The girls had lots of fun on the beach in Galveston while waiting for Pleasure Pier to open. There was no shortage of hermit crabs to scare, and the gulf waters were warm enough to wade in, even right after Christmas!
And thanks to Gordon Colcotte’s song for being almost custom made for this video.
Kit and I worked out a pretty good Christmas schedule, where we had the girls in Austin with Kit and her parents on Christmas morning, and then I drove the girls to Houston on Christmas afternoon to see may parents for a few days.
The girls had not seen a lot of my parents lately. My parents have been going through a number of medical issues for the last year of so, and while I had made many solo trips to see them and help them, I hadn’t brought the girls for those trips. This time the girls got two spend two full days in Houston with them plus two partial days. This is the longest they have spent in Houston in years!
We took advantage of our full days by finally getting to Galveston, which I had been trying to do almost as long as Claire has been alive! We also hit the mall, in particular the American Girl store for Molly, and saw the 3D movie Sing. Sing was a really sweet movie and way better than crap like Home Alone 2, which we watched at home with my parents.
The girls loved Pleasure Pier in Galveston. My dad tagged along and mostly sat on benches while Claire, Molly, and I did rides. We got there early and played on the beach in the fog for a couple of hours before it opened. After Pleasure Pier, we went to Rainforest Cafe to live it up all the way. We made fun of inconsistencies on the menu, such as Jurassic-themed chicken nuggets. We also envisioned a Texas History themed restaurant, featuring Sam Houston’s Tennessee pulled pork and Santa Anna’s green enchiladas. (So wrong!) The we listened to the Anna Kendrick memoir, Scrappy Little Nobody, on the drive back to my parents’ house in Houston. It had drugs and sex all over the place. Talk about wrong! We eventually turned it off and just drove quietly back to Houston.
I took Claire and Molly over to the Trail of Lights just before Christmas this year. I love the Trail of Lights in theory, but so far it always turns out to be an exhausting death march, even this year it was just a short walk from my place. We waited through an extraordinarily long and fast line to get in and waited in an extraordinarily slow line for food at the Chi’ Lantro trailer, where we had to settle for kimchi fries instead of chicken wings. The final insult was dessert at another trailer, where Molly and I got pretty good ice cream sandwiches, while Claire opted for the “warm chocolate brownie”, which turned out to be a cold chocolate cookie. We got back home late and with our energy and senses utterly exhausted. Still, I’m glad we made the effort, and at least it wasn’t cold the year.
Claire had a major role in the 5th grade musical play the year.
She was a flapper and got a brief solo singing part! She sounded amazing and looked great in her flapper outfit. She’s a natural flapper. Way to go, Claire!
Here’s Claire with her friends Susie, Wolfie, and another girl whose name I forgot. (oops!)
Claire turned 11 and had her birthday party at Altitude Austin, an amazing trampoline park. Altitude is extra fun compared to other trampoline parks because it has a special area for bouncy dodgeball. We played dodgeball for probably an hour and ended up exhausted and sweaty. Claire invited six of her amazing friends. Despite all their energy and the fun they were having, we managed to get them together briefly for a group photo (below).
Molly came along to Altitude too. Then the girls went to the house for a sleepover while Molly came to my place for some one-on -one fun time with me, including making a gingerbread house and our own little sleepover.
Another fun thing to do when the weather is cold is to go to the music store. Molly loved the kids-sized drums and the tiny pink guitar, while Claire was into the keyboards. Molly wants the drums for Christmas, but she’ll have to settle for using my less-fun electronic drums set.
With the weather cooling off a bit and making it hard to to spend the day at Barking Springs, and Sno Beach shut down for the season, we’re having to move our weekend fun activities indoors. Today, we took Claire’s friend Susie to lunch at the always delicious Homeslice Pizza and then off to Pinballz arcade for some indoor fun. The girls had lot of fun playing ping pong and messing uncooked dough at Homeslice. And they did a crazy job as a team effort winning tickets at Pinballz, They won over 3000 tickets, with Susie digging into her own money for tokens after my budget had run out. They were picking rolls of 500 tickets out of the claw machines at will, and basically emptied one out in a matter of minutes. With the prize tickets, the girls each got a ping ping gun, plus an inflatable ninja doll and some miscellaneous small toys. We all went back to my place and had a ping pong gun fight and basically destroyed the place. We can have fun even when it’s not warm and sunny out!
We made jack-o-lanterns for Halloween out by my pool this year, for lack of room inside. The girls did a great job focusing and making quality scary pumpkins.
Almost every weekend this summer, the girls andI have gone to our favorite hangout: Barking Springs. A cold, rocky, slippery, green water paradise downstream from Baron Springs pool, this shallow swimming spot is a favorite for dogs and all kinds of people. We walk over there and join the families, dog owners, slackers, fitness nuts, teenagers, and people on dates for an afternoon of splashing and floating in the water, and trying not to hurt ourselves or drown. We had a 100% success rate this year on not drowning, but we did see a couple of other people almost drown, including a toddler in a floaty that got away from her parents, so that was a disturbing lesson to see in person. Within five seconds on trouble, about a dozen people were scrambling to help the bobbing toddler, and they got her out safely. One of the great things about Barton Springs is that everyone is nice and in a good mood. You just can’t help it there!
The we run things is to go to the flat cement part on the west side of the river and wade into the current coming from the waterfall. We float downstream for a while and do it again, trying not to trip and kill ourselves in the process of getting out of the river. Sometimes we invite a friend of Claire’s to come along, which makes it even more fun. Managing three kids at Barking Springs is not easy, but it does make the day more fun.
On the walk home, we always stop by Sno Beach, a snow cone stand that makes the best snow cones in town. It makes for the perfect summer day.
McG Kids 