Random Stuff

Those of you that don't know we're sort of having a mini Spence reunion here in Austin in less than 4 weeks. All 3 of Stephen's brothers families are coming out here from CA and OR, as well as his parents. So we've been scouting things to do. We already have on our agenda to do some toobing but we wanted to check out some new stretches of river that we haven't been to yet. So we checked out Pecan Park on the San Marcos river - it was only about 10 minutes from our house.

This stretch of river was so pretty, lined with big cypress trees. We even saw 2 turtles hanging out on some tree roots sticking out of the water.

Some of the trees were a little low, the kids and I told Stephen to "Duck!" but he didn't listen.

James loves being in the water and playing in the water. Can't you tell?

We started drifting by this small little rapid area where a bunch of kids were playing. Madeline and James wanted to stop and play. So I just sat and watched. :)

They were having SO much fun. Here is a video Stephen took:

It was a relaxing 1.5 hour float. Not too many college kids like on the Comal river where it is "Spring Break". There were 2 groups of college kids on this float playing some music, but it wasn't too bad. And when one of them used a foul word and saw us 20 feet behind them with kids, he yelled out "sorry!" and apologized. So that's good. Also I like that this tube rental place gives you a potato sack bag and if you collect any trash you see along the river they will give you $2 for turning in the bag full of trash. The river was definitely clean.

When we were leaving Pecan Park we saw these 2 buses staying at the campground. Now THAT is how I would like to camp. Wouldn't you?

Several weeks ago Madeline bought a Live Butterfly Garden with her Easter money. We got 3 caterpillars in the mail and watched them eat and double in size. Once they formed a pupa we waited another week until they finally became butterflies!

Here is Madeline's first baby butterfly! All 3 have come out of their pupa now. We'll probably keep them for another week and then release them.

2 weekends ago the kids and I participated with several employees at my work in a local wagathon walkathon. Our owner sponsored all of us. It was a fun event and the kids and Penny had a great time. We're on the bottom left of this group photo. And I swear James isn't naked, he just took off his shirt because he was running through the water fountains there. :)

Here you can see the kids and I walking Penny in the middle.

Here we are back home from the wagathon. My work also designed and made t-shirts for us and personalized bandannas for all the dogs.

So cute huh!?

Hope y'all had a great weekend! This is Madeline's last week of school, this Friday before Memorial weekend is her last day of school.