Marching Onward

The kids' school had a Field Day; therefore the kids had a field day with it. Har har. But, I totally understand that phrase now! I volunteered to help set up some of the events, but before my shift, I found Owen and went around with him for a while. They had checklists to complete and help guide them around the different stations. It was fun to see him in his element and let him pick which things he wanted to do, and I'm glad he was still excited to see me at school. He greeted me with a huge hug! His favorite stations were the races, football toss, and popsicles!

Then I got to go around with Hadley. She did not mess around and started off with a popsicle right away! First grade had different challenges set up from third grade, but I think she liked the bouncy house maze the best!

Their school also hosted a STEAM night, which gave them opportunities to use some basic science principles and creativity to create a 3 Little Pigs story roadmap for an Ozobot (different marker colors make this little rolling robot change colors/direction/speed, etc.) and create vehicles and structures out of plastic baggies, popsicle sticks, and pipe cleaners, among other things. We're so glad they have these events!

The kids took spring portraits at the farm... I mean, at school.

Spring also means soccer, so Owen has been practicing twice a week with a new team. (He's in bright red shoes.) Three hours of practice a week and games at 8am on Saturdays across town. Ugh... er, yea, for soccer season!

In preparation for swim season, I signed up the kids for lessons. They had to be evaluated for their swim level first, and Owen surpassed the level I thought he'd be at!

The swim center we signed up with requires two weeks with daily half-hour lessons for new-to-their-club swimmers. Owen pretty much had a private lesson as a Marlin, which was great for him to practice mostly free-styling up and down the length of the pool. He really liked it when he got to wear flippers and is considering buying some of his own. 

Hadley was a stingray and practiced freestyle and backstrokes across the width of the pool with breathing techniques on her back to go on her own. She really loved it and is looking forward to swim team in a few weeks! Both kids passed on to the next levels by the end of their session.

In other news, the grown ups (are we?) had an unofficial college reunion at a friend's birthday bash. It was so great to see so many familiar faces in person again.

Lastly, a couple of good pics of my girl. She loves to create and have projects to do. She has enjoyed making her own markers, pot holders, and other crafts.

Spring Break

We started off our Spring Break with a warm, sunny Saturday afternoon at a local park. There were a lot of families there, but enough room and different areas to spread out and not feel too crowded. 

Afterwards we had family visitors at our house! And we found some crawfish for Aunt Jenn and John, because it's that season. Then we formed a cousin cart caravan and did some food shopping.

With a break from busy routines, the kids were definitely in need of a lot of this:

And we did have a lot of lazy, do-nothing time. The weather was icky, and they were still finishing up the bathroom renovations, so we couldn't do much the first part of the week anyway. We did want to play tourist on our staycation, however, so we got out to the Museum of Natural Sciences in Sugar Land one afternoon. Owen really wanted to see the dinosaurs again, and this fit the bill without having to drive downtown.

They had this fun semi-interactive screen where different creatures would "walk" through periodically. The kids got to tickle a leopard!

And I didn't get a picture of most of them, but they had a bunch of science experiments that we really enjoyed. Some of the more memorable ones were visualizing and manipulating a sound wave, lifting weights with and without pulleys and levers, and a mini-inflatable planetarium where we learned about the space race.

Owen was receiving a message from Hadley from across the room via the whisper dish.

Hadley's one request for Spring Break was to go to the rodeo (I think they talked it up a lot at school). Ugh, does this kid really understand what being the largest rodeo in the country entails? I looked at their attendance later for the day we went - 125,000 people! But I don't think I had ever been myself, and was curious to get this very Houston experience under our belt. Not to mention, it gets the girl to wear her cowgirl boots.

Wednesdays were 'kids get in free' day, so maybe that explained some of the crowds, but it was rainy, too, so everyone was crowded into the inside exhibits. We started off at the kid-friendly animal section where we saw piglets, lambs, calves, bees, and lots of different kinds of rabbits. There was even a small aquarium section, which seemed a little unusual at a rodeo.

