Nature Center and Playing Around Town

Sydney was actually at church camp during this the first part of this adventure, but I wanted to post it on her blog anyway.

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One of my absolute favorite Austin-area outing is the Nature Center. I try to take all of my guests out to it at least once. It's beautiful and very relaxing.

Summer enjoyed the outdoors portion I think more than the rest of her family. Her daughter is a little unsure of the water right now and it was also just too darn hot. But since it's Jack's favorite, we had to spend at least a little bit of time there.

Ah, happy Jack!

Meanwhile, back at the cave...

The indoor section made Summer's son so very happy! He and his Poppa just walked around the indoor cave and chatted amiably about the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite. This was the day that I had to really remind myself that Summer's son is not yet three. He and Jack are about ten months apart in age, so really, right now, they are both "two." Obviously that ten months is a big deal at this age, and they are just very different in their personalities, but still, how many two (almost three) year olds do you know who can explain the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite? I thought it was so very neat that Summer's son could.

One of the things that Jack learned about hanging out with Summer was the many uses and exciting qualities of an umbrella. Summer and her family use umbrellas for sun coverage regularly, so they had borrowed our parasol for the Nature Center. Jack thought that was the coolest.

Speaking of "cool" -- it is extremely hot here already, so after only an hour or so at the Nature Center, we all needed a gallon (or more) of tea and since there just happens to be a Casa Ole in Georgetown, and since Casa Ole just happened to originate in Summer's hometown and also just happens to be one of the places we hung out at during college, we just had to go there.

During the meal, I got to go for a little walk with the two little boys... both of whom had reached the end of their sitting still time. We got orange balloons from the front podium and went outside to walk around. Neither of the boys wanted their balloons tied on them (of course) and so Jack's was soon given as a gift to the bird high in the sky. Summer's son managed to keep up with his. My favorite part of this little mini-adventure, was that after walking around outside, carefully holding on to his balloon, he wanted to return it to the podium when we got back. I had never heard of a child "borrowing" a balloon! I thought it was really neat that he got all of the enjoyment he wanted out of it and then wanted it back right where it came from. Conservation is a big theme in his family. Summer uses reusable pouches in place of ziplock baggies, for example, and I thought her son's treatment of the balloon showed an internalizing of that concept. We enjoy our surrounding and then we return things to the way they were.

After lunch, we went and picked up Sydney, who had finished church camp, and went to the new store/play space downtown.

All four of the kids had a great time. Sydney and Jack played very well together. The store hires a "play coach" to help entertain the kids, which seems silly and possibly superfluous until you bring both of your kids to this place and one wants to play at the table and the other on the floor and then you are really grateful to this very engaging young lady, who it turns out, is a Southwestern student.

(She was also helpful when I wanted to be taking pictures -- see her back there playing with Sydney. Also, Jack is blurry because he missed his nap and had to be in constant motion.)

I think my favorite part of this portion of the adventure was watching Summer and her daughter. The baby was so excited by this simple ramp toy. She just giggled and smiled the entire time she was playing with it and her joy was perfectly reflected in her mother's face.

I mean, look at how happy and sweet she looks!

I also had the fun of watching Summer and Andrew pretend that it's the children who have a book and toy obsession. The two of them were so excited by all of the unique kids' toys in this shop and they just "had" to buy a book while they were there.

It was a perfect sort of day all around... fun for the grown-ups and the kids.