Easter Road Trip

We took advantage of Easter weekend to explore the Hill Country with the kids.  First stop, lunch in Gruene!

 

The Gristmill is one of my favorite places to eat.  It's hard to beat this gorgeous view over the Guadalupe.

Ben read up on the history a bit before devouring his bacon burger.

After lunch, we had to visit the river for a few minutes.  Too cold to tube but we will be back!

Next stop, Luckenbach!

We enjoyed the sunshine and some music while the kids played.  Alex claimed this stump for his own.

Ben fell in love with a tiny frog and then got busy carving his name into the table.

We spent the night in Fredericksburg and went to Enchanted Rock first thing Saturday morning.  Unfortunately, so did hundreds of other people, so the line was really long getting into the park.  At least we could enjoy bluebonnets while we waited.

Once we got in, it was totally worth the wait!  It is a huge granite mountain perfect for climbing and exploring.

We went through some interesting crevices and peeked into a cave.

Push all you want...those aren't moving!

We found more wildflowers and tasted a little Texas wine.

One more beautiful hill country sunset...

Dinner and live Texas music and dancing make for a fun evening!

On Easter Sunday, our sunrise service was moved indoors due to rain showers but we still celebrated with a local church.  Then we headed back through New Braunfels to check out Natural Bridge Caverns.

Back home, the kids enjoyed hunting eggs with the neighbors.

I had to laugh at this poor, mutilated chocolate bunny.  I helped put him out of his misery!

March

Alex was excited that I could join him on his field trip to a little theater in Houston to watch a Junie B. Jones play.

After the play, the kids all had lunch and played around in a big courtyard.  Alex and his buddy Ryan loved every minute!

We kicked off spring break a day early to catch up with the cousins at Grammy and Grumpy's house.  Unfortunately, our spring breaks didn't line up this year but we were happy to at least spend a day together!  All the boys rode their ripsticks to the park.

Abby was very interested in the new lizard friend we brought inside.

We took the big boys on a cool trail at the back of the neighborhood and they had a blast getting dirty in the creek.

Their favorite part of the day was finding "furry friends" along the trail.  Thankfully, we did not bring any of them home!

All the cousins together!

Alex found a cake recipe in his Stampy book and insisted we make it together.  It actually turned our pretty darn good!

To have a little fun before baseball season kicked into high gear, Ben's coach organized a scrimmage between the parents and the kids.  It was fun for all of us and cool to see the kids playing on the same field together.

We spent half of our spring break in Alabama and Casey enjoyed an East Texas sunrise on the way there.

City dog became a country dog and ran through the woods and the mud with us.

I think the kids' favorite part was driving the old blue truck in the pasture.

Casey's least favorite part was sharing the house (and the laps) with Holly.

The kids had plenty of puppy love to go around, though!

 The boys had fun shooting stuff (mostly ant piles...ha!) with their BB guns.

Back home, this cracked me up.  Alex gave fair warning to anyone trying to enter his room on a grumpy afternoon!

Trinidad and Tobago

Matt had a work trip to Trinidad and, with the help of all the wonderful grandparents watching the kids, I was able to join him.  While he was working, I wandered around Port of Spain to see the sights.

The pool at the hotel wasn't too shabby, either!

I had a great time seeing the animals at the zoo.  It was small but well done.

Haven't seen many anteaters in my life!

This would have been the kids' favorite exhibit - a huge cage full of parakeets.

 When all of Matt's colleagues headed back to Houston, we took a 15-minute flight over to Tobago for a weekend of relaxation and fun at this lovely resort.

 

 The view from our porch was perfect!

A short taxi ride took us to a beach with a nice surf break for Matt.

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This got our attention!  And naturally, we were standing under the tree while we were reading the sign.

By far, the coolest thing we did was a nighttime paddleboard tour through a lagoon filled with bioluminescent plankton.  It was intimidating at first because the instructor said it was 6km roundtrip, mostly in the dark, but it was so worth the effort.  The water looked like it was full of lightning bugs every time it was disturbed and we even hopped off the boards and went swimming in the sparkling water at one point.  It was incredible!  Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to capture on film, but we did get a group shot afterward to remember the evening.

The rest of the time, we snorkeled and relaxed on the private lagoon at the resort.

Soaking in our last sunset in paradise!