Once we ventured outside, we stumbled into an animal show! There was a speaker who brought out different animals and shared some educational tidbits about each one. He had an owl, snake, anteater, hedgehog, and a baby kangaroo. The most entertaining thing  though was the sloth that he had already introduced, but which was just hanging out on a limb during the rest of the show. He was pretty active for a sloth - up, down, reaching, hanging, bending, twisting. I think he was hoping for a bigger tree to climb.

The kids were troopers through the crowds and exhibits, and we needed an afternoon pick-me-up, so I thought they had earned a funnel cake. Turns out we think this was their first funnel cake ever! And they devoured it in about three minutes.

I was disappointed that the actual rodeo events are on a separate ticket and at night with a concert included, which makes it difficult to attend with kids. I didn't want to leave without seeing something more rodeo-y, so we sat and watched a cow show, and then ventured to the other side of the venue to see a horse show. Neither was particularly riveting entertainment, but it did add a dimension to the rodeo of the culture of raising and working closely with animals, which I think is really the heart of the rodeo - more so than the carnival part, anyway. Speaking of which, we managed to avoid the carnival! I think the kids wanted to ride some of the rides (of course), but we had limited time, so that got cut first. :)

After the rodeo, we made a pitstop on our cross-city journey and met Dad for dinner and a tour of his new office. It's going well so far, and he really likes this communal, open-concept office. The kids liked it too.

The next day, we decided to use the discounted NASA Space Center tickets that the kids got from school and make a full family day of it. We hadn't been there in probably 20 years, so it was kind of new to us, too. We saw lots of cool replicas and original items crucial to the space story. Pretty amazing to imagine the human guinea pigs volunteering for this assignment.

A highlight was to see and explain the space shuttles to the kids. Kind of sad that era is over, but we were reminded of the tragedies and bravery required for space exploration. They have a replica of the shuttle and plane piggy-back that they used to use to transport the shuttle that visitors can walk through.

Hadley really enjoyed the simulations on the plane. This one was practicing docking the shuttle onto the plane with a crane, and the kids had to work together as each controlled a different part. 

Other highlights included touching a moon rock and seeing lots of space suits, as well as weather exhibits and a show about rockets that included ignition demos!

While we were in the area, we thought we may as well check out Kemah. After all, the kids had been to Texas so many times, but had never actually been to the coast. They were disappointed that this section of coast didn't really have a beach! Haha. It made me a little sad that they never got to go to my grandfather's bay house...

A short walk took us to the Kemah boardwalk - another local landmark I don't recall ever going to before. Is everything a carnival now? It was very touristy, and not our favorite, but I still enjoyed walking on the boardwalk for a change of scenery.

An example of the touristy-ness of Kemah - random Popeye cutout. In conclusion, we enjoyed our lazy Spring Break with a sprinkle of local tourist activities mixed in for good measure. But, of course, Spring Break is never quite long enough!

Bathroom Renovations

Warning: no kid pics in this post. Move along, if that's what you are looking for! :)

I spoke earlier of house renovations that were keeping us close to home for most of February. They are finally done! We had the master bath overhauled and the half bath updated over the course of 4 weeks. It was our first major renovation ever, and we survived. Now to clean up from the layers of drywall dust and move back into our room (we lived in the guest room for two weeks). We feel like we're not in our house when we go in the master bath now - a nice escape! Enjoy the before and afters. We'll start with the view from the master bedroom. We pretty much changed everything, including relocating the shower into what used to be a "man-ity." Also, notice the weird white plastic apron that ran by the shower and tub on the floor. Now it's porcelain, wood-look tile all the way across.

Looking back to the master, the old shower (just to the right of the door) is now a custom-made open shelf with added recessed lighting. We chucked the ridiculous half-doors to the curb and put in a normal door. Hallelujah!

