Water Table

It is getting warm enough that playing with water is becoming very attractive. Fortunately, Aldi had a water table for sale this week! The kids enjoyed playing with it in the carport. I came home from work one day and they were playing in the water while Yogurl was sitting in the shade chatting with a neighbor. What a great way to spend an afternoon, huh?

And this is my garden! I'm so excited to be growing some of our own food! You can't tell in this picture, but every square now has something growing in it. I made some mistakes at first, but things seem to be going well now, and I have a long growing season so it should be okay. Assuming everything is strong enough to survive the long string of 100+ degree days that will be coming soon. The biggest plant is obviously zucchini. That stuff just won't stop growing. I had no idea how quickly it would grow. Now hopefully it will produce a lot of edible stuff and not just dinner plate sized leaves. We are also growing tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, basil, parsley, beets, rutabaga, eggplant, onions, oregano, cilantro, acorn squash, pumpkins, bell peppers and jalapenos. I have definitely bitten off way too much, but I am excited to see what happens.

Dinosaur Valley

Last weekend we went to Glen Rose and Granbury for a little weekend vacation. The main places we visited were Dinosaur Valley State Park, Granbury Lake, and Fossil Rim Wildlife Center. 

One of the two large dinosaur sculptures at the entrance to Dinosaur Valley State Park. The kids were sad they couldn't climb on it. 

Those are real dinosaur footprints in the water behind Sabrina. They say that being underwater helped preserve them because rain didn't pound at them, there is not a rapid current wearing them down, and they don't get broken apart by ice since they are deep enough the water won't freeze.

Sabrina and Clark also enjoyed wading around in the water. It was a little over 90 that day I think, so getting our feet wet was nice.  

We stayed in a little cabin outside of town. The kids really enjoyed seeing this moth that blended in so well with the cabin.

This is the lake at Granbury. It is down about 11 feet right now, so it wasn't much for swimming. The walkway behind the kids normally is about a foot above the water I reckon from the water marks on its poles. I guess the drought in this part of Texas isn't quite over. 

The beach was nice even if there wasn't much water. They had sand brought in from San Padre Island, and it was so smooth. We tried building a little sand castle, but Clark the destroyer kept crushing what we put up. After the beach we went and ate lunch in the "historic" downtown Granbury. They claim that John Wilkes Booth escaped capture, took on a false name and was a bartender there for a while. What a claim to fame! 

Fossil Rim Wildlife Center is a place you drive around in your car and see bunches of animals roaming around. You have food you can throw to them, but lots of people were feeding them directly. We were good tourists and followed the rules. Some animals sort of blocked our path like they were upset that we weren't paying the toll. This red deer here stuck his face right up against the window waiting to be fed. One red deer we saw later seemed to have nibbled a boy's hand - his hand shot back in the window and it rolled up and the car drove off and didn't feed any more deer directly after that.

This is the backside of a giraffe that stuck its face in Sabrina's window waiting for food. You were allowed to feed the giraffes by hand, but we didn't know that at the time. I think Sabrina was too nervous to feed it directly anyway. 

This was our little cabin. 

The kids enjoyed sitting outside on the rocker, despite the heat.

Bank Account

We read in the book Farmer Boy about Almanzo Wilder getting a bank account with some money he had gotten in town. His dad explained to him how smart it was to put money into a bank to earn interest. We asked Sabrina if she would like to do that as well. She was very excited to go put her money into a bank. So we went to the local Chase branch and got her a savings account. They have a free account for children under 18. We didn't tell her that she would only be earning one cent per year for every $20 she put in unlike Almanzo who earned 4 cents on the dollar. Hopefully that will change soon, though. 

The guy who opened her account was very nice. He gave her a little money bag and had her sign her name on a paper, even though only I had to sign since it is a custodial account. She thought it was really great.

Happy Mother's Day!

Just want to say Happy Mother's Day to the wonderful mothers in our lives. Thank you for all that you have done, and still do, for us!

What a lovely hat Sabrina made at pre-school for her mommy for Mother's Day.