Water bed

After seeing this on pinterest I decided to give it a try. My kids loved it...for the five minutes it lasted before it started leaking. As I type this Eli is trying to fill it back up one cupful at a time. I guess I'll go try to repair it now. :)

Where's the treasure Matey?

Our activity today was to go on a pirate treasure hunt. Ella and Eli made treasure maps and we took our pirate hats and swords.

We drove in Jeeves and pretended he was our ship. Then landed at Wild Island (Hans Suter Wildlife Refuge). We fought trees and grass and other visitors-and even saw some butterflies. We enjoyed a picnic, but we were unable to find the treasure we came for (letter boxes).

So instead we got ice cream. Yum.

Commencement

Ella has graduated from kindergarten. She did not want school to end, but is now busy with swim team and is happy. Here she is with her teacher, Mrs. McVay, and the principal.

Beach to Bay

 Today we ran the Beach to Bay Relay Marathon!

The day began very early.  Chris, who ran the first leg of the race, got up at four in the morning to head out to the bus pick up that would transport him to the start of the race.  Here is a picture of the line for that bus:

 

My day started much later than Chris'.  I began by having two dreams:

Dream #1

I was about to leave to go to the race when Chris comes home (it was 7:01).  I asked him why he was home since I knew he hadn't run yet (the race starts at 7:00).  He replied that the race had been cancelled and motioned for me to look outside.  When I looked out the window there was a huge storm with lightning and pelting rain.  I was devastated.  

Dream #2

Chris came home before my alarm went off (6:15 am).  I ask him why he is home and he tells me that he was disqualified from the race.  I asked him how he got disqualified and he replied that he got caught smoking weed.  I was shocked and sat up in bed to look at him.  You what!? He told me that he had been eating and it was offered him so he took it.  While talking to him I noticed that it was just his head on the floor beside the bed.  I mentioned to him that his body was missing.  At that point I realized I was dreaming.

I was beyond relieved when I woke up (at 6:15) and it wasn't raining.  I was even happier when I received a text from Chris at 6:30 letting me know he was all set to run.

I carpooled with half my team and was dropped off at my starting point at 0800.  My leg of the race was the last (sixth) leg so I had plenty of time to wait around.  I took pictures of the end of my leg of the race:

 

Essentially I was to run around the bay.  (I did not swim across the water. )

I had a lot of fun cheering on the runners that came by while I waited for my team mate.  I was giddy the whole three hours I had to wait for my turn to run, and squealed with excitement when I heard my team number announced indicating that my team mate was almost to the exchange point.  The baton hand off happened in this chute:

It was a beautiful day to run.  I started my leg of the race at 11:17 and finished the race at 12:07.  My leg of the race was 4.86 miles.  I figured I ran a pace of 10:10 per mile.  It was hot and I was wearing my Vibrams.  I mention this because I have learned not to wear my vibrams when running on blacktop in the heat of the day.  The road was so hot!--and my feet felt it.

I had fun cheering for the other runners and getting the spectators to cheer for me.  I always enjoy meeting runners before a race and chatting with them.  I liked the free pizza at the end too.  But the best part of the race was when Chris joined me for the last half mile.  He ran with me and let me sprint to the end ahead of him (he said he let me beat him because he knew I'd punch him if he didn't and he was right.)

Here's the part of my team that was able to make it to the end of the race party.  It was crowded and parking was difficult to find so two teammates couldn't join us.

 

 And here is my whole team.  I can say "my" because I am the team captain.  I was somehow able to convince these five people to run this race with me.  (Thank you!)

 

Our new hobby

 We are excited to announce that we have commenced Letterboxing!

What is Letterboxing? It's a British hobby transplanted to the USA.  Letterboxes are hidden boxes with a stamp and pad of paper inside them.  There are clues and directions to find the letterboxes online at websites such as these: http://www.letterboxing.org/ http://www.atlasquest.com/

When you go letterboxing you bring your own stamp, stamp pad, pen, and journal.  Once a letterbox has been found you stamp your stamp in the box' journal and stamp the box' stamp in your journal. 

In short, it is a treasure hunt! 

Even in our small South Texas town there are tons of letterboxes to find. 

Today was our first treasure hunt.  I looked up the directions to a couple letterboxes in the neighborhood and we decided to go for a family bike ride to find them.

