McG Kids

This weblog tracks my kids’ early years. Each entry is a snapshot from their childhood.

Please pardon any type-o’s, misstatements, or factual irregularities. This blog is written by an often dazed dad, normally after 11 pm when he should really be in bed if he had any sense. Even the basic quick edit is not a regular practice here.

A Fun Day in SA

| patmcg

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).

dsad

Last Day of School ’15

Image | | patmcg

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.

 

Things Molly Hates

| patmcg

Here are a few of the things that Molly has specifically stated that she “hates” in recent weeks.  Note that most of these things are almost universally admired by people who are not Molly.  Also, this is only a partial sampling of things that Molly strongly dislikes.

  • The movie Back to the Future
  • Fresh Lemonade
  • Our dog, Muffin
  • Car washes (“why can’t you just keep the car clean to begin with?”)
  • Dinosaur bones
  • Pie
  • Dipping pretzels in hummus
  • Dipping tortilla chips in hummus

Geocaching 101

| patmcg

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

| patmcg

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.

Strawberry Shortcake Seeds

Image | | patmcg

According to Molly, these are Strawberry Shortcake seeds.  They were left on her plate after eating some Strawberry Shortcake.  If you plant them, a Strawberry Shortcake will eventually grown from the ground.  Molly is not kidding about this