Summer Break: Week Ten

We had such a fun week, full of some new activities! I don't know about you, but even with 12 weeks of summer vacation, I still feel like I don't see and do everything there is to do in Houston. Our city is so full of activities for kids and grown-ups alike!

Here are some of the highlights of the week:

We made East Texas cowboy cookies one morning. They are yummy to eat but also fulfilled a Cub Scout requirement!

Speaking of food, did you know that kids as young as six can volunteer at the Houston Food Bank? The Houston Food Bank is the largest food bank in the country and it provides food to 179,000 Houstonians each week. We have supported the food bank through food drives and monetary donations for years, but I wanted the boys to see first-hand what the food bank does and get some hands-on experience helping those in need.

We spent three hours on Monday afternoon sorting groceries at the warehouse and the boys absolutely loved it! We were "second sorters" so we found gray bins full of pantry staples and sorted them into different categories, weighing our banana boxes as we went. Our shift sorted 5352 pounds of food, which will turn into nearly 4500 meals! Volunteering at the Houston Food Bank was a pretty rewarding experience for all of us and one we look forward to repeating in the near future.

Wednesday was George Hermann's 171st birthday, so we spent the morning at Hermann Park! George Hermann was an oilman and philanthropist who became a millionaire after the discovery of oil in Humble in 1903. He also operated a sawmill in what is now Hermann Park. Shortly before his death in 1914, he donated 285 acres of land to the city of Houston to create a municipal park. Today, Hermann Park is 455 acres and sees over 6 million visitors each year. It is definitely one of our favorite Houston spots!

We got to Hermann Park right before the zoo opened and spent a few minutes feeding the ducks on McGovern Lake.

  

What a beautiful part of our city!

We walked around the zoo for about an hour, and visited the enormous bugs,

Jonathan the lion,

and the new black bears. 

Then we headed over to Kinder Station to ride the train and celebrate George Hermann's birthday! The park offered $1.71 train rides, crafts, and birthday cake, though we never did find the cake.  

We also took our very first ride on the pedal boats.

It was a HOT day, but it was fun to pedal around McGovern Lake.

After two and a half hours outside in the August heat, we decided to head to the MFAH for lunch. After refueling, we checked out St. Paul's labyrinth, which is modeled after the 13th-century labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral in France.

Zigzagging to the center of the maze was fun.

We made it!

Our final activity that day was a visit to the library to get The Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Will read the series last year, but he wanted to reread them, and now Henry's reading them too.

I love my little readers!

Thursday evening saw us out and about again. We visited Mid Main for their First Thursday evening event. On the first Thursday of each month, the shops and restaurants of 3500 and 3600 blocks of Main Street in Midtown are open late to support a select charity. 5% of proceeds for August's First Thursday events went to Young Texans Against Cancer. We started our evening with dinner at Natachee's Supper 'N Punch, which is a great spot for kiddos. Kids' meals come in vintage lunch boxes!

After dinner, we headed next door to The Tinderbox, which is an awesome store/craft studio that sells items hand-made by local artisans. I found some earrings and the boys found the free cookies from Michael's Cookie Jar! Then we found our way across the street to the Art Garden. Gene and I enjoyed the complimentary beer from St. Arnold's, the boys got drink pouches from Honest Tea, and we all played golf and cornhole. 

Hole in TWO!

A couple selfies.

First Thursday on Mid Main is such a fun event! We'll definitely go back.

On Friday morning, the boys and I ventured out to Bayou Bend for their Detective Days program.

We basically were doing a scavenger hunt and searching for trees in the garden, but we had a fair bit of difficulty as some of the gardens were not listed on our map and we just couldn't find some of the trees at all. I'm not sure if we're just not good detectives or if some of our clues had been removed! Nevertheless, the gardens are beautiful and we all enjoyed exploring outdoors.

Butterfly garden, the shape of a butterfly!

Detectives with their water canteens. 

Just to keep it real, some of our adventures end up being huge failures. Gene and I have been talking up the Houston Dairymaids for the past few months and we promised the boys a visit this summer to buy some cheese (and best of all, sample some in the store!)  We were so excited to stop by when we were in the Heights this week, but the shop was extremely fragrant that day and the boys' stomachs just couldn't handle the overwhelming smells. We had to walk back out before we even closed the door behind us. No cheese for us, at least not on this visit!

On a positive note, we found a red-bellied woodpecker on the oak across the street after our disappointing cheese-store outing. As Will said, a woodpecker sighting can brighten any day. Well, it can if you're bird-obsessed like some people around here!

Overall, we had an amazing week finding new things to do and see and explore in our city.

A Saturday Adventure: Houston's Museum District

It's been a few weeks since we had a full Saturday adventure, but yesterday was just the perfect day to get out and enjoy Houston. We had perfect weather; it was overcast with a high of only 82 degrees (in Houston, in August!). Yesterday, our adventures took us to the Museum District to explore some new-to-us museums.

Our first stop was the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft for their Hands-on Houston monthly craft open house. These sessions are held on the first Saturday of each month and they are always free. This month, kids were making braceLEDS, bracelets with LED lights and a circuit.  It was very cool!

Henry's finished braceLED.

It was such a pretty day that the activities were held outside in the museum's craft garden. We spotted this monarch fluttering around before we popped inside the museum to check out the current exhibits. 

Our next stop was the Asia Society Texas Center for lunch and their Creation Station activities.

We pass this building all the time when we visit Gramma and Grampa's house.

The water garden is spectacular. 12,000 gallons of water constantly recirculate on the roof of the building; there are three fountains as well as artificial fog that swirls around the edges of the rooftop pool. 

On to the craft activity! We made Himalayan mandalas.

The last museum visit was to the Weather Museum, which is located just kitty-corner from the Asia Society Texas Center.

The museum is small, but the boys learned all about different climates and extreme weather phenomena. 

Our final stop of the day was Hermann Park. It was just too pretty not to spend some time outside. Henry loves the stick house (Patrick Dougherty's Boogie Woogie). 

Then we just walked around the park. We found lots and lots of ducks,

including these long-legged black-bellied whistling ducks.

Best of all, we found this mama duck out for a walk with her four babies! 

 Destination: mud puddle for some swimming lessons.

 

 

This squirrel thought for sure we had some food with us.

We also found a bunny. 

It was so beautiful!

Henry was obsessed with the fountains and getting sprayed.

And of course it wouldn't be a visit to Hermann Park without running up and down the hill.

 

It was a very full day and we ended it with a late dinner at Barnaby's.

Here's to many more Saturday adventures!

Summer Break: Week Nine

Summer is flying by! This week, the boys had a Crazy ChemWorks camp by Mad Science each morning, and it was awesome! They did all sorts of experiments and had a grand time.

Our afternoons were pretty quiet. We had swim lessons and a library outing, and Henry had a playdate with a friend, but we were mostly stuck at home waiting for repairmen to arrive to fix things.

Some highlights from the week:  reading, reading, reading.  

Reading in the laundry basket?  

Wet boy after swim lessons.

We found a new-to-us park

and played for a bit after camp one day.

Henry and I made refrigerator pickles again,

and ate a rocket-shaped popsicle on a hot day.

And finally, we wrote secret notes in invisible ink (lemon juice).

Only three more weeks left of summer!