I was in Houston this past weekend, mostly for my cousin's 40th birthday but also to see my mom and sister. Jeremy kept the kids at home.
I am so proud of Jeremy. He is a good man, a loving husband, and such an amazing father. When I am not able to do my usual activities with the kids, he steps right in to make the time just fly by.
He took the kids to the annual St. John's Easter egg hunt where the kids made kaleidoscopes, learning to look at Easter in a new way, and hunted eggs.
He took the kids to look at cars. I see this picture and I wonder about my daughter's future self and what she will be like when she is old enough to really be behind that wheel.
They went to the outlet mall, possibly to shop, but clearly to ride rides as well.
Jeremy found this great deal at Goodwill... a new old trike that Sydney can use now and John can use later.
Then on Sunday, he took the kids to Blue Hole.
They have been walking around Blue Hole for the last week or two as Jeremy is on this regimen with the kids, to get them in shape for our up-coming Disney vacation.
After Blue Hole, it was off to Dairy Queen for delicious blizzards.
Then in the evening, Jeremy taught Sydney to play Heroes III.
The best part? He knew to take the camera with him to document the weekend for me. What an amazing guy.
Yesterday was official "Springing in the Backyard" day.
It was difficult to get pictures of Sydney's involvement.
She did help... sporadically. She helped me unload the car and was wonderful about checking on me every so often and getting me more water. She painted for about ten minutes. She offered many words of encouragement.
But mostly, she stayed in the house and honestly, for those six hours or so I have no idea what she did.
But I found this lego house on the coffee table... her first ever solo home build.
St. Patrick's Day is such a rich holiday for our family... full of so many different, and often bittersweet, meanings and associations.
First of all, it is a celebration of the heritage that Jeremy and I share and find the most meaningful in our respective family trees. The Nolens have ties back to Ireland and Jeremy and his brothers have always enjoyed the association with all things Irish.
I used to have a sort of iffy view of laying claim to any heritage other than "Texan" or "American" because all of my great-great grandparents were born in the US and most of them in Texas. It's hard to claim a European lineage when you cannot name the ancestor who came over from Europe. My recent foray into genealogy, though, has given me my own Irish connection in the form of Hugh McGuffin. From what I have gathered, Hugh was born in Ireland in 1780 and was left in Ireland when his parents and sister came to America. He followed them to America some time later, settling near Sabine, Texas (close to the Louisiana border). The account I have from my aunt suggests that Hugh was left in the care of the Catholic church and was kicked out of the church for running away to America. What is for certain is that Hugh, living in Sabine, offered shelter and care for Moses Austin (father of Stephen F. Austin) when Moses was robbed and left for dead. While caring for Moses Austin, Hugh became interested in Stephen F. Austin's colony in Texas and relocated to Lavaca. Hugh served as a delegate at the Texas Convention of 1832 and continued to serve Texas before, during and after the Revolution.
So, having done the research and having found my connection to Ireland, I feel completely at peace with my love of celebrating St. Patrick's Day.
For both Jeremy and myself, though, the holiday is also a reminder of James, who loved the holiday even more than we do. Because of that connection, I always try to let Jeremy plan the family activity of the day, knowing he will pick something that makes him think of his brother without having to talk about him. Bike riding on the Georgetown dam seems like a very James thing to do. Having the entire family out in the fresh air, walking around just to be out in the fresh air walking, also very James, and not something I would have ever come up with.
Back at the house, Jeremy made Irish Lamp Stew, since his own historical research showed that corned beef and cabbage is Jewish in origin and only considered Irish because it's what Irish immigrants bought from the Jewish shopkeepers who settled the north east ahead of them.
For the kids, though, it's just a day for wearing the color green, for spending time with family and friends and so I'm glad that Andrew came over in the evening to finish out the day with us.
Sydney and I went back to Southwestern today. She rode her bike some more and I read. The new news of the day, though, is my (sort of) new glasses.
I had a pair of readers from 2005 when I last went to the eye doctor. He prescribed them because I was getting headaches after a long day of working on data stuff in Excel or grading papers, or reading.
Then I moved to Kindergarten where the print is bigger, the papers get smiley faces, and there is no Excel data mining. I stopped getting headaches and I stopped using the readers.
I also stopped reading. For the past five years, I really haven't read at all. Having two kids means reading in 10-15 minute spurts and I hate that. Then for Christmas I got Jeremy's Kindle and started taking it to the gym and suddenly, the headaches were back.
I went ahead and went back to the eye doctor. I still have 20/20 vision. My eyes are just lazy. The muscles are weak and trying to focus on small print or a computer screen wears out those muscles and the glasses should help.
Oh, and he told me to hold a pencil away from my eyes and practice focusing on it as I bring it in closer. He called it "pencil push-ups." My final take away though was that I need glasses to exercise.
I feel like I may be going into Witness Protection... new hair, glasses, all the weight loss. It's a whole new me. But I still hang out at my alma mater.
