Park and Fishing

Friday evening we went to a park.  We haven't been in a long time since it's too hot.  We were all very sweaty by the end, but the kids had a great time and didn't want to leave.  Living in a hot and humid environment is very different and hard to appreciate unless you're in it.  I got a few fun pictures. 

 Damon was given a cool airplane slingshot shooter thing for his birthday and we hadn't been able to find a good area to fly - well we actually didn't put much effort into and kind of forgot about these planes.  Then Doug and I went on a bike ride Thursday evening and found this park and it had a good open area, so we were able to fly the planes.

 Tyler and Doug played basketball with the soccer ball. We'll take the basketball next time.

 Chris really liked flying the planes.  Any big-kid activity is always a hit with him.

 Saturday morning was a fishing activity for Cub Scouts.  There was an instructor and he brought gear for everyone.  We used cane poles so we didn't have to deal with releasing the line.  Doug and I got good at baiting the hooks with meal worms - so much fun :/  It was a good fishing experience though.  We could see the fish attacking the hook and we just had to time it right of when to pull up.  It took us a few tries but everyone was able to catch a fish.  Damon caught 2, Chris caught 3, and Tyler and Kaylee caught 1 each.  Jenna tried only a couple of times and just wanted to eat her fruit snacks :).  They were a type of blue gill fish.

It was so stinking hot.  We wore pants because we were told the mosquitoes were going to be bad.  There were some, but it wasn't terrible.  We were all dripping with sweat - love this Texas heat!

We went swimming successfully in the evening with the whole family.  Doug hasn't been able to go as often as the rest of us, so the kids think it is more fun when he is there.  He is a pretty fun guy :)

4th of July

 We had a fun family 4th of July.  I miss doing things with extended family, but a lot of times it is less stressful and easier doing our own thing.  I had time to do Jenna's hair in the morning, she was willing.  Kaylee had no interest and I ran out of time.

I had asked a friend what their family did for the 4th and she told us where a good spot was to watch the Woodlands parade.  We also followed her suggestion to stop at a Shipley's Donut store and pick up some donuts and kolaches.  This was my first exposure to this popular Texan food.  It is similar to a 'pig-in-a-blanket' but the sausage or ham is completely baked inside a roll.  They were good.  The kids enjoyed their donuts since that is a special treat for us.  

 It was crazy hot at the parade, but we had some shade and they were passing out hand fans that we all used.  We had water and I brought otter pops too which were nice to have.

 There was a clown making balloon animals.  Kaylee got a pig, Jenna a frog (these match their stuffed animals at home), and the boys each got a sword.

 The parade was really long.  They had a few fun things.  This mini train was pretty cool.  They had a number of bands, scouting groups, and business floats.  They also had some people dressed up as the various Disney princesses with their male counter-parts.  I felt bad for most of the people in the parade - it was so hot.

We just took it easy in the afternoon and I think I played a game with Damon and Tyler.  We tried to go swimming in the evening, but the pool ended up being closed because of some thunder.  We actually had tried to go swimming the day before as well, but right as we got there everyone had to get out of the water, again due to thunder.  We were having bad luck at the pool I guess.  For dinner we grilled hamburgers and had corn on the cob, yum.  

At night we got out our fireworks.  A family across the street had some too so it was nice to 'share' each others fireworks.  They had bought some of the big ones that go up in the sky.  They were pretty cool and pretty loud.  

 The girls liked the snaps and Doug had bought some new TNT snaps that were crazy loud and powerful.  We were all surprised when we threw the first ones.

We did some of the normal fountains, smoke bombs, snakes, and sparklers.  The sparklers we had this year were different and weren't as much fun.  We'll have to look for some other ones next year.  As we were finishing up other neighbors were starting theirs.  You could tell a bunch of people have fun buying the bigger types of fireworks.  We were able to see quite a few around the block over the housetops.  After baths we watched out the girls' window and had a pretty good show.  We could hear the booms for about 2 hours straight nearby, it was a lot of fireworks.  It was a fun day.  

Summer stuff and a few random pictures

I went on a walk around the block with the girls and we ran into some trouble. :)  There is still construction nearby and there was a big pile of sand blocking the sidewalk so we had to step down to the street.  Well, the 'dirt' looked pretty solid to me, but it wasn't.  Kaylee's shoe got stuck in the mud and came off and my feet were both totally buried.  It was a pretty funny squishy walk home.  

Doug caught the girls playing with their dolls in their matching dresses.

 We still like doing puzzles and the kids like the ones that their Uncle Richard made for the family.

