Art Gallery and Pop's 70th

Was grabbing some pictures off the camera today and found a couple of things I haven't shared yet.

One day back in June, Spencer decided to create an art gallery in our "upstairs." He and Daddy got everything curated, then invited me to visit.

Must be this way.

Tickets

The ticket-taker was a little goofy

The gallery

Close-up of the art

Also, since I took an unintentional blogging hiatus in June, I failed to give a recap of Pop's 70th birthday part in San Antonio. It was a lovely afternoon with many of his close friends stopping by for snacks and cupcakes.

Making sure the queso is okay

Taste tester

Pop and Geep

Ready to party

How funny is this picture?

We spent the night and I took off the next day so Daddy and Pop could play golf. Spencer, Geep and I went to the Witte Museum, where they had a special animatronic dino exhibit. We had fun!

 More catch-up posts coming soon...

4 Years, 9 Months, 18 Days

This sweet boy is getting so big. Trying to savor every day - it's such a fun time.

• He's reading like crazy. Books, signs, you name it. One of my favorite things is when we're driving and he reads the name of the songs playing on the Sirius radio display.
• I've been having a blast reading some "big" books to him. Winnie the Pooh, James and the Giant Peach, Fantastic Mr. Fox, etc. We're currently reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which is making me so excited to watch the Willy Wonka movie with him. I am always amazed by his attention span. And it's the best feeling to see him practically hanging onto every word as I read aloud. "Just ONE MORE chapter, Mommy! Pleeeeeeeease?!?" And I love hearing him retell the stories to Dave over breakfast or dinner.
• He loves to go to Jumpoline Park and play Dodge Ball with the big boys. I haven't been there yet, but Dave says the big kids are always so nice (and careful) with him.
• He's riding his bike like a pro. We took it down to Town Lake last weekend for the first time and he rode over 3 miles (there was some complaining along the way, but he stuck with it).
• We ate salmon for dinner one night this week and when I served it he asked, "Is this salmon wild-caught?"
• He's getting so tall. Some mornings when we wake up I'm convinced he grew an inch overnight. 

These are just a few of the things I want to remember. Love that boy!

Purple Martin Mayhem

For some unknown reason, every summer thousands of Purple Martins come together and roost in the live oak trees at Highland Mall to prepare for their migration to South America in August. Someone from the Audubon society told us the estimate this year is 400-600K birds! So Saturday night we packed our lawn chairs and umbrellas and headed over to see what it was all about. And let me tell ya, it was one of the coolest things I've seen in awhile.

Spencer found a little friend to play with while we waited for the sun to start setting (and she let him borrow her cool bee-noculars, as Spencer calls them). Then, gradually we saw birds starting to make their way to the area.

They started trickling in, but soon the sky was filled with Purple Martins and they were swirling around in formation preparing to land in the trees. Apparently there's a hierarchy and the oldest male birds are in the top branches and the others start filling in the rest. Just when you'd think, "wow, that's a lot of Purple Martins," it would seem like they doubled. They circled and swarmed for at least 30 minutes and it was fascinating.

The sound was incredible - almost like a waterfall. Once the roosting was complete (or complete-ish), I had to get closer! Spencer and I grabbed our umbrellas and went right under the trees. Spencer didn't like how stinky it was, so he exited but I grabbed a little video.

It was an excellent outing and we might even go back this weekend. We invited Paw-Paw to come and check it out because he is interested in Purple Martins. If you live in Austin it's definitely worth the trip to Highland Mall. On Fri-Sat nights, the Travis Audubon group is there sharing info about the birds, but of course you can go any night. It won't disappoint!

Shamu Time!

Editorial note: In looking back over this blog entry, I realized that some of my pictures don't quite mesh up with my timeline...Spencer is wearing different shirts in pictures I labeled as happening at the same time. Oh well, enjoy anyway! It hurts my brain to try to figure it out.

Spencer took his first trip to Sea World last Sunday. Geep met us there for a few hours, too - bonus! The night before, Dave went out with his buddies, so Spencer hung up some signs in our room so he wouldn't forget about our trip.

"Remember that Sea World is today. Aquatica Sea World Water Park." (sidenote: we didn't go to Aquatica)

Ya gotta get a picture at the entrance.

Family shot.

Mapping out our day.

We started off by checking out the dolphins and sharks, then we rode the Shamu coaster a few times. Unfortunately we didn't get Spencer to sit on the side where he showed up in pictures, but here's Daddy having some fun.

We rode the coaster three times and then Geep arrived and we climbed on a pirate ship in the Bay of Play, then headed over to the dolphin show. Spencer bought a fun bubble shooter to pass the time.

Dolphin show - pre-bubble shooter.

Definitely easier to wait when you have a bubbles!

