Lately: May Recap

School is out for summer (yay!!!) but May was jam-packed as always. The kids had so many fun activities both in and out of school. Here's a peek at what we've been up to in the month of May:

Both boys had STAAR testing at the beginning of the month, and the third graders celebrated the end of testing with Camp Read-A-Lot in the classroom. We sent Henry to school with letters and a cool care package.

Henry loves to read so much, and this day was a highlight in his year! 

More reading fun -- our Name That Book Club ended the year with a book exchange. It has been such incredible fun to work with this group of kids who just adore books and reading! 

Will had double testing one day -- STAAR science at school followed by a math placement test at Kinkaid that same afternoon. We celebrated the end of testing with frozen yogurt on the way home. 

Henry's sweet teacher invited all the moms to a Mother's Day breakfast on May 15.

She had a feast for us -- quiche, fresh fruit and orange juice! 

The kids read poems about their moms

and gave us mother of thousands plants.

It was such a special morning!

Henry also brought home this vitex flower for me! He found it on the playground, and surprised me with it for Mother's Day.

The boys also had their final Hands On Art classes at West U -- final because we are finally getting an art teacher next year! It has been such a joy to teach these kids and I am so grateful that we've had the opportunity for art, but having a regular art class will be so much better!

Splatter paintings in the style of Jackson Pollock

So very messy but oh-so fun!

Gene took the boys to MineFaire, a Minecraft extravaganza at NRG Park.

I hear that it was a tremendous amount of fun!

Will even met the YouTuber, Unspeakable Gaming, and got his autograph! A highlight for a Minecraft-loving kid!

Our annual piano recital was also in May. Both boys are taking lessons and had songs ready, but Will chose not to perform this year. Henry did a great job with his two songs -- Kookaburra and Red-Hot Boogie.

 

May Madness is a third-grade competition at our school that combines multiplication facts with basketball. Our class didn't win but the kids sure tried hard!

Our 13th anniversary was May 22. We had no luck finding a sitter this year (it's finals time in Houston!) so we ended up taking the boys out to dinner with us at Carrabba's. They really enjoyed joining us for a fancy dinner out.  

13 years already? What an adventure it's been!

Also at the end of May is Pop's birthday! Nancy was out of town, so Gene and Mike spent the evening celebrating with Pop. 

And finally, I'll leave you with this photo of Ruby and me. She is obsessed with "helping" me wash the boys' lunch kits each night. Such a goofball! 

End-of-the-year school photos and 5th graduation pics coming soon! 

Good Reads {April 2017}

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. A man who never reads lives only one." -- George R.R. Martin

This is one of my favorite quotes about reading! The best thing about books and reading is falling so deeply into a story that the characters feel like friends. In April, I read seven books...  so I guess I experienced seven lives!

Here are my favorite reads from the month of April:

Savvy by Ingrid Law
During the late spring, the kids in Name That Book club get to choose the books we read, and this was one of the kid-selected choices. Savvy is an adventure story with a touch of magical realism to it. In Mibs's family, everyone has a special power, or "savvy," that is revealed on a child's 13th birthday. On the eve of Mibs's birthday, her dad is in a terrible accident and Mibs believes her savvy can save him, but what an adventure ensues! This is a great middle-grade read for kids who like adventure or a touch of magic.

Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly
This is one of my favorite reads so far this year! Lilac Girls is a World War II novel based on real people and real events. Told from three perspectives, we hear from New York socialite Caroline Ferriday, who is trying to help French orphans; Polish teenager Kasia Kuzmerick, who is involved in the resistance; and German doctor, Gerta Oberheuser, who finds employment in a concentration camp. The novel explores a part of Nazi history that I did not know about. I highly recommend this novel!

The Screaming Staircase (Lockwood & Co. #1) by Jonathan Stroud
This was Will's pick for Name That Book club and, wow, is it a fantastically spooky story! Ghosts have been haunting England for the past 50 years, and psychic apparitions agencies, staffed by children, have sprung up to help eradicate the ghostly figures. Lucy Carlyle heads to London to seek employment at Lockwood & Co. After a case goes terribly wrong, the firm has one last chance to avoid bankruptcy... but only if they can conquer the ghosts in the country's most infamous haunted mansion. Stroud is a masterful storyteller, but this is not for the faint of heart! (Recommended for upper middle grade/young adult.)

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
This book reminded me of The Underground Railroad, in that much of what is happening is real with a healthy dose of the unreal thrown in. In Hamid's novel, Saeed and Nadia meet and begin a romance while their country (likely Syria, though it is never named) is on the brink of civil unrest. Their relationship progresses and the city falls to rebel forces. At the same time, doors are discovered that literally lead to other places. Nadia and Saeed decide to try their luck with a door, and the story follows them as they travel to different places. In the light of the immigrant issue in our world today, this novel is definitely worth exploring.

