The Snake Farm

I have been trying to go on a field trip to the Snake Farm for years and it never works out.  I finally just bit the bullet and planned a last minute trip there with some friends (back in May), and I am so glad I did.  I almost feel like it was better than Sea World which I know sounds crazy.  It was definitely better than the zoo.  It's not a flashy place with rides and food, but you can see the animals up close, and they have a bunch of programs and accessible staff to answer questions.  They have way more than just snakes.  That is just how they started out.

Here's a white lion cub playing with a ball right behind the boys

The roosters and chickens are just walking around free.

The Snake Program with a Burmese Python. 

Hands on experiences!

You can feed the bison.  Drew was too afraid to get their slobber on him, so he didn't do this successfully.  He was trying to throw it to them, but it would fall where they couldn't reach it so I had to put a stop to that.

They were very slobbery!  Look at that tongue! You had to put it right on their tongue.

Someone got braver.

These goats were feisty!  If you had a bag of food, they were just plain uncivilized!  They surrounded me and got their horns all stuck on my legs.  Then they had the audacity to try and eat my dress.  I literally had to tie it up before they destroyed it.  

 It was shady and comfortable, and Roman did great there.  It is pricey, but they don't have a ton of things to make you spend more money once you are in.  We'll definitely be coming back here!

Finishing Up the School Year

The rest of May was a busy one.  My tomato and jalapeno plants were growing and doing well with all the rain, but one of them was blown over in a storm and it has never quite recovered.  The only problem really was too much rain.  

After the big kids were out of school we made it down to the Urban Garden section of the local food bank to volunteer again with friends.  After harvesting green beans for two hours, the kids were rewarded with feeding the goats.

The little two boys were with me so I could check the plants as they finish so they didn't miss any of those sneaky little green beans that like to hide.  Drew was with his buddy and Isaac worked hard all on his own (seen here).

When we moved into our new house in August, we lost a lot of closet space in the kid's rooms.  However, we gained an extra huge hall closet in addition to several others.  The one outside the boys' two rooms was turned into a shared closet.  I still have their hanging clothes in their room closets, but I did hang one pressure bar at the top (not visible in he picture) for Isaac to keep his school uniforms hung up because he is up before his roomie (Bob) sometimes.  I collected every basket or container not in use and labelled my heart out.  Each boy gets an entire shelf all the way around.  Then there are two more shelves (above what is pictured here) that have bins of boy clothes that no one is wearing currently, all labelled and ready for someone to grow into them.  I spent a morning moving out clothes that didn't fit and reorganizing since the boys are not perfectionists when it comes to putting their clothes away.  This closet serves well for a changing room for them too.   

Drew finished up his basketball season with his cousin on his team.  They were called "Flash and Dash" and finished the season already looking forward to the next.

Drew never smiles in group pictures.  I don't get it, because he's a happy guy most of the time.  He just hates picture time.

Hannah had her 10th grade concert.  She's not a singer really, but it is mandatory at her classical school to do these concerts on certain years.

Two of her good friends with her afterwards

The homeschooled boys had an end of the year bowling day.  Judah and Bobby haven't done much bowling before, but we signed up for Kids Bowl Free for this summer and are going to try to go once a week if we can after our trip.

This is a terrible picture, but I was trying to catch Drew altar serving at daily Mass after Mass was over.  It just took too long to get my phone out and the camera on.  He and his other homeschool friends that attend the same Mass and picnic day that we go to each week all did altar server training one day while the moms and little guys had the picnic and play time.  This day was his first day to carry the crucifix down which he was nervous about because it's heavy and hard to keep straight as he walks.  He was very focused.

Drew has also started reading the Harry Potter series and began his quest to build all things Harry Potter with his Legos.  

The day that school ended we drove to visit Gigi and Poppy before they moved out of their house.  The kids did some swimming, but not as much as usual because the water was still so cold from all the rain.  Playing pool became the obsession when Poppy taught the boys the proper way to play the game.

While we were there, Gigi got Genevieve a cake for her recent birthday and we celebrated again.  Gigi actually had tons of food for us and stuffed us full as usual.

When we got back home we spent the week getting ready for our RV trip to New Mexico and Arizona, and I spent a ton of time driving kids to sports camps all week.  Hannah also got some more practice driving in.  That next weekend, we had a couple of parties for the big kids and we had our family dinner with swimming at my sister's house.  Usually we've been swimming every weekend by the first week of June, but not in this rainy April and May.  It's barely hit 90 degrees a couple of days.

Bob, Dylan, and Drew

April was a busy one! Part I

The Thinker

The Dreamer

The Blondies

First thing we babysat for my niece one day for a few hours.  This two year old girl needs a lot of supervision and planned activities at our house with so many new things to touch and get into, so we paused our homeschool to have all hands on deck.  :)  The three boys were excellent babysitters, helping her with everything and helping me do some learning activities with her too.  

We walked down to our playground in our neighborhood and were working on boundaries with her.  ;)

Then came Holy Week and then Easter!  We went to Easter Vigil and got home around 11pm and baked the Apfelkuchen he made from scratch for the third year in a row.  My husband who doesn't really cook, and certainly doesn't bake, has taken on this tremendous tradition.  I wouldn't do it because I actually don't really love apple desserts.  Put some ice cream on it though and it isn't too bad.

      

We did a terrible job of getting a family picture before Mass because we were so worried about not getting a pew again (It had just happened when we got into traffic on Holy Thursday and arrived only five minutes before Mass.  We sat out in the Narthex.) that Brian and Hannah ran inside as soon as we arrived to save us a pew.  We barely fit into one of the pews actually.  Bob has to sit in my lap.  At some point we'll have to start splitting into two pews. 

Here are the non-pew savers.

Easter baskets

We went to my sister's for Easter in the afternoon to dye eggs, do an egg hunt, and have dinner.

Isaac's Key Lime Pie

Then we met some friends at a park one school day after completing our school earlier in the day.  We walked around the lake and saw many turtles and ducks.  The boys played on a playground and in a huge sand box too.  We had lunch and finished the day with a Sonic drink before heading back.

The boys went with me to get a gift for Genevieve's friend's birthday party to Five Below.  They were so excited that I let them use their money to buy kites (just Judah and Drew) and all three boys bought a long handled sand shovel that they can't wait to use at the beach.  The kites were perfectly timed because it was windy for many days after they bought them.  

Earlier that day, Judah had asked me when they get to go fishing again?  I asked, "To whom should you ask that question?"  When he replied, "Dad," I said something like, "Yeah, I'm really not the fishing mom."  Truth be told I loved fishing when I was younger, but I just have too many things I like better now to make time for that.  So, as we were walking through the garage to get in the van, Judah saw the huge kite wrapped up and hung up high and asked, "Are you the kite mom?" with hopeful eyes.  I said, "I don't really want to be," but I know that Brian is also not really the "kite dad" unless we are at the beach.  Apparently, I am the "kite mom" because they kept coming in telling me it wouldn't work and it was stuck, blah blah blah.  So, out I went to teach kite skills instead of making dinner.

Then we were finally able (and brave enough after a year of no field trips) to go on a field trip.  We went to Fredricksburg for the day with some other families.  I went with some mos to the Pioneer Museum with the younger kids and Drew went with another mom to the World War II museum.  Then we met up to go to Mass in the cutest old church and have a picnic outside.  It was a beautiful day!  We've had such a mild spring here!

The Pioneer Museum was all about the German settlers that came to Texas and the World War II museum was a lot about Admiral Nimitz.

Bob, friend, and Judah (in the front)

We even got ice cream in town before heading home.  It was a fun, but exhausting day!