Spring Break: Rodeo!

Apparently hubby has been wanting to go to the rodeo every year since we've been here (who knew he was such a cowboy at heart?!) and he decided on Friday to seize our last chance to check it out.  As we were driving up, I lamented the fact that I didn't have a pair of cowgirl boots to wear!  If ever there was a perfect occasion to sport a pair of Texas boots, it would've been to the rodeo.  The children in the family who HAD boots didn't even want to wear them!  For shame!  Ah well, we did alright with our sandals and tennis shoes.

The rodeo had never really been on my radar so I may not have had my happy face on when after our first fifteen minutes there we were dripping with sweat, had experienced one bloodied nose and multiple meltdowns...and we hadn't even made it from the parking lot to the entrance yet!  After getting our tickets and making our way to the giant Agriculture building our day took a 180 (the blue slushies may have helped) and hubby was able to take all the credit for a great adventure by the time we left. :)

They had a ton of animals to see ranging from your standard cows and goats to bees!  The boys all enjoyed that.  Lil' peanut was beside himself when we discovered the John Deere exhibit.  After a bit of a rocky start we really had a great time.  Baby was super chill being carried or cruising in his car and the big kids were both well behaved and just a lot of fun to be around.  

I uploaded the pictures from my phone so they're in random order...

Big brothers had the best time teaching this little guy the old "see food" trick.  All three of them were cracking up at each other!

Excited about their free tractor supply company gear!

Can you tell by his face he was in heaven?!

Petting rabbits.

We'll see if we can keep our sunflowers alive at least long enough to see them sprout. :)

Showing off their blue slushie tongues.

We for sure had the coolest mode of transportation there.  Kids kept trying to drive off with the car if we left it unoccupied for a minute.

What a great addition to our Spring Break agenda!  Houston Rodeo...check!

Spring Break Continued...Kemah Boardwalk!

The last time we went to the boardwalk we let the kids each pick one ride to go on.  And lil' peanut has been begging to go back ever since.  We knew it had to be on our bucket list of things to do before we move. The kids were pretty thrilled when we told them they could ride all the rides this time.  Those all day ride passes made for a pricey adventure, but it was definitely worth it seeing how much fun they had.

We picked something we could all go on for our first ride...the ferris wheel.  Ferris wheels freak me out a little bit and apparently that's something pumpkin baby and I have in common.  He was NOT happy.  The picture is right before it started moving.  After that, he was a sad, scared little baby.  He was quite content to be snuggled up in the carrier on my back for the rest of the day after that traumatic start.  The only other ride he got on was the train and he fell asleep on it.  Ha!

His post-train snooze.

Lil' peanut loving the carousel.

The splash pad was a huge hit (with all three of them!)  We waited until they were all done with rides before we went there because we knew they'd get soaking wet and we didn't have extra clothes.  Baby stayed pretty dry after his initial bravery got him squirted in the face.  He stuck to the perimeter after that.  But, the big kids rode home in their undies. :)

C's selfie with the shark.

Another box checked!  Now we need this rain to go away so we can keep working on our list and hit the beach!

Spring Break 2015

We kicked off C's spring break with a quick trip to Kansas.  When I say quick, I mean it.  We spent twice as much time in the car as we did out of it!  We left on Friday afternoon and stayed the night in Dallas with Dr. Lou and Miss Laura, former professor of mine and dear friends.  We had breakfast together and visited a bit Saturday morning before getting back on the road.

We spent our one non-travelling day, Sunday, hanging out with my brother's family and my in-laws.  I went to church by myself.  I love going back to visit because it's the church I grew up in and there are some very special people there that I'm able to catch up with.  One of them being my oldest niece.  And boy did we have some catching up to do!  Ha!  She ran right up to me and started chattering away.  She had much to share.  Even more with C.  Hubby brought the boys up after church was over and we all drove to lunch. When my niece got out of the car she started talking a mile a minute to C.  He put both his hands up and started shaking his head "Whoa, whoa, whoa.  Too much information too fast.  Slow down."  My father in law got a kick out of that and told C he better get used to it. :)

We had lunch at Fritz's, the train restaurant.  It's been big on our list of fun things to do in Kansas that we keep going over with lil' peanut as he's been less than thrilled with the move at times.  He was pretty stoked to eat there and hopefully it eased a bit of his anxiety about the move.  After lunch we went to Science City, which I haven't been to since high school!  It was a lot of fun.  The kids all had a great time.

