Summer Break: Week Five

Last week, the kids and I visited the library three times, went to the Children's Museum and the zoo and the movies, listened to a concert at Miller Outdoor Theatre, played hard, and celebrated the Fourth of July with friends and family!

The boys love the Children's Museum but it is always so crowded, especially in the summer. We got there right at opening last Monday and it was busy... but the boys played hard and had fun and we left before it got too insane.

Henry lost his second tooth last week. It was wiggly and he asked Gene to pull it out Monday night. The Tooth Fairy visited our house two times in three days!

Did you know there was a leap second last Tuesday? We watched the extra second as it was added to the clock. Check out Henry's toothless grin!

On Wednesday, we were back in the Museum District to go to the Houston Young Artists' Concert at Miller Outdoor Theatre. The young musicians were incredibly talented and the show was phenomenal. The only bummer was the heavy, sideways-blowing rain that reached our seats, even though we were well under cover!

We spent Thursday morning at the zoo. It was warm but not too hot.

Summer = relaxing on the grass, head on a football.

Henry and Gene picked up some Crave cupcakes on Friday, just because.

We celebrated Weezie's 14th birthday last week too! She is such a good cat and was curled up with Will's How Things Work  book. Doesn't it look like she's reading all about levers?

Henry has really been into creating his own games lately. This is Monster chess, which is similar to regular chess but with some wacky rules. He's also created a monster card game, but we're still tweaking the rules on that one. 

And finally, we had a wonderful Fourth of July. We celebrated with Gene's family in the afternoon and then went to our friends' annual Fourth of July barbeque and swim party. It is always a good time. This year, the boys are finally good swimmers, so they had a blast jumping off the diving board and swimming around. The evening ended with sparklers and fireworks.

I hope your Fourth of July was full of barbeques, waving American flags and sparklers on the driveway!

Summer Break: Week Four

The kids were at camp at the Houston Arboretum last week. Will and Henry aren't huge fans of camp in general, but they love Nature Trekkers camp, which is full of hiking, hands-on activities, and getting dirty! An added bonus is that we just go in the mornings, so there is plenty of lazy time at home too. Last week's theme was "Wet and Wild," so the boys went pond dipping and fishing. The highlight of Will's week was actually getting in the pond, up to his waist, to help pull out lily pads that were taking over the pond. He could not stop talking about that service project. The boys had a great week at camp!  

When we weren't at camp, we played a lot of games, like chess and Monopoly.

On Thursday, we had a friend over for a playdate and spent the afternoon at the MFAH, where we visited galleries and worked on art projects.

 

These sculptures were inspired by The Hydrospatial City by Gyula Kosice. 

We could not miss the Shadow Monsters exhibit.

Henry's space utopia.

Will went to a birthday party on Saturday at Sky Zone. This boy is really good at dodgeball, but he also loved the foam pit.

And finally, I'll leave you with a picture of my toothless boy! Henry asked Gene to pull out his wiggliest tooth on Sunday night. Henry has been watching his friends lose teeth for years, and he's finally joining the toothless crowd. It's immensely exciting for a seven-year-old to finally have the Tooth Fairy visit his room.  

What a way to end the week!

A Sunday Adventure: Father's Day in Galveston

We love a good adventure, so on Sunday, we headed down to Galveston for Father's Day! We started at the Aquarium at Moody Gardens. The kids get in free with their good grades, which is always nice. 

The aquarium has a lot of sea turtles, which is perfect for our sea-turtle-obsessed boy. If you look closely under the rock, you can see Chloe, a Kemp's Ridley with paralyzed back legs that make her unrealeasable into the wild.  

The aquarium had a small stand dedicated to helping sea turtles. The boys got to hold a Kemp's Ridley turtle shell. We know a lot about turtles due to Henry's fascination with them, but we did learn some new information: if you see plastic bottles on the beach with diamond shapes cut out of them, those are turtles' bite marks. Turtles often mistake plastic bags and plastic bottles for food, so it is really important to make sure trash is put in the trash or recycling bins!

