In no time at all the girls and I will be returning to England for a short trip, we will have been away almost five months by then I'm guessing after a few days it'll feel like we never left.
The girls have now started their first "summer camp" on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays 9am-1.30pm I think the girls were ready to just hang out with some kids and have time to themselves I know I was ready! This particular summer camp was a casual mix of group games, art and craft, science, creative music and movement, splash and outdoor play, guest visitors etc
After a great first day at camp the girls were desperate for day two, unfortunately this was the day Barack Obama was in town and for obvious historical reasons no one knows in advance when this will happen the police just turn up and close the highway in all directions for anything up to two hours luckily we hadn't actually got to the highway before it closed.
My husband and I were asked if we would like to see John Legend live at the Cedar Park Center John played numerous new tunes and gave little snippets of his life story in between each song which was amusing and endearing at the same time and bless his cotton socks not the best dancer in the world! He finished off with 'ordinary people' and 'all of me' a completely amazingly, awe inspiring and enchanting show.
After watching an episode of Peppa Pig our youngest has been insisting that ice skating looked 'great fun' and as I'm not completely insane yet I managed to put her off until the weekend when hubby was at home, so come Saturday off we all go to Chaparral Ice Rink it was all going far better than I expected, we took one child each and did at least four laps around the edge I even noticed the girls were starting to speed up after a while then we saw blood on the ice where someone had sliced open their finger we felt it was time to call it a day then!
Farmers markets are very popular in this part of Texas, the one we visited wasn't huge in my opinion called Lone Star Farmers Market although it did have some great choices for foodies and we went home with at least three dinners for that week.
One midweek afternoon after doing my usual research on fun things for kids I decided we could visit the Zilker Botanical Gardens, its very beautiful there and some fun sights but perhaps more for older children, mine spent more time looking around the gift shop than the gardens.
Next on our list was Austin Zoo I had personally been looking forward to this for a while with visions of London Zoo and Marwell Zoo in mind however Austin Zoo is also an animal sanctuary and a non-government funded project and is completely run by donations only.
With this mind the volunteers must be amazing because all the animals look well fed, clean and as happy as any caged animal can look however the cages look what I can only describe as rickety not the end of the world you might think until we came across tigers, a bear and pacing wolves only the leopard had a completely enclosed cage on a positive note it was amazing the girls could see the animals at such close range....
Independence Day 4th July - a completely new type of bank holiday for us Brits! I googled how to educate young children about why American people celebrate Independence Day and we were invited by E's school friends to Austin Country Club's 4th of July celebrations a completely family friendly event, buffet food, face painters, bouncy castles, clowns etc then a short walk to their golf course by the lake to watch the skydivers landing and throwing sweets everywhere to the much awaited fireworks.
