Leona's Budding Sense of Humor

Leona: (Hearty fake laugh) "Naked! Funny!"

Glad to see that her sense of humor is developing on schedule. 

Weekend with the Coles

After Jaybob's graduation the Coles came back to Austin with us.  We had a great time with them and made one of the girls' dreams come true... riding on the swan boats.  Every day we would look out of our window onto Ladybird Lake and see the swan boats and the girls would pine for the day that they could ride on one.  So we made that dream come true, along with checking off a few other Austin bucket list items.

Probably the favorite activity for the girls, even more favorite than the swan boats, was going to Voodoo Doughnut because doughnuts were involved.  We got the classic raspberry jelly filled voodoo doll doughnut as well as some others that were equally unique.  They were good but had it not been for the awesome stage for dancing/marching on it might not have been worth the 45 minute wait for doughnuts.

While the Coles were there we also hit up the graffiti gallery which was really cool.  Anyone could graffiti anywhere and there was some really beautiful stuff.  Unfortunately gallery is kind of a fancy word for abandoned lot in this case and there was broken glass everywhere.  We didn't stay too long out of a fear of contracting tetanus.

Trip to H-Town

Another benefit of living so close to Houston is that we got to go there.  It was a fast trip, just got there Friday night and came back Sunday night, but it was really fun.  The timing was also good because our family needed a bit of a morale boost after losing the baby the prior weekend.  It was nice to be surrounded by so many people who love us in a sad time.  

The Mosses were nice enough to let us stay at their house- take it over really since they were in Michigan at the time.  On Saturday we started off early by heading to the Houston Zoo with the Tesones and the Dykes.  We had a great time checking out the animals, but mostly just running around with buddies.  Leona was obsessed with the elephants because I told her that one was her twin because it was born on the same day as her.  For a month she would obsessively say, "Baby elephant. Mommy Elephant. Daddy elephant." on a loop after this visit.

After the zoo we went out to lunch with the Martin family.  Then after a short nap we went over to visit Miss Margie.  She was so happy to see us.  Miss Margie couldn't get over how big the girls have gotten, especially Leona, since she left a baby and is now a kid. Just like old times the girls chased kitties while the grown ups chatted.  It was fun to see our old house, which the girls already only barely remembered- CRAZY!! It looks pretty much exactly the same on the outside although we are told that they are remodeling something on the interior.

After visiting Miss Margie we headed over to the Dykes's house to play on their slip'n'slide and eat dinner.  The girls had a blast running in the sprinklers, something we haven't done all summer long since we're in an apartment.  Everybody had a great time and it was hard to say goodbye when we had to leave.  

As much as Saturday was so much fun my favorite part of the trip was going to church in our old ward on Sunday.  It was wonderful to be back around so many good friends!  Eliza remembered and was happy to see some old friends, but Clara and Leona don't remember their own cohorts so Clara ended up in Eliza's class and I ended up in the nursery for a long time.  It felt like being home to be there.  I don't think that we'll ever be in such a wonderful ward again, although the ward in Austin is also incredible.  

Overall, such a fabulous weekend and so nice to be home.

Hike with the Dykes

One of the perks of living in Austin for the summer was its proximity to Houston.  We got to see our buddies, the Dykes, several times times during the summer.  One of the times Dad took the girls on a hike along the Bull Creek Greenbelt with the whole Dykes family. They had a great time.  Shawna helped the girls get over their fear of the small fish swimming with them by pointing out that their mouths are simply too small to bite people- a fact that was somehow more credible coming from a non-parent.

Cousins Come to Austin

We had a very full apartment for about a week when the Caldwell cousins came to visit! Leona slept in our closet. Auntie Mel, Ollie, and Grant slept in Leona's room. Lily, Junie, Clara, and Eliza slept in C & E's room.  Well, using the word sleep seems like a bit of an exaggeration.  There was lots of fun, games, and giggling, but not much sleeping the whole time.  We took them to the State Capitol, because as fairly new Texas citizens they needed to be indoctrinated.  We also went to the Children's museum and swimming a couple of times.  We had a great time with them and were sad to see them go.  Luckily with both families in Texas for the summer we got to see them quite a bit.

Fun in Austin

We started off the summer with a bang.  We are loving living in Austin.  There are so many fun things to go do.  We went to this fun family scavenger hunt around the Contemporary Art Sculpture Garden.  There were clues left around that you had to follow, and during the course of solving the mystery you got to tour the sculptures.  Pretty much everybody's favorite was this tall metallic guy, except Leona.  Her favorite sculpture was this:

It's a weird fountain where the bunny is crying out highlighter yellow tear streams.  She talks about the crying bunny a LOT.  Maybe she will be an artist someday.  She does seem to have a deep connection to this piece of art.