Here we are with our first ever letterbox find!

Eli signed his name next to his stamp.

Do you see the letterbox?  Look closely.

 

I'm glad Ella was with us.  She retrieved the boxes from their hiding places.

 

 

The letterboxes aren't very big.  Here's the second one we found.  That is my stamp next to it.

 

We had a ton of fun today and I'm excited to go out and find more letterboxes.  I wonder how many we can find before we move?

Camping fun

Camping is our favorite. Here is why:

Our ward campout was up at Lake Corpus Christi over Easter weekend. It is a Texas tradition to camp Easter weekend and we were happy to join in the fun. (They even get that Friday off from school)

Chris was working on Thursday so I drove the kids up right after picking Ella up from school. When we arrived only one other family was there and set up. I started unloading the car and soon realized my children had left me to play in the lake--fully clothed.

After setting up the tent and failing to start a fire (I blame the wind), I was happy to use our neighbor's fire and called my kids up from the lake to roast hotdogs.




Rhys discovered that he loves Cheetos.

Eli loved his hotdogs.



See, they did eventually change into their swim suits:



Rhys loves camping.
This is how far from the lake our tent was:


The lake was a source of never ending fun.



The kids swam late into the evening.


My kids are the best campers ever. Rhys when to bed at 8:30, Eli at 9:00 and Ella at 9:30. I was the only parent at the campfire who could relax. Oh, and Chris arrived at 9:30 to make my camping joy complete.

The morning brought us more swimming in the lake. And a ride on our friends catamaran. And more playing in the lake.

And a nap.


Well, I didn't nap, but everyone else did!

The wind broke our tent pole so we packed up to go home. We were planning on leaving anyway since Chris had to work the next morning so this didn't ruin our plans.

Chris loves me oodles and oodles so he volunteered to take the kids home with him-feed them, bathe them and put them to bed-and I was able to stay late into the evening enjoying the campfire and my friends' company.

We are all looking forward to our next campout.

Houston-there was no problem

Ella had her first ever Spring Break last week. We live in the Spring Break destination of South Texas so I decided to avoid the beaches and head to Houston. Chris had to work so it was just the kids and me. Here is what we did:

We drove up to Houston on Wednesday. Amazingly we had to make zero stops on the three hour drive but did have to rush to a restroom as soon as we arrived. We then went to the Houston Zoo.

While at the zoo I reminisced on the past zoos of my life. The Utah Hogle zoo was remembered when we found this:

I have many memories of my mother taking me to that zoo. These memories involve this type of lion drinking fountain and the homemade popcorn my mom brought for us to snack on. I also remember pretending to be a Prairie Dog. Like this:



Next I thought of the St. Louis zoo. I loved that zoo. It was free. Also, it introduced me to my favorite animal:

The Okapi

I was happy to discover that the Houston zoo has Okapis. I was excited to show them to my children.


Finally, I remembered the Tucson zoo. Ah, the Tucson zoo. It is so simple and perfect. No excessive walking between the animals; they are all perfectly spaced so my kids don't get too bored or tired. In fact, you can spend an hour there and see everything. Perfect for a family of young children. This picture reminded me of the Tucson zoo because we loved to pose like the flamingos there:

I know Rhys isn't posing like a flamingo, but he did look at them so that counts.

Here is another picture of the Houston zoo:

Don't get scared, it's Ella and Eli.

After the zoo we played at the park, which I found out was funner than the zoo. Hmmmm.

Okay. On to the next adventure.

We spent the night at Days Inn and woke up ready to go to....

Space Center Houston!

Eli was super excited to go see a REAL Rocket Ship. And the wasn't disappointed. The first think we did (after loosing and finding Eli) was to take a tour of the actual NASA astronaut training facilities.

Here we are looking in at the simulation room. Everything in it is fake, but made to help train astronauts.

After the training facilities we were taken to Rocket Park were we saw the actual Mercury 4 rocket ship.

Back in the Space center we went to the Starship Gallery. Here we saw moon rocks and...

the Apollo 17 Command Module

And Astronauts! Well, statues of them anyway.

Next we decided to go to the children's play area. We promptly lost Eli (yes, again) and found him. After playing for a while it was time to drive home.

Spring Break sure was fun!