My Life as a Gamer (My Life #5) by Janet Tashjian
This was another Name That Book club selection, and it was so much fun! Written in the style of Diary of a Wimpy Kid or Big Nate, the My Life series would be a good choice for reluctant readers, but was one that I thoroughly enjoyed as well. In this story, Derek Fallon has the chance of a lifetime to participate in testing out a new video game called Arctic Ninja, but that opportunity doesn't come without some problems. A cute middle-grade series.

What have you read lately?

A Weekend Adventure: Austin

Gene spent all last week in Austin for a hearing, and since he never goes to Austin for work (this was the first time in his career), the boys and I decided to drive up on Friday afternoon and join him for the weekend!

I picked the boys up at noon and we ate lunch on the road. Milkshakes for the drive!

We arrived in Austin just before 4 pm and got settled into our room. For dinner, we tried Terry Black's Barbecue, which was just a few minutes from our hotel. It had rave reviews online and we all agreed that it was delicious!

 

On our way back to the hotel, we realized that we were staying right at the Congress Avenue Bridge, home to the largest urban bat colony. We joined the throngs of people on the bridge at dusk to watch the bats stream out from underneath. It is an incredible sight! There are 1.5 million bats here, compared to only 250,000 at Houston's Waugh Street Bridge colony. 

Nightwing sculpture by artist Dale Whistler

Crazy hair on the bridge --> helping "Keep Austin Weird!"

After a good night's sleep and a hearty breakfast, we began our Saturday morning adventure with a visit to the Bullock Texas State History Museum. Will and I had visited last year for the fourth grade field trip, but Gene and Henry had never been before. It's a fantastic museum, and we got in free with our Shelburne Museum reciprocal membership!

La Salle's ship, La Belle

Come and take it!

Next up, we crossed the street to visit the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas (also free with the reciprocal membership!). When I was in grad school, I spent a lot of time with my museum studies classes in this museum -- but since I graduated many, many years ago, there's a new building that I had not yet visited. I was so glad to finally explore it! The Blanton has collections in European, Latin American and contemporary art. We split up to explore -- Gene to the European galleries while the boys and I explored the contemporary exhibits.

Our favorite collection in the Curiouser exhibit of works by artist Nina Katchadourian was Sorted Books. The artist visits peoples' homes and sorts books into groups so that the titles on the spines create sentences and riddles. It was a fascinating, engaging and creative project that the three of us thoroughly enjoyed.

At the end, visitors were invited to create their own sorted book projects. Here are some of ours:

 

We also explored upstairs. This installation is called Mission/Missions by Cildo Meireles and was quite lovely. 

After a morning of museums, we visited Book People, which is Texas's largest independent book store. We are book people for sure, so we came home with a stack of new books for the boys.

After a late lunch at Threadgill's, we headed back to the hotel for a rest followed by pool time. Our big adventure of the evening was heading out to Jester King Brewery for beer and pizza. This is one of our favorite spots in Austin and we go nearly every time we're in town! 

After pizza, the boys were still hungry, so I suggested Amy's Ice Cream, but Will really wanted pie. Thanks to Gene and Google, we found Tiny Pies, which happened to be on our way home and was exactly what we needed. 

Individual little pies = perfect for hungry boys! Gene even got into the spirit of things with a spinach empanada.

Sunday was Mother's Day, and you know this mama loves nothing more than a good hike with her family. We packed up and were out of the hotel pretty early, so we headed to McKinney Falls State Park, which is just 15 miles southeast of downtown Austin and on our way home. It was a mild weekend with cool mornings and evenings, so Sunday morning was the perfect time to get outside for a short hike.

The park is gorgeous but the trails are not well marked and we found ourselves lost and backtracking quite a bit. 

500-year-old Old Baldy

We finally found ther Upper Falls! What a beautiful spot. 

We all enjoyed McKinney Falls and it's a park we'd love to visit again!

Another favorite spot on the drive back to Houston is the Berdoll Pecan shop. This is Ms. Pearl the Squirrel, and she is 14 feet tall, making her the tallest squirrel statue in the world (goes well with the giant pistachio we saw in New Mexico!).

We always put Gene in charge of finding us good lunch spots, and this time, he found us Hank's Express in downtown La Grange. The boys got soup, salad and sandwiches, but Gene and I tried the daily special, which was superb. Fried or baked chicken with noodles, stuffing, copper pennies (a Czech carrot dish) and green beans. It was fantastic! Homemade pie for dessert, of course. 

We were home before 2 pm, which gave us plenty of time to unpack, start the laundry, and make a simple supper at home.

After Gene's busy travel schedule, it was so nice to get away, unwind a bit, and spend some time together, just the four of us.