The Hill of Torment!!!

We go hiking with the kids sometimes, an lately we have been talking about doing a longer hike. I checked hikes in the area, and found a good 14.5 mile hike. It is in a greenbelt close to downtown. You start in a neighborhood, hike along a creek for 7.25 miles, and end up a park downtown. Then you turn around and go back.

So today, the older kids and I got up early and went hiking. The trail goes under a couple freeways. We planned ahead, hiked an extra 0.8 miles, and met Betsy and Hazel for lunch. Then Toby, Isaac and I hiked back to the car. The trip to Chuy's made the total distance 16.1 miles.

On the way back we got passed by this guy, on his mountain unicycle! I had no idea they made such a thing. The last 0.3 miles climb 300 feet. They call it the Hill of Life, but Toby renamed it the Hill of Torment. The kids were great hikers, and everybody had a good time.

Next up, a 26 miler?

Hazel's Daily Ritual

Hazel sets my coffee table with her dishes every day. Her little kitchen is in the front room and I purchased a cute little blue table for her and set it next to her little kitchen. All this just for her. But every day Hazel brings all of her dishes into the living room and sets it up on the coffee table. She does an incredible job of setting everything up just so and then serves an entire meal. She probably does this 2 or 3 times a day, playing kitchen for hours on end. The cupcakes are her favorite play food to use. The eggs coming in a close second. I guess the little blue table is too little.

Hide and Sleep

I was finishing something on the computer before putting Hazel down for a nap yesterday and then the house got really quiet. Hazel found a new hiding/napping place. I had to lift and move the whole couch to get her out of there without waking her up.

polar bear award

While I was in Utah, Nate took the kids camping with some other families from the ward. I was skeptical about this adventure because it was supposed to freeze that night. But since I wouldn't be going or doing any of the work, I encouraged him to go for it.

Toby worked on whittling...just so he could use his pocket knife, of course.

Apparently, Isaac was a little cold. He looks kind of miserable. But he assured me he had a great time.

Fortunately, this campground was outside of the burn ban area. Otherwise it might have been pretty miserable.The icing on the cake, or the frost I should say, was that Toby will be able to get The Polar Bear camping award for going on a camp where the temperatures were freezing (it was 32 degrees). There just wasn't any snow.

Inner Space

One of the other things we did during Spring Break has been on my list of places to seen in Austin since we moved here nearly 8 years ago...INNNER SPACE. It is a local cave that highway construction workers found in 1963. I always thought caves were in mountains, proved me wrong. Anyway, it was cool and a fun outing. The other boy with us is Toby's best friend, Dallin.

Hazel wasn't too keen on touching the cave at first.

San Antonio Zoo

We just finished spring break this week. I took the kids down to the San Antonio Zoo for a little outing. (Austin doesn't really have a zoo...just a bunch of miscellaneous rescued animals.)

The place I liked best at the zoo was their butterfly exhibit. They had many different kinds and we could go right up to them and hold them. But it was like a greenhouse/sauna inside the exhibit, so we didn't stay more than 15 minutes...Hazel wanted to leave.
Hazel loved the little pygmy goats that she could feed and brush.
Toby loved the birds, of which there were a lot.
Isaac loved that he could use his heelies all day (but he's been sore for 3 days).
Aspen liked the butterflies too.