The girls’ nanny, Sarah, discovered a new app called Dubsmash that lets you lip-sync a small part of a song. Claire and Molly each took a turn. Sarah texted these awesome vids to us as a nice little distraction at work.
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Minka
Over dinner, when Kit is not yet home from the hospital, Claire and I often find ourselves playing different fictional characters that we just make up as we eat. Molly does not really join in, but she does seem to enjoy the amateur performance.
Our favorite characters recently are a father (me) with a heavy Russian accent. I am simply known as “Papa”. I speak of my time back in fatherland Russia, where “if you want to eat, you do not go to grocery store. No. You chase down dinner and eat it. Or maybe if you’re not so fast, it eat you.” I have no idea where this comes from.
I tend to carry on about dinner. “I work and work and make good dinner, and you turn up nose!”
Claire is Minka. Minka is my daughter, but she is not Russian. By her accent, she seems to be from South America or maybe Southern Asia. She grew up in America and is spoiled by things like grocery stores and chicken nuggets. Something is not quite right with Minka, who is afraid of televisions, iPads, or really anything electronic. And she gets confused by forks and spoons.
Minka loves her dog, Cubbie (Muffin). I adopted Cubbie back in the fatherland, where she helped me survive on the tundra by hunting down dinner with me every night. Cubbie joined me on my trek to America and is always kind and patient with Minka.
Molly is Minka’s little sister. We tried to include Molly in this story, but she does not want to join in. We tried to name her Pepe, but she insisted that she is Molly. Molly is “normal American kid who loves chicken nuggets and television”.
We’re not sure what happened to Minka’s mom. She may be back in Russia fighting her way through the frozen tundra. Or maybe she’s stuck at the hospital. We’re not sure which is worse.
Inside Can be Fun Too
What have Claire and Molly been doing with all their free time now that they’re out of school for the summer? Besides playing in the rain, having friends over, swimming, and watching Jessie, here are a few pics of their indoor activities so far this summer.
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Rainy Summer Days
With all the rain we’ve been having lately, the backyard has turned into a water park for the girls. Molly, in particular, loves going outside to play, especially when it is raining. She likes when it is raining really hard best of all. She and Claire will spend hours at a time out there just splashing around and playing with their toys.
They even set up a water park for their My Little Pony toys. The park is inspired by Schlitterbahn and features a giant water slide with a big pool at the end of it. There is also a “natural pond”, which is basically a big puddle. And the Swamp of Doom in the muddy grass area. Claire made a map of the park and even added a snack stand for refreshments (it’s alternately a smoothie place, a fish taco place, or Benny’s Fish ‘n’ Chips).
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Scholz Garten
Here are some pics of the girls having fun on the stage at Scholz Garten, a beer garden in downtown Austin founded in 1866. As we waited for our food, Claire and Molly ran up on stage and put together a show for the smattering of customers in the outdoor patio this Saturday afternoon. The German-themed mural must have inspired them.
This year, we’re going to sort of miss Father’s Day since Kit is on call and can’t really do anything fun; she could be called away to the hospital at any minute. So as an early Father’s Day, I got to choose something to do, and I picked Scholz. I’m not a big fan of beer, but I am a fan of 150-year-old beer gardens. And it turns out they have some great beer and root beer on tap, good bar grub, and cute little girls running around on the stage.
After lunch/dinner, we went home and watched the original Star Wars to top off my pre- Father’s Day. (Molly hated Star Wars, and Claire seemed to tolerate it.)
A Fun Day in SA
Kit was schedule to run an audit at a hospital in downtown San Antonio on Monday, and she had a nice hotel room right across the street on the Riverwalk, so she invited the rest of the family along to enjoy a quick trip to S.A. We had lots of fun for a one-day trip, mostly exploring the Riverwalk, swimming, and eating. The girls did not want to leave on Monday morning after a final swim at the hotel, but I had to get back to work in the afternoon to catch up with the team on the happenings at Apple’s 2015 developer conference (WWDC).
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Last Day of School ’15
The girls head out for their last day of school for this academic year. This was Molly’s last day in Pre-K and Claire’s last day in 3rd grade. It is a pajamas day for Molly, and both girls get to bring games, stuffed animals, etc. for their last day with their classes.
Geocaching 101
We’ve been talking about trying geocaching for a while. Geocaching is a GPS-aided search for small containers hidden put there by other people for you to find. It is basically a crowdsourced outdoor exploration around town, in your neighborhood, or further out in nature. If this doesn’t make sense, see wikipedia.
Anyways, we didn’t know how to get started with geocaching. Kit saw that McKinney Falls State Park was offering a Geocaching 101 class, so we signed up. This would give us reason to check out this state park on the Southeast edge of town. A park ranger met us at the park and literally walked us through geocaching. She had four caches hidden and ready and gave us GPS units. She found the first one with us, and then set us out to find the others.
It was great wandering around the park looking for hidden containers. The girls enjoyed it, although they got tired by cache #4. We got to see Onion Creek, site of some serious floods a couple of years ago, and the upper McKinney Falls, which was flowing rapidly due to recent heavy rains. The open swim area had turned into a whitewater gusher. Kit and Claire were afraid of one of us falling in and drowning, but we kept our distance.
Anyways, here are some pics.
The Opposite of Pease Park
Eeyore’s Birthday Party is a festival that takes place every spring at Pease Park. The festival includes live music, costumes, food, and drum circles — lots of drum circles. It is a longstanding “Keep Austin Weird” type of event, starting way back in 1963, and it benefits local nonprofits.
This year we finally decided to go check out Eeyore’s Birthday Party since it is right in our neighborhood. People literally park their cars in front of our house to walk to the party. So we decided to walk down ourselves to Pease Park, a place we have long gone to play on the swings, explore in the woods, and play soccer. The park has even entered our family lexicon.
When we got there, Claire was shocked. Her nice, quiet neighborhood park was suddenly loud, smokey, and full of hippies. Claire hated it. She wanted to leave almost immediately. What did these people do to our nice park? She declared that it was “weird and hot” and “hot and weird.” I told her that the hippies were keeping Austin weird and that they were all about peace and love, which Claire is also all about. Claire said they are not about peace and love. They are ruining her nice, peaceful park.
“This is the opposite of Pease Park. It’s loud and smelly. Can we leave now?”
We made the rounds, enjoying some drum circles and a cold drink. We watched the police ignore all the pot smoking. Molly, for her part, seemed to enjoy the festival. We assured a concerned Claire that the park was not ruined forever, and that it would be restored to its original state within a couple of days.
Next week at this time, Molly will be back to playing soccer right where the may pole is now, and Claire can come along and enjoy the peace and quiet. But not today. Let the hippies have their fun for a day.
McG Kids 