Julia turns 5

Do kids actually get younger the more you have? When Taya turned 5, she seemed so old, so mature and ready to take on not only kindergarten, but the world. Today, Julia's 5 years seem like a malfunction of the calendar rather than the actual passage of time. Yet it also seems as if we are old best friends and have known each other for ages. Perhaps we have. Happy birthday, little one! We are glad you enjoyed your cake and ice cream dinner, your special night out with Dad, and you Barbie dolls!

Joplin, MO

Taya and her girl scout troop made a weekend field trip to St. Louis, a 14-hour drive, and I tagged along as a warm body to chaperone. We passed through Joplin on the way, and stopped to gawk like tacky tourists at the utter and horrendous devastation that went on for miles and miles. The girls were satisfyingly somber at the shock of the scene. We drove to the top of a hill and saw this sadness and madness for miles around. The area most hard hit was residential, although an enormous number of businesses were also destroyed, and I shudder to wonder how many survivors' homes were under or not insured at all. The roads had been cleared enough to drive on, but there was no escaping the impact that street after street with not a home intact had on us, especially as the tornado warning siren was the only thing left standing. There was FEMA grafitti on every house marking it cleared of bodies and cleared for final tear down. A haunting sight, one we will never forget. Any effort to send aid is truly needed if you feel moved to do so.

Wild Birds

 

No, I'm not talking about my 5 wild little ducklings, but the wild bird Troy caught in the parking lot after work this afternoon and brought home to be nursed back to health by aforementioned ducklings aka our children. Thanks a lot, Troy. Personally, I'm kind of disgusted by wild birds, but because I am the main caregiver for our chickens somehow now I'm the bird vet around here. I love animals from the farming perspective, not because I enjoy pets. I suspected it was some sort of mockingbird, which as the Texas state bird would have either earned me a commendation or gotten me sued, but it is in fact a juvenile mourning dove of the type that poops on our car everyday, so I am conflicted about saving it!
This bird is also in pretty rough shape, rescued from attacking grackle birds who did a lot of bloody damage visible when it pathetically flaps its wings, and after recently losing an entire nest of wren hatchlings my kids were watching in a birdhouse they built at Home Depot, I'm not particularly looking forward to a dead bird in the house. Oh, well, we've dealt with larger dead birds when Julia killed one of our chickens. That's a story for some other day, and no, I don't have any photos to go along with it.

Death Wish Fish

Troy decided a year or so ago that fish as pets would be a good idea, but has recently decided that fish as pets are no longer a good idea. So when our friend Betty brought over her big cichlid to move into the tank with our significantly smaller cichlid, this was inevitably the result. Our little scrapper took him on, wish we had video of that bout, biting onto the larger fish's mouth until he won (thanks to our intervention with a large fish net). Large evil fish now resides in our neighbor's empty (now temporarily occupied) tank awaiting sale at our local cichlid store or a ceremonious dumping into our community pond. Don't tell Betty! Hope the little guy lives through that disastrous blind date.

Atlantians in Austin for 30 Minutes

Taya's best friend Shivani from elementary school moved to Atlanta 2 years ago, and today stopped by for a quick visit on a trip to Dallas that landed them in Austin for the afternoon. Taya and her friend Brianna were so excited to see her, especially since I hadn't told them that she was going to be in town until right before she showed up! We also held onto her adorable twin sisters so Julia could visit with her long-lost buddies again too!

Pool Acrobatics

Is our dad cooler than your dad? This activity always earns us comments about how our monkeys need to be in a gymnastics class. We also fortunately had a near miss with the metal pool stair railing. Fortunately in that her face didn't actually hit it, and Troy learned a little bit caution. And check out our buddy Chris photo bombing in the last one making it look like he was the one who got all the exercise throwing those kids around. Probably more exercise than I got sitting on the side trying not to get my camera wet.

HAARP?

I merely saw some cool cloud formation in the sky last night and took some photos of it. Along with about half a million other Austinites. The next day clients were asking if I saw it, talking about HAARP, or aliens, or whatever. Well, I'm pretty sure HAARP is in Alaska if you can believe anything on their homemade looking web site, and Texas is literally as far the other way as one can get in the US if that pesky Florida were out of the picture. But who knows, maybe they'll get their hands on a photo like this to study and be cool like me. Or maybe Cumulo-Fracto-Nimbus escaped from Xanth for a visit, even though, as previously stated, we're no where near Florida.