Next we hit my personal favorite, The Cannery Row Caper. Gotta love the otter, sea lions and walruses. I think after that we rode the carousel and played a couple of boardwalk games. I might have the sequence of events a little wrong, but I'll blame it on heat stroke.

Shooting baskets - no luck, but we did win a stuffed fish in the water gun game.

After that, we hoofed it over to the Shamu show. Spencer was surprised the whales were so big.

 

 

Our next stop was the ski show, followed by a much-needed ice cream break. We kept trying to get a good photo of Spence and Geep, but he wasn't having it. He was being a little grumpy about taking this picture, but honestly he was in a great mood all day despite the heat.

He also acquired a fan/mister along the way.

Geep decided to head home after our ice cream break. Have I mentioned it was HOT? We decided the best thing was to go on the river raft ride, Rio Loco.You know how one section of the raft always gets stuck under the waterfall? Well that was Spencer and me this time. We were drenched but man, it was a welcomed cool-down! And the temperature actually dropped to the mid-80s around this time so we were feeling much better. Then we checked out the penguins.

At least Spencer had his swimsuit on!

We saw one last show (a bunch of trained animals - cats, dogs, ducks, pigs, etc.) then grabbed dinner. After that it was time for the Sesame Street Bay of Play. I think Spencer would've splashed til the break of dawn if we'd let him. And a benefit of having a child who really isn't into all the costumed characters is that the splash pad completely cleared out because an Elmo show was going on. I had a hard time choosing which pictures to include because there are so many fun ones - such exuberance!

 

We ended up staying until 8:30PM! We should've just stayed for the 9:00 closing show. Spencer crashed out in the car and didn't even wake up when we got home. It was a fun day!

Graduating from the Hummingbirds

This post is way overdue, but I wanted to share a little about the end of year activities at Nature's Way. It's hard to put into words how much we love the school and Spencer's teacher, Mr. Britt. Not a day went by that we didn't feel blessed to have found this special place. Dave and I were feeling super sentimental when we dropped off Spencer on the final day (I know you're surprised!)

My big boy outside the gate.

Just a glimpse of the tree corner.

Mr. Britt and Spencer.

5 of the 8 Hummingbirds - looking quite surly I might add!

When we came back to pick him up that afternoon, we were blown away by the "What We Love about Each Other" project. The kids took turns saying nice things about their classmates.

What do Spencer's classmates love about him? Playing Rocketship/Baby Jesus; He is helpful; Always takes care of us; Great leader. That'll bring tears to a mama's eyes, no doubt.

Mr. Britt drew a really cool tiger picture for Spencer and put a picture of him inside a frame that Spencer made earlier in the week. Special mementos.

Nature boy.

Later that week, the whole school went on an end-of-year field trip to Crowe's Nest Farm in Manor, TX. We were worried the trip would be canceled—when we woke up it was storming like you wouldn't believe. We headed out there anyway, and before we got started, the skies cleared up and it was actually kind of cold. It was a glorious day!

On the hayride with his buddy Koen. Dreamy little boys.

Daddy helped Koen and Charlie take some pictures. Not sure what this pose is all about!

I didn't take a lot of pictures—tried to enjoy the day and be in the moment. We saw lots of farm animals, plus a baby ostrich and a village of prairie dogs. We went on a hayride. We saw a cow milking demonstration, too. Then we had a picnic under some big trees and soaked up the last minutes of our Hummingbird year.

A few weeks ago, we wrote a letter of recommendation for Mr. Britt to help him get into a special program. We interviewed Spencer, too, and I think his answers are sweet and show why Mr. Britt is such a special teacher.

Q: Why did you like having Mr. Britt as a teacher?
A: Because he’s so smart.

Q: What did you learn from him?
A: Being in nature and I love him teaching us. To respect animals.

Q: What is your favorite thing about being a Hummingbird?
A: It was just a really fun class.

Q: Why was Mr. Britt such a good teacher?
A: Because he was so happy to see us when we got to the nature school.

Q: How do you feel around him?
A: Happy (and he drew a smiley face next to his answer).

Q: What are some of the special things you did?
A: Experiments.

Q: What will you miss when Mr. Britt isn’t your teacher anymore?
A: I’ll miss having fun with him and making traps for him. But we can still make traps for him! (The students liked to build traps to catch Britt on the playground. He, of course, went along with this, and Spencer plans to continue trapping Britt next year at school even though he won’t be in Britt’s class.)

Q: What are three words to describe Mr. Britt?
A: Nice. Fun. Really fun to play with… but I just don’t want him to ever not be my teacher!

Well, Mr. Britt won't be Spencer's teacher next year—he'll be one of Miss Kelly's Iguanodons—but Spencer will still get to see him a lot on the playground and probably set a few traps for him!