 Every once in awhile I let the girls have quiet time together.  Sometimes they sleep and other times they play.  This time they fell asleep, ahh :).

 We have been painting a bit over the summer, Damon did this one of Pikachu from Pokeman.

 The girls painted old Christmas ornaments I had and Chris did these two plates, the first is an alligator with a second alligator eating a snack.  The second is a black jaguar with sun and tree.  Tyler painted a fire truck kit that I had on hand, then he glued it together the next day.

The summer has slowed down with our main events over.  Our normal week consists of going to the movies on Tuesdays, swimming a lot at our neighborhood pool, having screen time, and trying not to fight too much.  One thing that we added this year is having "centers".  I have 5 stations and have the kids rotate every 7-10 minutes.  I have a handwriting/coloring station (Damon and Tyler write in their journals), a typing station on the computer, a learning station on the iPad, a reading station, and a variable station that is something fun like puzzles.  They all do pretty well.  The girls have a hard time doing some of them on their own so I have to help them. Overall I think it has worked well.  

We didn't do our Harry Potter summer school like last year, and I miss the fun activities that we did for it.  I should find the website and just do some on our own.  I just am having a hard time getting motivated to do things.  I have been playing with the kids when I can and we go to the pool almost every afternoon after snack.  Everyone does very well at the pool and it is nice to get outside and play in the water.  It is so hot, you don't want to be outside for long unless you are in the water.  

Sea World Trip

On June 25-26 we took a quick family vacation to Sea World in San Antonio.  We left Thursday morning as early as we could - I think we made it out the door by 7:20.  We dodged traffic with the help of Google Maps.  It was nice to take a new route and have the map show that we just saved 30 - 60 min.  It still took us about 4 hours to get there.  We did take one stop at Buc-ee's.  I guess this is quite a famous convenience store in Texas.  It is pretty big for a pit stop place and there were a lot of unique things inside.  They had a bakery and a full counter of jerky you could buy by the pound, lots of souvenir things, and of course the normal snacks and stuff. 

I had packed a lunch so we ate that as we got closer to Sea World so we could start on full tummies.  We brought in snacks and water but I was nervous because they check your bags and it says you are not supposed to bring in coolers or lunches.  We were fine and it really was just a few granola bars and fruit snacks.  

Well when we got there we learned that one of the main shows was cancelled because the beluga whale had just had a baby.  That is nice and everything, but I really had wanted to see THAT show.  Oh well, I guess we'll just have to go again sometime.  So first off we saw the beluga whale swimming with the new baby (gray/brown thing to the right of momma).  It was pretty cool actually.  Then we walked around the park and the boys and I got in line for Rio Loco - it's the raft ride that's like your floating down a river.  Damon and I wore ponchos - I really didn't want to walk around drenched even though it was very hot.  Tyler got soaked by being the one to go under the waterfall at the end - but he didn't mind.  Chris stayed pretty dry and everyone liked it.  Doug stayed out with the girls - hard when you have kids at all different ages and height levels - Chris was barely tall enough to go.  

Next we looked at the penguins - they were so fun.  They started swimming as a group and it was so cool to see them go so fast and make laps in their pool.  There was another indoor exhibit nearby that had some snakes and insects.  It was nice to cool off - but Tyler was getting cold since he was wet.  

Next Tyler and Doug went on the STEEL EEL. It is a big roller coaster (150 feet high) and I don't think Tyler has even been on one before - but he was excited to go.  Well, turns out that he got pretty scared and really was fearing for his life.  Doug felt bad for him on the ride and I could tell when he got off that he was in shock a bit.  Well, he snapped out of it and later when asked what his favorite thing was he said going on the Steel Eel.  I don't know if it really was, or he just wanted to sound brave, but we'll see if he goes on another roller coaster in the future.

Next we found the play area for littlier kids and I wish I would have taken the girls here first.  I felt bad that up until now they really hadn't been able to do much.  Oh well, next time.  We played for a bit then went to go see the pet show.  It was really cute and fun.  They had dogs, cats, birds, geese, a pig, and a rat in the show.  They were well-trained and the kids all liked it.  It was nice to sit down and be in some air conditioning for awhile.  

We got to pet one of the dogs after the show. 

Another show was starting soon nearby so we just headed over there and ate some of our snacks.  This was the sea lion show and it was pretty fun too.  They brought out a huge walrus before the show and it was neat to see it do a few tricks. It had to roll into the water to get off of the platform - it was pretty funny to watch.

