Rockport Texas for Spring Break

Driving Uncle Kevin's boat.

My uncle Kevin has a pretty large boat that he does boat charters on to see the whooping cranes, and he graciously let the boys drive it, and ride around the marina for a while. It was very windy, and too choppy to really go out for a ride, but the boys had a blast. In fact, Owen yelled, "Mom, I want to move here!"

Some of those cool live oak trees!

We went to visit my grandpa in Rockport, Texas for a couple of days over spring break. My brother and uncle live down there too, so it was good family visit. My grandpa, Cy Sims, is 83 years old and one of the most interesting people I know. I really enjoyed watching the boys interact with him. Grandpa basically has a boat shop in the back of his house where he works on boat motors. Truett was amazed with all his tools and boat motors. His property has a lot of live oak trees that grow low to the ground and the boys LOVED climbing on them. Also back behind grandpa's house is a pond that has a crocodile in it, so we got to do a little exploring back there too. Truett was very scared of the crocodile-- which is funny since he doesn't seem to be scared of anything. But the boys dug up a big deer antler back by that pond, which actually made the trip back to Hutto with us.

The shallow water of Rockport Beach.

Here we are hanging out on Rockport beach. The beach is very shallow and the waves are pretty calm, which makes it a great beach for these little guys. However, with the water still being 65 degrees or so, it was still pretty chilly. But they managed to swim around for a little while before asking to "go sit by the fireplace".

Working on a sand castle.

Mutton Bustin' and the Carnival

Truett loves corndogs!
This is called the super slide, and if you can't tell, Truett is on the pink slide and Owen is on the purple slide.

The boys both got armbands to ride rides at the carnival. They went from ride to ride and had a blast. Owen rode a "space ship" ride 3 times in a row, and Truett liked the game of throwing darts at the balloons. And quickly, before you know it, one hundred dollars down the drain!

Hanging out at the petting zoo.

THE MUTTON BUSTIN' EVENT:

Owen is on the far left, being patted on the head by the rodeo clown.

Too young to ride, Truett watches from the stands.

For those of you who don't know what mutton bustin is, it is where a young kid rides a sheep. And I know this might seem like a strange practice to some people, but for me, I grew up going to rodeos, and there was always a mutton bustin performance, so it only seems "normal" for me to have my kid participate in that event. Anyway, this year, Owen was the first one to ride, so he was the first to walk out. Not scared at all, which is amazing to me. He did great, and held on to the sheep even though it took a hard right turn straight out of the shoot and ran straight toward the gate, causing Owen to fall off. No injuries-- which is always the goal of the event.

Here is the hard part for me to admit, but I did a terrible job with the video this year and didn't catch any of it! I must have thought I pushed the record button and didn't-- I don't actually know what I did-- but I only have about 2 seconds of Owen walking away from falling off the sheep. So these few pictures are all I have to prove my wonderfully brave son took part in the mutton bustin' today! (sorry).

Getting ready for the ride!

The shortest video clip EVER.

Truett turns FOUR!

March 16th came and went, and Truett turned 4 years old. It's hard for me to believe he is actually four! Anyway- Papa and Carolyn, and Kayla and Baby Jackson came over for some hamburgers and birthday cake. Truett tore thru his presents so fast, I didn't even get any pictures of him opening them. I feel like we have been celebrating his birthday for this entire month, so I think he had a great birthday.


Papa Chris with his great grandson Jackson.

The dinosaur cake...I had a hard time making the hot lava on the mountain since I didn't have red icing (or red food color) so I use red sprinkles. So I'm sure if you saw this volcano erupt with red sprinkles, it wouldn't be too scary, and you might even run toward the volcano instead of away from it. Truett references hot lava when someone is in trouble. He will say, "that boy is in hot lava," so I felt like the lava really had to be on the little wild man's cake.

Truett's Chuck-E-Cheese Party

PRESENTS!

Once this fire is out, I'm going to eat that T-REX cupcake.

Truett wanted his birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheese-- which I am pretty sure he only wanted that because Owen had his there last year. Anyway, we endured the world of noise and giant rats to celebrate Truett turning 4. Truett is very much into dinosaurs, so I made him dinosaur cupcakes instead of a traditional cake. Another thing Truett requested for his party was watermelon, so we brought that too. And then, Truett managed to run around for over an hour shoving tokens into games, going up and down the playscape, yelling, screaming, telling everyone it was his birthday. It really is too bad that Truett is so painfully shy. ;-)

Mimi joined Truett in "shooting the bad guys".

This place is a kids version of LAS VEGAS!

Artie and Truett having some pizza.

I really love this air hockey game.

Baily gets a tattoo

The boys have a book of temporary tattoos from Papa & Carolyn, and they wanted to put one on Ju Ju Bee. I explained that she was too furry of a cat, but that Bailey didn't have as much fur, so that is how our poor 9 year old Beagle got this green snake tattoo. Bailey actually liked the belly rubbing application of the tattoo, so I don't think he was harmed in the process. Now here is the experiment... how long will the tattoo last?

First Swim of the Season!

It hit 80 degrees for the 1st time this year, so the boys thought it was time for a swim. The water temperature reading is 62, so not exactly a comfortable temperature to swim, but they were determined. As you can see, we didn't even bother with swimsuits-- just underwear. Owen said, "See mom, I didn't forget how to swim." And Truett never went all the way under... so it must have been just a little too cold for him.

First Spring Soccer Game

Owen had his 1st soccer game playing for the Green Anacondas.
(One of the boys on the team is very fond of snakes--I'm not sure why exactly-- but anyway, he came up with the name "Anaconda" for their team. It was 50 degrees outside, so I had Owen in long underwear under his uniform.
They lost 7-0, so hopefully next game they might score a goal. But Owen informed me when the game was over that "it's about having fun, not winning". So I suppose he has a good attitude about it.

The sun was shining so Truett stole my sunglasses from me. Little rascal!

Warming up before the game started.

Watching them do jumping jacks is pretty entertaining. If I just walked up on them, I would think they had walked thru an ant mound and had ants in their pants.

The referee wears yellow, and here they are going over some rules before the game begins. Owen is the only 6 year old on the team, the others are 7--except the very smallest boy-- who turns 6 in May.

Snow in Hutto!

I haven't been able to use the computer for a few days, so this post is a little late, but last week, Hutto got ONE INCH of snow. Now I know that isn't much-- especially if you are reading this from Minnesota, but for central Texas-- that is a lot of snow! But just like the constantly changing weather in Texas, the snow was gone the next day and it was up to 50 degrees! The boys had fun, and we had to play in bursts because the gloves would get wet and it was too cold for them to hold the snow. But when it was time to play in it again, Truett would say, "Mama- I have my muffins on-- let's go outside." And what he was talking about was his mittens. Anyway, I thought everything looked so pretty covered in white, and I wish it would have lasted a little longer...

Luckily this was a wooden picnic table, if it had been metal, Truett would have been totally stuck!

Our snowman with Mr. Potato Head parts.

No margaritas and sunshine by this pool...