A Crazy (Hot) Day with Nolens

After Jack's baptism weekend, most of the family went home, but Grandma Nolen, Grandpa Nolen, Uncle James, Aunt Rachel and Will all stayed for another day or so.

Because all of them are from not just out of town like the other relatives, but out of state, we wanted to pack as much fun into our time as possible. We started Monday morning early with a trip to the Austin Nature and Science Center.

The kids enjoyed throwing rocks in the water and Sydney convinced her grandpa to let her wade in the stream. They would each gather up rocks from the side of the stream and then walk to the middle and throw them in.

After playing in the water, we went to the Dinosaur Pit. Uncle James became fixated on uncovering all of the fossil (that we think was a plesiosaur). Sydney was trying to help, but all she could really get was that Uncle James and Will were using brushes in the sand and she kept brushing sand on to the fossil.

Will, we discovered, is a natural leader. After about five minutes of hard archeological labor, he went over to Grandpa Nolen, sitting in the shade, and asked him if he could help. When Grandpa got up to help, Will took his spot in the shade, leaving Uncle James and Grandpa doing all the digging.

A mere hour and half in the 95+ degree heat was enough for Sydney, Will and the rest of us, so we went to lunch and then on to the Children's Museum.

Both Sydney and Will enjoyed making crafty things at the Museum's rotating exhibit hall.

The following morning, although Uncle James, Aunt Rachel and Will had left, Grandma and Grandpa Nolen were still here, so we took them out to Blue Hole to throw rocks and then they took us shopping (I think we got the best deal there, especially me, since it was my birthday we were shopping for).

I have read/heard/just think that children loose most of the memories of things that happen before the age of three (or so) because at age ten (or so) the brain does a big memory dump of all the things it doesn't really need and that the way to keep those early childhood memories alive is to access them semi-frequently up to that point and then the brain will consider them important and hold on to them. That's one of the many reasons for doing this blog. To keep up with all of this great out of state family and to help cement (or at least document) the memories we make with them for Sydney.

We love you, Nolens!