Austin Symphony

Austin Symphony Day

Regan's music teacher always organizes these music field trips for her class and her piano students. It sounded like fun, so I made Riley come too, and it was fun. The Symphony had cameras set up so you could see each instrument as it was being played, and they had an announcer come out at the beginning and introduce each instrument and have them play a little bit so you could hear what it sounded like.

That was the fun part, the timpani played a bit from Star Wars, and the bassoon played Katy Perry's "Firework". Anyway, the kids liked seeing all the instruments and hearing the individual sounds.

Then we had some time to kill before we headed to tutoring, so I thought I would share my obsession with Torchy's Tacos. They have some of the best tacos in town, sold out of a trailer, of course. Our tacos were super yummy, and we even had birds come to share our lunch with us. And just as we finished up, Holy Cacao was opening their trailer, so we got some yummy cake balls for dessert!

Then we went to the Barton Creek run off area, (the free part) and the kids got to play in the water. Regan had a change of clothes in the car, but Riley didn't, so he rolled up his jeans, and I think he tried not to get wet at first, but then slipped and fell flat on his butt, so that didn't last long. There are a lot of dogs there playing fetch and swimming around, so the kids loved that, they found an extra tennis ball and played fetch with this one cute older dog that would come right by them to shake, it was cute.

But, short lived, as we had to get to the other side of town for tutoring, but it was a nice break from school, and a fun packed day. My favorite kind.

Home School Small Group

One more thing I would miss if we don't home school again...our home school small group! We have the best group! We met at our neighborhood pool for this week's outing, and the kids had a great time, they played, we talked, it was a lot of fun. We've been having some unusually cool weather lately, so it was a nice day to sit and talk, and we weren't dying of heat stroke for a change. But that water is still pretty cold! The kids didn't seem to mind though.

Pure Energy

Sadly, this was Riley's last day of school. He really loves Pure Energy and will miss it a lot. We are looking at putting the kids back into a charter school for next year and we haven't decided yet, so this may have been his last day forever, and I'm sad about that. He really fits in well there, and learned a lot this year. The last day was at the Sprinkler Park, it was a picnic and they had a good time with water balloon wars and water gun wars. Regan even had a sibling to play with also, (I let her skip her school for the day) and we ended the day at McDonald's with a couple of the other mom's so the kids could spend even more time together. They have a really great group of boys there, and I know Riley will really miss them. The last picture is Riley with his 3 BFF's, Tristan, Parker and Peyton.

NASA Day at the Capitol

NASA Day

Riley's school was signed up to do NASA Space Day at the Capitol, and they asked no siblings under 5th grade, but Regan has been bugging me to go INSIDE the Capitol building, so we planned to do that while Riley was with his school.

So we decided to make a day of it, and first went to Home Slice Pizza, and YUM that was the best pizza ever. Regan had been with one of her friends before, so she ordered the sausage and garlic pizza (?) and Riley just wanted cheese, and I got the Margherita, and then we all took bites of each others, and I wished I had gotten Regan's, Riley wished he had gotten mine, and Regan was very happy with hers. We'll just have to go back!

Then we headed over to register and noticed that the Capitol was packed. I mean, PACKED. There were people holding protest signs and people riding horses around the Capitol steps, combined with NASA being set up on the lawn, it was crazy. Regan and I had to wait about 30 minutes just to get through security.

So while Riley was off doing his thing, we toured the inside. Regan was very impressed with the building, the fancy decor, the statues of Stephen F Austin, and Sam Houston (she wanted to take a picture with him to send to her cousin Joy, who lives in Houston!) Then we went to the gallery area of the House of Representatives, who were in session, and saw a ton of people wearing signs about some bill, and two people in horse costumes, so of course we had to find out what was going on. Regan thought they were trying to make horses illegal in Texas! But, they are trying to get horse racing/horse betting legal in Texas. Not sure all the gory details, but there were a ton of people there to show their support for it.

