A Saturday Adventure: San Jacinto Battleground

We went on another family adventure on Saturday. This time, we headed east to the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site. Can you believe none of us had ever been there before? It was the perfect cool, sunny day for a visit.

Big boy, bigger monument!

Will was so excited to visit his first battlefield.

We climbed (via the elevator) to the top of the monument and had views for miles.

After visiting the museum, we ate a picnic lunch

and played in the shadow of the 489-foot tall monument.

Then we went hiking! The interpretive trail led us through coastal prairie, a tidal marsh, and a bottomland forest. It is meant to look and feel like it did in 1836. No one else was around, and we had the trail completely to ourselves. It was beautiful!

After our hike, we drove over to the Battleship Texas.

My favorite sailors

The Battleship was leaking like crazy this summer, but my understanding is that she is stable for now.

The U.S.S. Texas was built in 1913. (No wonder she leaks!)

These guns still move, and they proved to be most interesting to the boys.

Inside we saw everything from the brig and the ship's store

to the bridge and sick bay.

The U.S.S. Texas was built to house 900 sailors but at times had up to 1800 on board.  She is the only remaining ship that served in both World War I and World War II.

These boys loved visiting the battleship. Gene and I did too.

The whole day was one great adventure for my little Texans!

Thanksgiving Week

Our Thanksgiving break has been full of fun, food and family time.

We started off the long holiday by spending Wednesday with the cousins. The kids played at our house, went to the new and improved Fire Truck Park, and made a volcano with Gene.

We spent Thanksgiving day up in Kingwood with Gramma and Grampa. Henry was so ready for that turkey to come out of the oven!

It was a beautiful warm day, so we ate our Thanksgiving feast outside!

Yum!! 

After our noon-time feast, we played outside, rode bikes, and built lots and lots of Lincoln Log towers.

Grampa even found some Christmas ornaments to decorate.

And Gramma got to read some Captain Underpants to the boys. It was a great Thanksgiving day!

We spent Friday at Nana and Pop's house. The weather was beautiful, so we spent lots of time outside,

playing football,

examining tree bark,

 climbing trees,

and enjoying a much-deserved cocktail.

Inside, there was an intense game of chess

and lots and lots of cooking and eating. Pictured below is broa, or Portuguese corn bread.

Whew! It's been a whirlwind week and we are dead-tired!

But mostly, we are so thankful for our good times with family, loads of amazing food, and many, many happy memories.

Zoo Lights

We started our holiday season early with a trip to the zoo for Zoo Lights last night. 

Even though I usually like to postpone the Christmas merriment until after Thanksgiving, we decided to take advantage of the members' preview event last night. It actually was a great way to begin our long five-day weekend!

Most of the zoo animals were snoozing and we did never did find the hot cocoa or cookie decorating, but the lights were spectacular

and Christmas tunes were playing everywhere.

Popcorn was a huge hit with my hungry boys. You would never have guessed that we had eaten dinner right before we left the house!

Zoo Lights was a whole new way to see the zoo

and we're looking forward to adding it to our list of Christmas traditions.