The girls were tall enough to go on one ride, the Shamu Express.  It was the little roller coaster. I sat with Kaylee and Damon sat with Jenna.  I don't think either of them liked it much - I didn't either.  It was very jerky and they both hit their heads on the seats.

It was around 5:00 and we were all getting tired.  We started heading over to the Shamu Theater to watch the final show with the killer whales.  We got there a bit early and had to wait for 10 minutes or so before they let us into the theater.  I was holding Kaylee for some of the time and we were all hot and sweaty.  Once we sat down it was ok.  They let the whales out before the show and they were doing laps in the pool, so it was cool to see them go in and out of the water.  Doug was a champion and treked back to the van to get a few more snacks and grab the strollers we had borrowed.  It was nice just being able to walk, but we had some little feet that were tired that we didn't want to carry.  Doug made it back just in time for the show.  It was pretty cool.  

After the show we just headed for the van and picked up some pizza.  I had kept some frozen Gatorades in the cooler in the van so we could have a cold drink when we were done.  Well, they stayed cold too well and were still frozen.  We all sipped them as they melted.  We found our hotel - Marriott Residence Inn and ate our pizza.  We were tired and hungry but the kids always get excited in hotels so they were all crazy again.  We did baths and got them settled for bed and I got things ready for the next day.  A fun but hot and tiring day.

Friday we were debating when to get to the park.  If we got there when it opened at 10 we thought that everyone would want to eat almost as soon as we would get there, so we decided to wait and go after lunch.  We didn't have to check out until 12 so we could stay and eat our leftover pizza and make sandwiches then I wouldn't have to pack up a lunch :).  The kids wanted to go swimming at the hotel so we went down to the pool around 9:00 am.  The water was pretty cool and the hot tub was really hot.  But they all had a good time. There were a lot of bubbles in the hot tub and the girls liked playing with those.

So after lunch we loaded up and headed back to Sea World.  Today we were going to the swimming part of the park.  It was busier today but I figured it would be being a Friday.  The water park was so much fun.  There were so many areas to play in.  We started in one that had a few little slides and everyone loved those.  The girls were really good to go down and Doug or I would catch them at the bottom.  They do really well with their puddle jumpers on.

Then we decided to go on one of the bigger slides together.  There was one where you could have up to 4 people in the tube.  The line was pretty long - I think we waited about 30 min. but the kids had good attitudes the whole time.  We had hoped that we could go all together, but then we were told the limit was 4.  So I went with Tyler and Kaylee and Doug took the rest.  We got going a lot faster than I thought we would.  It was pretty fun.  At the slide goes through a tunnel where you can see manta rays swimming, so that was really cool.  Kaylee loved it.  She said she wanted to go again when we got out.

After that we moved onto another area that had a bigger slide for Damon and Tyler, Chris wasn't tall enough, but there was a big wide slide that Chris and the girls had fun going down.  They could all sit next to each other and go down at the same time.  Sometimes it was tricky for me trying to catch them all.  Doug took the boys over to the wave pool and they all loved jumping the waves.

We gathered together and ate our snacks.  I brought in some Go-gurts and string cheeses along with some granola bars and crackers.  This was about the only time I had to take pictures since you can't really swim with your phone.  Tyler really liked this line of floating objects that you could jump across - he did it quite a few times.

We all got some sun, but no one really got burnt.  My neck and shoulders were pretty red, but they didn't peel and went tan.  We were all pretty tired from swimming all day.  Doug was great again and went to the van to get our clothes and the strollers.  I took the girls and we showered because there was so much sunscreen in their hair.  It took forever having to do both of them and then getting dressed myself.  It will be nice when they are a little more independent.

There was a McDonald's right outside of the park that we ate at and then we headed home to Houston.  The girls didn't last long, they were pretty tired.

The boys watched a movie and then they fell asleep.  We made better time on the way back but it still felt long.  The girls don't sleep well in their car seats so they would wake up whining because they couldn't get comfortable or because their legs were falling asleep.  It was good to get home and sleep in our own beds.

It was a fun trip.  I think we did the park as well as we could have.  I had read quite a few comments and tips from people online and it helped.  I'm glad we didn't have to buy any food there - it was so expensive.  The kids did great and they all had a fun time.  It was really cute, the other day Kaylee woke up in the night and I went to tuck her back in and she said, "I had fun at Sea World."  She keeps telling us that now, so that is fun that she remembers.

I think we will make another trip to San Antonio sometime to see the Alamo and other cool things that they have over there.  Maybe next year. :)  Sea World was great, but not something I'd want to do everyday - so exhausting.