Then we checked out the basement, or "the extension" and there was an astronaut signing autographs and a huge NASA exhibit and she wasn't interested, so we headed back to the lawn and found the free Amy's ice cream truck! Also, that's where we found Riley, on his 5th cup of free ice cream. He ended up going home with a friend so we booked it out of there to avoid traffic (kind of).

Next time, I'll register Regan for the space day, I think she would have enjoyed it, it looked like they did some fun things. And maybe I'll steal David's security clearance so we can skip the long lines to get in :)

Castle Park

We had our home school small group meeting in Georgetown at the "Castle Park" and had a really good turn out. We have a lot of kids all around the same ages, so it works out perfectly. The weather has been getting hot already, but it was still pretty nice, and the parents had a great time talking about curriculum, selling houses, kids, etc. It's just nice to be able to have an adult conversation sometimes! The kids had fun, Riley likes to use this park for Parkour, and Regan and one of her friends, Tyler, found a ladybug and examined it VERY closely. They made their own little science class around the ladybug. It was cute watching them with it.

And my friend Sandy brought her new puppy, and Australian Shepherd named Ralph, and he's adorable! He looks like a fluffy teddy bear, he was so cute, and soft and cuddly, the kids loved playing with him.

Community Service

Riley's school always does a lot of community service projects. The project for this semester was to help out at the Capital Area Food Bank. Riley helped load frozen pizza into boxes to give out, and he got a thank you note from them saying they processed 8,424 pounds of food, which equals 6,793 meals! Way to go Pure Energy!

Bowling and Phil's

There is a home school bowling group that we try to meet up with once a month, but it's been a few months since we've gone. This time, there were kids wearing the same Upward Basketball shirt that Regan just got (she's playing basketball for church in the new year) and come to find out, they go to our church, same service, and they home school, small world! My friend Tammy just started to home school, so she met us to bowl with Angie and Abby, and then we met David for lunch after at our favorite burger place, Phil's. It turned out to be a nice day, so the kids had fun playing on the playground too.

Skating

There's a new skating rink in Round Rock, and they have a home school day where the kids get to play sports for an hour on the sport court, then skate for 2 hours, then another hour of sports. The only problem is, it's on Wednesday which is when Riley and Regan are at their one day schools. But then I heard that the skate program was going so well, they decided to open it up to another day, Friday, so we were excited to go try it out. We set up our home school small group to go, and we were the only ones that showed up! We had a pretty good sized group though, and it was fun to have the whole rink to ourselves. Regan tried out rollerblades for the first time ever and Santa may have to bring her some this year!! The owner came out and played dodge ball with the kids, then gave the boys hockey sticks and pucks and let them play roller hockey on half the court while the girls skated on the other half. It was a lot of fun. The kids were worn out by the time we left!!

Geocaching at Mt. Bonnell

Riley's Geocaching class had a field trip to Mt. Bonnell. The only thing I remember about this place was we visited once right after I moved to Austin, so I was probably around Riley's age and I just remember about 2 million steps to the top! I dropped Riley and his friend Erik off, then Regan and I met David for lunch, while they did their Geocaching. Then we came back and Regan wanted to go up and see what everyone was doing, so we went up to the top. There weren't nearly as many steps as I remembered, and the view wasn't as great as I remembered either. You had to climb up a rock and lean WAY over to see water. You could barely even see the famous Pennybacker bridge. Anyway, Regan tripped and scraped her knee, then hurt her ankle going down the steps, so all in all it wasn't the best morning.

But on the way back, we passed this park that I have heard a lot about so we decided to stop and check it out. It's famous for it's peacocks and a great place for photographs. The kids tried to pet a peacock, but although they came close, they would jump away if you tried to touch them, usually with a very loud peacock, "OOOWWWW!"

Wednesday School

It's that rare time in Texas again, that small window of perfect weather!! Regan's school has park day after the 4th Wednesday of the month, and Riley has yearbook for an extra hour after school, so we spent some time at the playground by the Dell Diamond. They have a nice sized lake that we walked around and Regan played with her school friends a bit before we had to go get Riley. It was just nice to be outside!