We also got a visit from Evelyn! She was nice enough to come from Houston and hang with us for a couple of days, along with her mom. :) We went to the Nature and Science Center where we unearthed dino fossils and saw rescued animals, went swimming, and probably most important in Eliza's mind went to Torchy's Tacos. While Evelyn was here she gave Leona a small stuffed elephant. Originally she was just meant to play with it during the visit but Clara and Eliza both warned Evelyn that she shouldn't let Leona play with anything if she wanted it back.  Evelyn graciously decided to let Leona keep the elephant which has quickly become her all time favorite toy ever.  She carries it around with her all. the. time.  She sleeps with it, it sits on the counter to "watch her eat", and is frequently just in her arms walking around.  She is in love with that elephant.

We also hit the snow cone trailer that was only a couple of blocks away from our apartment.  We were going to all ride bikes to get there but the trailer had a flat so it ended up that only Eliza and dad got to ride there and the rest of us drove. This makes up another one of Leona's conversation loops this summer.  While we were there part of Leona's snow cone fell on the ground and a dog ate it.  This story combines some of her favorite things, namely dogs and treats so we hear it a LOT. Actually her longest sentence to date is a summary of this occurrence. "Doggy eat Nona's snow cone. OK." The last part was from us reassuring her that it was no big deal that the dog was eating her snow cone.

We celebrated Father's Day one week late (since we were in Flower Mound on Father's Day because Lily's baptism was the day before) and dad wanted to celebrate but doing things all day long.  We started out by taking him to the Barton Springs Green Belt.  There's a little trail that we hiked and alongside there are periodic swimming holes.  Next time we will definitely bring water shoes because the rocks did not feel good on our feet but it was sooo fun!  There were some tiny fish swimming around and we had a great time.  It was nice to be able to take a dip when you got too sweaty from hiking.  We only hiked about two miles round trip.There are also so fun spots to climb on rocks along the way. We really have the perfect location for the summer.  We're only about a mile away from this place.

Pint-Sized Picasso

Bluebonnet Photo 2016

Just when you think you've missed bluebonnet picture season you find a lone bluebonnet in the shade at a splash pad. :)

First Week in Austin

This is the view from our apartment in Austin.  We are right downtown and so close to so many fun activities.  We are going to have an awesome summer.  The first Sunday that we were here we showed up to church only to find and empty chapel (we came back an hour later to find they were having a special Stake Conference) so we killed an hour by wandering around the Capitol building.

The first week we hit the ground running doing lots of fun things.  We went to the Botanical Gardens where along with the butterfly garden we also did a "fairy trail" walk where there were little fairy houses set up among the plants along the trail.  It was sort of like a scavenger hunt along with the walk through the beautiful plants.

Another fun thing from our first week was going to see the bats.  We live right off of the bridge that houses the largest urban bat colony so of course we had to go watch them come out to feed at dark.  Unfortunately, this being summer dark doesn't happen until 9:30.  Everybody was so exhausted by the time the bats finally made their appearance that Collin and I were surprised that the girls still seemed interested and enjoyed watching them fly out.

Fun in Flower Mound

At long last the time came for us to "move" back to Texas for the summer.  We started that trip off with a bang by having a 24 hour pit-stop at Grandma and Grandpa Roueche's house and then heading down to Flower Mound for a week where we stayed at the Caldwell's house.  It was cousin-palooza for a whole week.  We barely even saw the kids as they were always getting up to something with the cousins.  Leona and Ollie had a "frenemy" style relationship.  Any time anything went south Leona would report that Ollie had pushed her.  Ollie returned the favor by actually pushing her about half as many times as it was reported.  They then would have a makeup 3 minute long awkward hug where both would act like they would totally walk away if the other person didn't want the hug so badly and just stay together until Mel or I finally said, "OK guys now go play and be nice." at which point they would split and act like strangers until the next time.  There were also puppies to play with, or rather observe from a distance of no less than an arm's length.  

Also, we made it there just in time for Lily's 8th birthday party which was done in full Carney style with face painting, glitter tattoos, ballooning, spin art, and cotton candy.  I think that my people will never be satisfied with a birthday party again after seeing what the whole Cole experience can be like.  Leona was desperate to get painted by Grandpa.  She told him that she wanted a kitty- 100% her own idea- and was a little kitty statue while he painted.  She was sooo thrilled with the end product and is still talking about it a month later.

Another benefit of being a Cole, is free passes to Legoland, courtesy of Uncle Sammy.  Everybody pretty much unanimously agreed that the 4-D movie was the best part, but Leona liked the ride.  It was not that exciting of a ride, unless I suppose you're 2 and have never been on one before, in which case it's awesome.