The old shower was really the driving force behind the overhaul. It was dark, not even 3-foot square with the most useless, tiny shelf and door that constantly stuck. Not even the inner window (see above) could help it be less cave-like. Now across the room, the shower is much bigger, brighter, prettier, and way more functional with a small bench, recessed shelf, and frameless glass to let the light in.

Next door, the old whirlpool tub was ripped out and replaced with a newer, freestanding version. I'm not opposed to whirlpools, but when we cranked this one up, the water filled with lots of black, floating debris from who knows where. Gross! It also had a giant footprint, so the room seems a lot bigger without it, even though the replacement is the same size. We're not really bath takers, but we might have to now that we have such a nice tub.

We also added a fun new light over the tub. The lighting consultant talked us out of a chandelier for safety reasons, but maybe we'll change it out later. At any rate, it's fine for now. The window was the limiting factor on the size of the shower, since it is right smack in the middle of the bathroom wall. But we like the light it provides and the privacy glass, so I'm glad we were able to work around it.

The vanity got a facelift by combining sinks, raising up a few inches, and all new cabinets, lighting, mirror, countertop, and fixtures. Does anyone else think it's weird that the previous owners didn't even have towel bars or hooks?

Even the water closet got some help with a new toilet, vanity-matching cabinet, and a real door. We were pretty pysched to get real doors!

Can I just ask, who ever thought it was a good idea to put half-doors on the toilet?! First, they don't really meet perfectly in the middle. Second, you have to open both doors coming and going like you are making a grand entrance! Third, the mechanism often stuck so that you couldn't even do the first two as a best-case scenario, but had to squeeze yourself into/out of one side. Fourth, the doors swinging out actually caused interference with the bathroom entrance, too. Good riddance!

Now a brief look back at what we've lived with the last 4 weeks. From demo to specialized skills to finishing touches, we had a small army of workers showing up at random times during daylight hours, six days a week.

Demo took quite a while, because it was a lot to remove, but it was also contingent on the plumber showing up to stop the faucet lines so the vanities could come out without a flood. The plumber also had to move some drain lines around. Once that was done, the next bottle neck was the tiler because thinset has to dry for a day before grout goes down, which also has to dry for the better part of a day. We had a lot of tile, and it all had to go in a certain order.

The carpenter, plumber, countertops, electrician, and glass/mirror guys all had to converge for the vanities. Note to self: stick with your gut next time and avoid marble surfaces, as they are so delicate. All in all, it was quite an investment, but we will certainly enjoy it, and the house hopefully has added value now, too.

The half bath was a minor undertaking, but very needed as it was pretty naked and blah in there. Our contractor threw it in for a pretty good deal. You can't really get the full impact, since it splits into two ends at the door, so we'll look at the sink side first. It's hard to see with and without the light in the pics, but we knew we wanted some storage in there. Our neighbor was selling this mirror, and was kind enough to give it to us! We might change it out at some point, but it works for now! Also, the vanity handles were a compromise because the carpenter drilled into the drawers for the master handles, and we didn't want to have to fill them in and re-drill, so we found some others that would fit the holes. Not what I had envisioned, but there are worse problems, right?

Now for the toilet side. Poor lonely toilet in a beige prison... I love painted tile, so we went for it in this small space. The kids were very unsure about it, but they've come around. The designer chose the wall color, called sea glass, which is kind of a grey-blue-green color, and we'll work on some cutesy decor for the shelf. But even now, it's so much better! Oh, and the toilet has a fun button flush, which the kids enjoy. 

With all the goings on inside our house, I felt inspired to upgrade something outside. The kids love the play set, but who knows how old it is. The wood is in pretty good shape, but the climbing holds were mostly gone from one side and very small. So, I moved all of the small holds to one side for a challenging route, and bought some larger holds for an easy side, since we've had neighborhood kids climbing on it several times. Minor change, but I felt accomplished for an afternoon!