Onion Creek

We headed out to share one of our favorite swimming holes with Daddy this morning. Onion Creek in McKinney Falls State Park lets the little guys jump off 'cliffs.' Not much more than 10 ft from the water, limestone rocks offer the perfect jumping platform. A picnic lunch and a small hike to the Smith Rock Shelter ended our day.

Blue Hole

The Blue Hole in Wimberley, TX is one of those swimming holes that will only explode in the next 10 years. Today it is still one of the less visited places since you have to drive a bit farther from the city. Definitely worth the miles though! Word will get out and before we know it this pristine, hidden gem will be crowded and loud. It was a great afternoon enjoying the cool water, tree swing, warm sun, and topping the afternoon off with yet another sno cone.

Wimberly Glassworks

We started off our field trip to Wimberley Glassworks to watch an unbelievable glass making demonstration. Today's demo: green and purple lamp shade. In less than 30 minutes we watched them gather a drop of melted glass heated to a temperature over 2000 degrees, rolled, shaped, broken colored glass added, melted again, reshaped, more air, more color...until it became a gorgeous lamp shade and placed in another oven to cool for the next 24 hours. WOW!

Museum Madness

Even though it was not our intentions when we started out, we ended the day by visiting 3 museums. First was the Texas Music Museum. Unfortunately a bust. A handful of musical instruments and walls lined with poster board for each musician from Texas kept us entertained for less than 10 minutes. The kids had the most fun at the water fountain and running in the parking lot.

Next stop, Texas Natural Science Center. Here we found 4 floors of interactive exhibits that kept us busy for an hour.

And our final destination, Austin Children's Museum. Of course our favorite with plenty of hands on. 2 hours later, we were all ready for bed!

Fairy Time

After 4 1/2 months of wiggling...we finally lost a tooth! Even though he wanted to lose it at school so he could carry the tooth home in a cute little tooth necklace, we can't wait to see what the tooth fairy brings tonight.

Windy Point

We headed out to Windy Point (Bob Wentz Park) on Lake Travis Sunday morning, hoping to beat the typical weekend crowd. The pavilions were already taken but plenty of "beach front" area to stake claim to. Unfortunately, the park is not what I remember from 20 years ago...more people, more beer cans, less wind, and less sail boats.

The kids enjoyed the sun, water, and feeding fish right from your hand!

Music Under the Star - Free

Tonight we headed downtown to partake in Music Under the Star. Not only were we entertained by John Pointer, an amazing musician and beat boxer, there was free admission into the Bob Bullock Museum (not to mention free parking in the garage). The kids enjoyed free Blue Bell ice cream and a free Good Pop (a popsicle trailer that was on our "to visit" list) while dancing. Mighty Fine Burgers and Rudy's also served free food!

Looking forward to the 2011 concert series next July...

DFW

After a LONG weekend with Grandma, I picked up the kids treating them to some DFW fun. The boys and I spent 7 hours at Six Flags...closing the park down! Thanks to our thick soled tennis shoes and double insoles, Alex easily passed the 48" height requirement to ride some of the serious roller coasters. The Titan (can you believe it?), Shock Wave, and Flashback were some of our favorites. These 2 are definitely thrill seekers and I need to toughen my stomach up if I plan on hanging with them the next 10 years :)

Quick Titan facts: Titan features over a mile of twisted steel with huge sweeping spirals, spectacular plunges, a 120-foot-long tunnel shrouded in total darkness, a series of camel-back hills, huge spiral curves, and high-speed helixes.

Over 255 feet tall
Drop speeds exceeding 85 mph
120-foot underground tunnel
One spiral, camel-back hill and carousel curve
2.8 million pounds of steel used in supports

Then I took all 3 to Bedford Splash this afternoon before tackling the drive back to Austin. Thanks for the break Grandma...it was nice having a bit of "quiet time."

Bananarchy

And our field trip days are not complete without visiting a new trailer. Bananarchy serves frozen bananas dipped in your choice of chocolate, white chocolate, or peanut butter then rolled in a topping of your choice. Chocolate-toffee, chocolate-M&M's, and white chocolate-sprinkles were definitely the highlights of my day!

Art Attack

We joined our cousins for story time at the Blanton Museum of Art located downtown on campus. We discovered shapes, lines, and colors within many different works of art. The boys seemed to enjoy it but to a 36 inch toddler, some of the colorful sculptures looked just like a play scape. Their favorite exhibit was Cildo Meireles, composed of 600,000 coins, 800 communion wafers, 2000 cattle bones, 80 paving stones, and black cloth. Maybe because they were able to "touch" this one?

Then off to the Austin Museum of Art to catch the temporary exhibit of Chris Jordan: Running the Numbers. VERY intriguing and even left the kids asking questions!

And what is a trip downtown without a stop off at our favorite hot dog vendor. We were able to tell Big Mike hi of Mike & Mike's.