museum, Museum

We hit up 3 local museums with our cousins this afternoon. Here are the reviews, based on the Buddy Rating System:

Texas Music Museum - two thumbs sideways

Texas Natural Science Center - two thumbs up

Austin Children's Museum - two thumbs WAY up


All in all, it was a fun and educational afternoon!

Lost Lagoon

Adventure Monday #9 brought us back to Sea World, this time to explore the water park. The buddies rode everything available to them and loved it. I loved it too, aside from being the primary tube carrier (x3) up the 48-foot towers. We also managed to catch a few shows, including two that we hadn't seen before: Sea Lions Tonight and Cool Vibrations.

No pictures today...we were too busy having fun!

Uncle Jeff and Aggieland

Uncle Jeff spent last week in College Station for fire-fighter training. Because when you are super-cool like Uncle Jeff, being a Chemical Engineer living and working in the Virgin Islands isn't enough. You have to fight fire too.

We toured campus, starting with a climb up the Century Tree.


Then, the buddies placed pennies at the feet of Sul Ross for good luck in kindergarten. And then they knocked a bunch off climbing around and had to put those back too.


We made a special stop by Uncle Jeff's freshman dorm and even knocked on the window that he used to climb in and out of.


There were a few scuffles over who got to walk next to Uncle Jeff. Apparently, his right side is the best place to walk.


It was hot, so we headed to the hotel some pool time.

And that turned into a chicken fight.

And finally, the buddies left their mark at Freebirds (with a little help from Uncle Jeff).

Pretzel Rollers

A few of the buddies' friends joined us for the afternoon today, so we decided to try out the pretzel-rolling skills we learned while in Pennsylvania. Some of the kids were really into it.

Others looked at me like I was crazy in the head. What do you mean, you want me to roll a pretzel? When is my mom coming back?
But, our efforts resulted in lovely, golden, delicious pretzels!

And you can't beat that! Except maybe by rolling around on the floor and eating them.

I doubt this is what Pottery Barn had in mind with these chairs...

Adventure Monday # 8

This morning, we decided to head back to the place where Adventure Mondays were invented. Krause Springs! It is definitely our favorite natural watering hole in the area. Though we shared the place with what seemed like half of Austin today, we sure had a good time.







It is impossible to be in a bad mood in such a setting. We swam under the waterfall more times than we can count, watched the big kids swing from the rope (Ben says he'll try it when he's 7. Ace, when he's 6), picnicked, jumped off the cliffs in the man-made, spring-fed pool and visited what the buddies call "the magic tree".

PVC Project #2

Sea Shells by the Sea Shore

During our shore trip, we took long walks along the beach, combing for sea shells. And then, we sorted through them and picked the best ones to bring home with us. Today, we picked out the ones that had broken during our travels and the rest were free for painting.




I love creative art projects that look good displayed in the home! And now, I'm going to go dust that lamp.

PVC Project #1

My boys (all 3 of them) have several PVC projects on their summer to-do list. First up, Skate Trainers! We saw a version of these at the roller rink earlier this week and wanted some of our very own.

The great thing is, they work a bit like training wheels on a bike. They give the boys just enough balance to learn how it feels to be up on skates. We're hoping that after a few sessions with the trainers, they'll be skating solo and we can pass the trainers onto two of our little friends.











And yes, we know one should wear a shirt when inline skating. He would have been out there in his underwear if we would have let him.

My 6:45am Wake-Up Call

4 wild boys
2 HESS trucks each
All 8 trucks in desperate need of fresh batteries. Immediately.
(at least they let me put on a pot of coffee first)

Bananarchy!

Fight the man! Eat dessert.

Running the Numbers

Chris Jordan takes statistics that are too big for the mind to grasp and makes them shockingly beautiful for the eye to behold: 2 million plastic bottles used every five minutes... 380,000 kilowatt hours of electricity wasted every minute. By fusing image and information into epic photographs, he asks us to consider our roles as global citizens.

Though not the most child-friendly of places, we enjoyed our quick tour through the Austin Museum of Art... and even left before they had to ask us to. With noisy voices and hands that wanted to touch, we weren't quite model visitors. We did get a chance to take in each of Chris Jordan's photographs and marveled at the waste in our society.

On that note, I think I'll go unplug the coffee pot and turn out a few lights.

Story Time Tour at the Blanton

In an effort to sneak a little dose of culture into two wild boys that I know, we hit up a couple of art museums. Our first stop was the Blanton Museum, where we took part in their free story time tour. Our friendly docent read 4 popular children's books and encouraged the children to explore the relationships between those stories and the art behind her. It was so fun to see the kids get excited about the artwork and a bit magical to view the pieces through their eyes.

My cheeks still hurt from all the laughing...

Deep Eddy Pool

Today we took our cousins up on their offer to join them on an adventure to Deep Eddy, the oldest swimming pool in Texas. Though just on the outskirts of downtown Austin, the pool is nestled on all sides by tall trees, which gives the illusion of being far from the city.











We were delighted to discover a near-empty pool when we arrived. We swam, we picnicked, we held diving lessons and swimming races in the deep end, and ended the outing with a water ice from the on-site vendor. It was the kind of afternoon that makes me want to freeze time.

Parkapalooza

A set of our favorite twin-friends have recently moved from far South Austin to our neck of the woods. We've been pestering them to join us on an Adventure Monday for some time now, but with two full-time careers, two school schedules, selling a house, and buying a house, it just hasn't worked out. But, today they took a break from moving-in and joined us for a park crawl. You see, we decided they needed a tour of all our great parks and we set out to show them.

First up, some giant rock climbing...
Then, some cooling off in a whale splash-pad...
Then, we were off to a second, much larger spray ground...
By lunchtime, we were all parked-out and headed back to their new home to wait for the cable guy, have lunch, and enjoy their backyard swimming pool. The pool was clearly the best part of the day.