Easter Sunday

 

 

 

 

Our old Idaho college buddy Sammie, (with whom I was friends with first while dating Troy, he then became Troy's best buddy after we became engaged), just happens to have grown up in Houston and moved to Austin with his wife Melissa several years ago (Sammie's real name is Ben, not to be confused with my brother Ben and his wife Melissa who were married around the same time). A few days ago Sammie emailed to invite us to Easter dinner at their house. We only see them once a year or so because they live so very very far away (35 minute drive ;), so Troy replied, "You do remember that we have 5 kids, right?" I told him to ask if they had tornado-proofed their house.
Apparently they had, so we all trotted up there (after skipping church) for prime rib roast. We ate the entire thing if you include their baby surreptitiously feeding his portions to the dog. I brought up our hard-boiled and plastic eggs (because with all the skipping church we certainly had no time to color them before dinner), and the kids had a hunt in their back yard. I wish I could claim the immaculate lawn as our own, but sadly we have no grass this year, only an awesome garden. I bought an extra chocolate bunny for Troy and I to share, and I said, "I will eat the..." and while pondering which body part I would choose, Troy added, "the chocolate part. I'll end up with the box." He has obviously realized he's married to a woman!
This is the day we reflect upon how grateful we are that Christ gave his life to save us from our sins, and since I stubbornly harbor so many sins, doubts, and lack of will to much change that, I am especially grateful to have a Savior who loves me in spite of it all. Happy Easter to you, and may God have mercy on our souls!

Idyllic Garden

 

Don't these photos just make you want to punch me in the face? My idyllic little life with the spring garden and toddlers joyously learning about the miracle of life with scratching chickens hinted at in the background; it's enough to make you think my life really is just this perfect. That's what blogs are supposed to do. Take photos of the best times and make all the readers feel inadequate. Just remember, that while life is certainly almost this awesome, that this entire episode only took about 5 minutes after trying to get the kids out during perfect sunset light for at least 5 days, and that the chickens took twice as long to lure to that spot with poultry treats. All of it fits nicely between whining and too much TV, but since most of you just look at the photos and don't read those of you who made it this far know me the best now.

Easter Egg Hunt

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easter just wouldn't be the same without picking up tiny plastic colored eggs off a lawn...er, I mean wouldn't be the same without Jesus. Franklin Family Ranch off Middlecreek Rd in Johnson City held its annual Easter Festival sponsored by a local church. I very much appreciated that all my kids said Jesus is what Easter is all about even before we got there to experience a religious bent on a secular celebration. They had a praise band, a sermon, and a scavenger hunt with Bible clues in addition to free food, candy, and giant blow up jumpy things as far as the eye could see! You can see how sad they were when they were deflated at the end of the craziness.
I can't believe we've lived here so many years and never heard of this party, but we'll be making it an annual event! Next year I'm going to do my best to not get sunburned again, nor add stress by rushing out for having too many photo shoots scheduled afterward. I'll just bring a lounge chair, sunscreen, and chill out all afternoon while my kids wear themselves out.

Barton Springs Dog Pool

The kids wanted to go swimming, they've been bugging me for days. I may have mentioned the worst spring ever in my whining, complainy voice in previous posts. The cold winter wind turned into hot summer stagnation literally overnight. But it's Austin, so we're sure to get another cold snap or ice storm soon before the real dog days set in, right? Please? They predict a scorcher, which means even worse than the usual habitat of demons we typically suffer from June-August. After the bugs, the snow photos, and now this, I'm sure no one will ever pay us a visit again.

But I think this is the part I'm supposed to talk about the photos themselves. Barton Springs Pool is a natural spring-fed pool in downtown Austin, free all winter for polar bear swimmers. But they're charging again now, so the disappointed kids opted to wade in the creek at the end of the pool: free and therefore full of dogs despite the No Swimming and Pets on Leash signs posted all over. You'd think Christmas came in April they were so excited! I am a hero for the day!

I apologize no dogs made an appearance in the wide photo; they're never around when actually wanted. And yes, spell checker did catch the word complainy, yet I chose to leave it in there.

Park Day

 

Our longtime friend Brittany is having her third baby girl, and we spent the afternoon celebrating with a baby shower at Johnson City Park. Fun party, good food, great friends and conversation, and the kids got to check out a new place that was worth the 40-minute one-way trip despite all the pinching, poking, and yelling during the trip. Zoey would only play on the purple dinosaur because it matched her outfit. The heat wiped them out, and most of them were asleep on the way home. Someone find out where spring went and how we possibly went from winter straight into summer? Worst springtime ever thanks to La Nina. Texas, gotta love it.