More turtles for Henry.

We also saw more jawfish, like we saw in San Diego.

After lunch at Moody Gardens, we headed to Galveston Island State Park to go to the beach. It's not as pretty as San Diego, but the boys enjoyed the warm water and learning how to body surf. 

Sand sculpting again -- this time, a crab!

We did our best to pick up trash on the beach. We found an oil bottle with a diamond-shaped turtle bite out of it and threw it right out.  

We had a great time at the beach until a crab pinched Gene's foot and then a few minutes later, Henry cut his foot on a shell! We decided to rinse off, bandage Henry's foot and head back to town for the rest of the afternoon. 

I really wanted to visit the new Bryan Museum that just opened but they are currently only offering hour-long docent-led tours, and that's never the best choice for our family. We'll have to go back in the future when we can explore on our own.

Instead, we headed to the Galveston Railroad Museum.

We'd never been before, so it was fun to explore.

And then we headed to the Ocean Star Offshore Drilling Rig Museum. We'd been before, but it was worth a second visit.

Goofy Henry looks like he's falling asleep on the job!

Dad and his boys on Father's Day

By the time we finished our museum visits, it was dinnertime. We ate at Fisherman's Wharf, like we always do when we're in Galveston. There's nothing better than fresh seafood and local beer (we tried Galveston Brewing Company's Tiki Wheat) with a view of the Elissa and the water.  

We ended the day with ice cream at La King's Confectionery: chocolate chip cookie dough for Will and mint chocolate chip for Henry, with licks of both for Mom. We watched the taffy being pulled and came home with a bag of treats to enjoy this week.

Our day in Galveston was full and busy and fun and just the perfect way to spend Father's Day together.

Father's Day

We had a busy, fun-filled Father's Day weekend! We spent Sunday in Galveston so we decided to give Gene his Father's Day gifts a day early. 

We found a really cool pop-up camping card at Barnes and Noble to go along with the "Keep Calm and Camp On" t-shirt. The boys and I also found some Stone Brewing Company beer (a San Diego brewery) and Guinness potato chips at Central Market last week. 

All Gene really wanted to do was barbeque a pork shoulder on the grill. He ended up having some Cub Scout work to attend to and made homemade buns for the pulled pork sandwiches, but he did spend a lot of the day outside with his grill. 

Will really enjoys helping me in the kitchen these days, so he cut up all the potatoes for dinner.  

Grilling and chilling with his boys out back. This was Gene's favorite part of the day!

Happy Father's Day to our bread-baking, grill-loving, adventurous dad and all the other fathers out there!

Summer Break: Week Three

Our third week of summer break was quiet and a bit rainy. Tropical Storm Bill sauntered ashore Tuesday and had little impact in Houston, except to scare everyone into thinking it would be a repeat of the horrible Memorial Day floods. Our Tuesday swim and art classes were canceled and we had a quiet day inside.

Here's a quick look at what we did this week:

Last Sunday, our church celebrated the Sacrament of Matrimony with cake, mimosas, and whole spread of food. It happened to fall on my parents' wedding anniversary, which made it extra special!

Before the rain: we headed to Barnes and Noble with our finished reading logs.  

Grilling and chilling on Tuesday (the day Tropical Storm Bill came ashore).

Lots and lots of free play: building cool marble runs with our Q Ba Maze.

A little yoga in the morning.

We had a busy Thursday, running errands and heading to two libraries. Gene was traveling, so the boys and I treated ourselves to dinner at the new Barnaby's in the Museum District! They give the kids Cubebots to play with while they wait for their food. We are in the Museum District A LOT and are thrilled to have another dining option.

Despite visiting the Looscan Library on Thursday morning, we had to go to the Montrose Library after dinner to get more books. Will's latest obsession is Goosebumps.

I finally ordered our Tastebook! I have been compiling our favorite recipes for five years on the Tastebook website and finally took the time to edit/review the first 100 recipes and have them printed. Our Tastebook arrived on Thursday night. I think the boys were just as excited as I was to have the book in print!

Summer is flying by!