Derek Holland visits Round Rock

One of our favorite Rangers players, Derek Holland, spent some time rehabbing in Round Rock this summer. After watching him pitch, a very patient Rhys waited for many innings for him to come by and sign some autographs. His persistence was rewarded!

 

ACMC...and Antone's!

Avery spent two and a half weeks at ACMC camp and had a great experience as always. The highlight for her was getting to perform at Antone's with Mother Falcon.

Foster kittens!

Well, now that I am over a year behind with posting on our family's blog, I'm realizing just how important it is to have this journal to chronicle our family. So...I'm going to try to zoom through and catch up on the past year and stick the posts in where they should go. Wish me luck!

During the summer of 2012, we had our second litter of foster kittens. Introducing:

Olan, or better known to us: FINNICK!

Oprah, aka CALLIE!

And Orisha, who we called Izzy...until we learned that he was a HE and he was renamed IZZO!

We had these three for about two months total. They were a sick trio, so we had them for longer than planned. But, eventually, they were healthy enough to be adopted out.

Bikers

The week Rhys was at camp, Griffin learned how to ride his bike!

Then, inspired by Griffin's success, Rhys learned too!

Both boys have had some challenges when it comes to learning to ride since bilaterial coordination is tricky for them, but they worked so hard and now they're pros!  They want to go on long bike rides daily, and this is now my usual view:

Express Camp

Two weeks ago, Rhys went to the Round Rock Express baseball camp.  Unfortunately, in this summer full of blessedly mild temperatures, his camp was the one week we've had so far with 100+ degree temps.  He's a tough guy though, and he enjoyed it despite the heat.  He did very well too -- he came home the winner of every pitching contest they held, was Camper of the Day one day, and won one of only three end-of-camp awards: Most Coachable.  As always, we're very proud of his hard work!

An Instagram snap from one of the days at camp.

     

Receiving his award.

Carpentry

A few days before Father's Day, I was in the kitchen when Rhys called me over to the window. This is what he wanted to show me:

At least he's wearing safety goggles.

I was alarmed, to say the least.  Clearly not alarmed enough to stop him before I could take a picture, but alarmed enough that I snapped a phone pic and didn't waste time to get my camera.

After taking this quick picture, I went to inquire about his project.  "I'm building something for Dad," he said.  After making sure that he was following all the safety rules, I got out of the way.  Some time later, he came back in, hot and sweaty but very proud.

Explosions

Griffin decided recently that he wanted to the the good ol' Mentos and Diet Coke explosion again. It had been a while since we'd done it -- and plus, and who can turn down a good explosion?!  But, in typical Griffin fashion, the simple experiment of dropping the Mentos into the Coke wasn't enough. He had all sorts of ideas for variations to try.  He wanted different sizes of bottles, different quantities of Mentos, he wanted to try a complicated folded paper delivery system to see how the dissolving paper would change the explosion, he wanted to try adding vinegar to the Diet Coke and baking soda to the Mentos to see if it would serve as an accelerant, and he wanted to try drilling holes in the Diet Coke bottle to see how the explosion would work through smaller openings.  Even though his big ideas are often messy and complicated, I just love seeing his creativity in action.

Spring baseball

We wrapped up spring baseball for both boys a couple of weeks ago. It was the end of Griffin's last t-ball season, and a shortened Voodoo season for Rhys.  (The same kids that screwed us over for fall with football decided to play league ball All-Stars so the Voodoo didn't have enough players to finish out the season. I think this time we actually learned our lesson about them...at least I hope we did.)  Rhys moonlighted this weekend with the Phillies out of Round Rock, and he might do more fill-in work this summer.  He just wants to get in more baseball any way he can!

Anyway, Griffin had another great season with his fantastic coaches, Patrick and Kellen.  His team went undefeated and won first place in the league!  He has learned so much this year and is really starting to get in the groove with baseball.  He even caught his first fly ball!  He mostly played 2nd base, but he also played some outfield, and even a couple of short stints at catcher. The only unfortunate part of this season was the team name. Since the team was the Longhorns in the fall, the coaches thought it was only fair that we be the Aggies this spring.  It was painful.  Hopefully next fall they'll pick a random team that nobody has ties to!

I'm not sure what was happening here, but I'm pretty sure he's *fabulous*!

Rhys had a tougher season this spring.  For whatever reason, the Voodoo didn't play nearly as well as they did in the fall and their record was less than stellar.  He still had a great time with it and is very sorry it's over.  Rhys continues to have no regular position, and fills in pretty much wherever he's needed. He pitches every weekend, but he also plays catcher, short stop, second base, third base, and center field. 

One of my favorite parts from this season was the BABIES!  I do enjoy baseball -- I like the game, I like to be outside, I love the tradition and history, and most importantly, I like to watch the kids do the things they love -- but it's made all the better when you have two adorable and squeezable babies to cuddle!

Memorial Day weekend in San Antonio

We took advantage of the three day weekend last week and made a quick getaway to San Antonio.  We were making an attempt at a frugal vacation, and we managed to pull it off.  Besides the hotel (which was a Groupon deal), an obligatory dinner on the Riverwalk, and a fabulous dinner the second night at our favorite vegetarian restaurant, Green (the vegetarian barbecue sandwich is to die for!), we didn't spend a dime!

We spent much of our time taking advantage of the hotel pool.

We also wandered on the Riverwalk...

...and walked over to the Alamo (which was packed, thanks to the holiday weekend).

And we spent quite a bit of time exploring Hemisfair Park, which we'd never been to before.

We might have had a little too much fun with the sculptures in the park.

And of course, the kids couldn't resist the lure of the water features.

And we viewed Hemisfair tower from the cheap seats.

All in all, it was a pretty fabulous weekend.

The end.