And Riley's school does a community service project once a month. He had to write up a proposal on what to do with the funds they've raised so far (about $35.00) and pitch it to the class. One of his suggestions was chosen also! So they used the money to make sandwich bags for the homeless. He called me with the good news, and to ask if I would be available to help pass them out. I said sure, how can I say no after it was his choice, right? So they made up peanut butter sandwiches, bags of chips, candy and a water bottle, and they wrote on the bags, "God loves you" and "We're praying for you!" and we drove around and passed them out. We prayed that God would lead us to the people that needed them the most and one guy was so thankful, and he was eating his sandwich before we drove off!

Celebration Home School Small Group

Pioneer Farm

It's Small Group time at Celebration Church! This time around, David and I both signed up to be Small Group Leaders. David's is a father/son disc golf group, and mine is a home school group. Our first outing was to Pioneer Farm for home school day. Admission was cheap, we brought a picnic lunch and met some new friends!

We watched Little House on the Prairie for the kid's first time ever before we went, so they had a good idea about what life was like back then. We got to watch the blacksmith pounding iron into different shapes and telling us about what all a blacksmith would do back then. And the girls got to make corn husk dolls with scrap material. And they loved the outhouses. They couldn't get over having to walk across the yard to go to the bathroom!

The weather was nice too, it rained a bit when we first got there, but then it was nice and cool the rest of the day. And at the end of our tour the kids got a snow cone (which I don't know how that fits in with pioneer days, but they enjoyed it). Overall I think my first small group meeting was a success.

First Day of School

Today was the kids' first day of school! They are both going to a one day school this year. Riley goes to a middle school where he learns American History, Life Science, and electives Geocaching, Cartooning, Mythbusters and Photography. Regan's is all specials, art, PE, music, speech and Spanish.

They both loved their schools! Riley's has a boy's club that meets a couple times a month and he's already met a lot of the boys from school and Regan's school has a monthly park day, so they are both happy to be out making new friends again.

End of Summer

It's been pretty boring around here lately. I thought I would finally tackle the carpet, and started ripping out one hallway and realized the padding had been very heavily glued down, and the tack strips weren't coming up without some serious tools, so I abandoned my pursuit of wood floors for a bit. At least until I get better tools, and my big strong man is home from work to help!

And then we had to put the truck in the shop. The rear a/c hadn't been working in a while (it would click whenever we turned it on) so we had just been running the front a/c on super high, until that started clicking, anyway, with 100+ degree temps this time of year, the kids were sweating, and then we were sweating, it was time to get it fixed, but required me to be stuck at home without wheels for almost a week! Which if you know me, you know that's like a death sentence!

So we've been stuck at home, trying to organize and get ready for school to start back. I spent the last couple of weeks ordering curriculum and now that it's all in, and piled on top of the dining room table (I mean, the home school desk!) it's time to sort through and get it all ready to go on Monday (wow, summer is over already!).

And here's the Mont-ster, he has decided he wants to be an outside cat, but we haven't come to that conclusion yet. He just likes to sit and stare outside, until a door opens and he tries to kill you by running right around your feet to try to get out. He's so cute though.


And here's Regan at a birthday party recently, she had fun sliding down the water slide. She asked me on the way home if I thought she was too young for a boyfriend. I was like uh, why? And then she asks how I knew that dad and I would get married. Ack, a little serious for 8 years old! But apparently there was some boy rocking a Spongebob bathing suit that she thought she could see a bright future with. I'm not ready for that!


So, that's the update on our end. Not a lot going on, just getting ready to get back to our routine and get some order in this house!

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Crowe's Nest Farm

We met up with a new home school group and headed out to Crowe's Nest Farm today. We love this place and haven't been here in a while! We went on a hay ride and watched them feed the bison and ostriches, then went to the dairy barn to learn about milking cows and how the milk gets to the store, and then we got to walk around, to the butterfly house and the Fairie Woods. They have a ton of animals and really pretty gardens there, so we had a good time running around, checking out all the goats, llamas, prairie dogs, owls, etc.