The best part was that glasses the doctor wanted me to use are the same pair he sold me in 2005... and I still knew where to find them.
Everyone on Facebook (in the greater Round Rock area) seems to be going to the Play for All Abilities playground. It's pretty much the neatest public park I have ever seen... including the Creative Playscape in Georgetown and it just opened. It is completely wheelchair accessible, including a wheelchair swing and a ramp accessible playscape. There are different sections that address sensory and gross motor needs. An entire section is a town in miniature, which I suppose could be used to teach street safety and community skills.
Mostly, it is a massive park with a single exit point. The fence is high and if you settle yourself at the exit, your kids cannot get out. And the exit is a double gate so that even if you let one slip past you, you have an additional ten feet to reach them before they really get out.
Totally worth the hype.
The plan today was to meet up with Kelly and her son Jaxon. I didn't realize that Kelly had also invited Kara, so it was a nice surprise to see her there as well as my other friend, Elissa, who used to work with Kelly and Kara and me. Like I said, everyone in the greater Round Rock area was there.
I didn't get all of the pictures I wanted because John was still tired from Sea World and spent most of the afternoon in the car, eating his lunch and having some down time. Kelly was a great friend, though, and watched Sydney for me so that I could be with John.
Sydney really liked the pretend town section and rode her bike around and around.
From the park, I met back up with Kara and Jenny to shop the local consignment event.
Afterwards, I took John home for his nap and Sydney and I went to Southwestern so she could ride her bike some more.
Sydney and I had such a fun day. I'm glad Kelly talked me into going to the Play for All park even though it was crowded and I'm sure we'll go again soon.
Today was official "renew your season pass" day for Fords and Nolens.
We loaded up the kids and drove to Sea World to start another fun season with whales and dolphins, sharks and penguins, clown fish and blue tangs (Nemos and Dorries).
We caught the Shamu show and once again Sydney hung out afterwards to ask some questions of the trainers.
This visit, her focus was on the big splashes that the orcas can make and she learned that the bigger orcas can make bigger splashes. She really enjoyed the show (as she will demonstrate later).
After the show, the Fords wanted to stop to eat and Sydney and John wanted to ride the rides. John is finally tall enough to ride the Shamu ride which was unfortunate in that it meant I had to ride with Sydney. I told Jeremy later that the ride wasn't that bad... but that my screams were not voluntary. He tried (unsuccessfully) not to mock me.
From there, we went to the dolphins and both kids got to feed the dolphins.
Then we went to the Coral Reef exhibit where we settled in for almost an hour. John and Sabrina were mesmerized by the fish. Jenny has all of the pictures of Sabrina and fish, but I know I held her for a good ten minutes and other than a stream of babble and the occasional movement that signified pure excitement and joy, she was completely fixated on the fish.
Now, Sydney likes the aquarium. I know she does. She thinks it's a lot of fun to be in there and she loves looking at the fish... for about 10-15 minutes. Which is a reasonable preschooler amount of time to focus on something. So what to do when everyone else in the party is still looking at fish?
Host your own show, of course.
Sydney stood in the front of the aquarium talking to everyone and no one about her show. At various points her brother was being an orca in the show and at various points she was pretending he was an orca who wasn't cooperating with the show as he wandered off to see more fish. Towards the end of our time there, Jenny suggested a video and so I have the tale end of the act.
I love my kids.
My favorite, though, was the end of the day, when Sydney pointed out to her dad that not every kid gets to go to Sea World (a lesson in gratitude I have been trying to impart to her) and that she really felt sad for all of the kids who don't get to do these fun things with their parents. Gratitude accepted, Sydney.
Every year, I think of all of the fun things we can do around town in the summer when I'm off and every year the summer gets here and it's so darn hot that we wind up going to these places and abandoning them less than an hour later in favor of air conditioning.
This year, I got smarter, and planned an all-outside Spring Break instead. Today we went to the Botanical Gardens and Hartman Prehistorical Gardens which we had never visited before.
It is, as one might expect, just a really big garden. In which you may not pick any flowers. Or walk on the grass.
No worries. They have all of these walkways and there's enough to look at to occupy even preschoolers' attentions for a while. Mostly, though, they had lots and lots of doodlebugs.
The thing about the entire place that I found fascinating was the proximity to Mopac, one of our major highways. I mean, here you are in this serene garden setting...
And there's Mopac... no really... right there.
And when you get to the Hartman Prehistoric Gardens, you really understand how close you are to the freeway.
So very bizarre. In fact, that overpass is the part of Mopac that we park under to go to the Nature Center. I really didn't understand that we could exit the back of the Botanical Gardens until we got there and found the gate open. So we finished our garden tour...
... said good-bye to the Prehistoric Garden...
... walked a block down that road whose name eludes me...
... and said hello to the Nature Center.
It was a beautiful spring day... lovely weather, a cool breeze and overcast skies. I am so glad we spent it outside and got to see one more aspect of the South Austin parks system. We are so lucky to have this natural oasis so readily accessible.