Springwoods

Another park day at one of our favorites. Riley climbed this huge tree, and had some girls down below worrying about him, hoping he didn't fall off. He's a pretty good climber!

Barton Springs

The kids had their last science class today and instead of the usual place, the Nature Center, today it was held at the Splash! exhibit at Barton Springs, home of the Barton Creek Salamander! The kids loved it, they were told to wear something they could get wet, and that's all they need to hear to ensure a good time! They went down to the creek, took water samples, checked the water temperature, caught some bugs, went back to the lab and tested the water for bacteria and looked at their bugs under a microscope.

They had a lot of fun, and when I picked them up, we got a snow cone, then headed back to the over flow part of Barton Springs, and the kids had fun playing in the run off. There was a pretty good flow of water, so they would go up to the waterfall and sit down and let the current slide them down the creek. They saw some turtles but a man was nice enough to bring one over, Riley held it, and as soon as Regan held it, it peed right on her!

All of this was accompanied by a man on the Didgeridoo. Gotta love Austin! Keeping it weird today for sure! Then we headed to the play scape to run around and hopefully dry off before getting back in the car. They came home dirty, tired, and happy, exactly how a kid should be!

Park Day

I have to say, one of the very best things about home schooling is park day on Fridays! We have a small group of friends that we know, but we try to hit up some fun area parks and let the kids run wild! And run wild they do. This is one of our favorite parks (I say that about every park we go to) but this one has wide open spaces, just a touch of water in the creek, so no soggy wet clothes for the trip home, and lots of fun playground things, and most importantly, hills to roll downs! The moms can sit and enjoy the weather and talk and get a small, much needed, sanity break.

Wonder How Round Rock Got Its Name?

We've taken people here and shown them where Round Rock really did get its name from, and people generally don't believe that it was indeed named after a large, round rock! But it really was, and today, the kids made their mark on the round rock. After going to an early movie to see Diary of a Wimpy Kid, we met some friends and a home school group at this park which we haven't been to in a while, but is usually good for watching the ducks. But today that wasn't good enough for the kids! They wanted to get IN the water and swim around and climb on the round rock. Well what's it gonna hurt, right? They jumped in, Riley came prepared with his bathing suit, but Regan didn't, so she ended up getting completely and totally soaked before we left. They had a great time, Riley found some tadpoles and they both caught some minnows, they fed the ducks, climbed the rocks, slipped around on the mud and basically enjoyed being kids! Regan came home naked, wrapped in my girl scout cookie tablecloth that I keep in the back of the truck during cookie season, and Riley had to go to gymnastics smelling like pond water. I'm sure Coach Gene loves me today.

So now you know, and have photographic proof of the actual Round Rock that our town was named after!

Northwest Park

Northwest Park

We had our bowling group this morning and after that we decided to try out a new park with some friends. We grabbed lunch and headed there, the weather is SO beautiful these days and even I hate to be trapped inside on a day like today! We had a picnic lunch and the kids played on the playground some, but the real appeal was the pond and the turtles that lived on an island in the center of the pond. And a hobo camp in the bushes! The things these kids will find!

Riley's friend AJ rolled his pants up and tried to wade in, but before you know it, he was in about waist deep, so Riley decided to strip down to his boxers and undershirt and they wanted to see if they could get to the island to grab a turtle. They eventually made it to the island, but with so much screaming over the cold water and the muddy bottom, there wasn't a turtle in sight when they got there! (Smart turtles!) They were so messy and dirty and disgusting, which is a sure sign that it was a fun day!

Next thing you know, we hear they found a clearing in the bushes where there were blankets and clothes, and they thought that was so cool that people must live there and get to play in the pond all the time! Anyway, it was fun, and I'm just so glad we have the opportunity to be outside on days like this, enjoying nature, and not stuck behind a desk.