This was one of my favorite exhibits, the fossil dig.  All the little people stayed in one place for a good amount of time so the adults were able to have a seat and relax a bit.  This is me showing off how stylish baby wearing can be without the actual baby. ;)

Monday morning we went to Ft. Leavenworth to meet with the housing office.  To my surprise, she gave us the key and we got to go check out the house they have available for us by ourselves.  That was awesome. If you have never seen kids in a completely empty house, you may not know this, but it's like...the best thing ever.  I can't imagine it would have been as fun had we needed them to "behave" because someone was there watching us.  They ran crazy all over that place!  They played hide and seek, raced around claiming their new bedrooms, and slid across the floors in their socks.  I think the stairs were pumpkin baby's favorite thing about the whole house.  We don't have them at home, so he was quite intrigued.   We decided that, yes, we would accept the house.  I don't know why we would have said no since we totally lucked out and they have no vacant housing right now for hubby's actual rank so we are getting a nice little upgrade. :)  The house is very nice.  It's single family, which is wonderful.  Our home at Ft. Meade was great, but we never liked not having our own yard (it was a four-plex).  This one has a yard AND it's already fenced in.  Yay for being able to boot the boys outside to run off steam.  

After we looked at the new house we went back to the housing office so hubby could sign all the paperwork.  They have a cute little playground right out back so the kids and I were able to play while he did that.  When housing was all set, we drove around the base for a bit.  We found the reserve center hubby will be working at and then we made one last stop before heading back home.  I'm on a Ft. Leavenworth spouses fb page and a few weeks ago everyone was all excited that the Price Chopper in town was now carrying Shatto Milk.  It's from a local dairy farm and they do different flavored milks.  According to the fb chatter their root beer flavor is amazing.  We weren't that adventurous this time around but I'm sure we'll try them all once we're settled in.  Hubby and C picked chocolate, I had strawberry and lil' peanut chose cotton candy.  He likes some weird stuff (hello watermelon frozen yogurt topped with sour gummy worms, chocolate syrup, and m&m's!) so I knew he would love it, but I was skeptical.  You guys, that cotton candy milk was so good!  Shatto Milk Company, our first fun find at our new location.  It's no Dutch Country Farmer's Market or Georgetown Cupcakes (man, I'd get on a plane to Baltimore just for one of those!) but we were excited. 

We decided to push on through and got home about 1:30 in the morning.  We were tired the next day but it was great to have a whole day with hubby off.  We used it to check a box on our Texas To-dos before we move and we took the kids to Kemah Boardwalk.  Pictures to come!

Field Trip: Family Style

When we found out C had a field trip to the zoo coming up I asked hubby if he would take the day off so one of us could go with C (the other stay home with the littles)  Then he, in all his wisdom, said that if he was taking the day off anyway why wouldn't we ALL go to the zoo?  So, we let C pick who he wanted his official chaperone to be (ME!  I was so surprised because these boys are all about their Daddy most days). C rode the bus up there with his friends and we followed in our van.  It was such a fun day.  The best of both worlds really.  I was able to experience the whole field trip with C and watch him interacting with his friends, but also had times where our whole family was together.  Hubby was officially in charge of the littles so they did their own thing, but several times throughout the day I'd hear "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy"  And lil' peanut would be racing toward me, followed by his baby brother. :)

After meeting back up with his class, I was able to sign C out and we enjoyed some family time, finally riding the train that's just outside the zoo.  Lil' peanut has been asking to ride the train here for a long time.  All three of them loved the train ride!

Picture this.  A group of six 8 year old boys exploring an exhibit titled "The Scoop on Poop!"  I got to experience that.  It was something special indeed.  Lol.

The group.

Super Daddy working that stroller. :)

I'm so glad hubby suggested making this a family field trip.  We hadn't been to the zoo in what seemed like forever.  It was a great day!

Lunar New Year!

This past Thursday was Soellal, the celebration of the Lunar New Year.  That afternoon, I took the little boys up to Houston to pick up some delicious Korean food to have that night for dinner.  Japchae (one of C's favorites) and of course, deeokguk.  Everyone at the restaurant was so friendly while we waited for our food.  The women just fawned over lil' peanut.  And he really soaked it up.  He said something on the way to the bathroom about one of the ladies looking like Umma Jae.  I told him that was probably because they were Korean, just like Umma Jae and like him.  We talked about some of the characteristics they all shared brown skin, brown eyes, etc. and when we walked back up to the front of the restaurant he had the biggest smile on his face.  He looked around, looked back at me, looked around again and exclaimed "Mom!  They are Korean just like me!  You were right, you did a good job, now you get a peppermint."  

In Korea, everyone ages with the New Year.  It's a tradition that you're not another year older until you've eaten your deeokguk on New Year's Day.  C quite enjoyed pretending he was a nine year old. ;)  After dinner we watched a little video about Seollal and then I showed the boys how to do sebae, a traditional bow children do for their elders as a sign of respect.  Lil' peanut jumped at his chance to perform sebae.  C declared he wasn't doing it...then he watched us hand lil' peanut an envelope (a gift of money along with words of wisdom and well wishes for the New Year is given after sebae).  He changed his tune pretty quickly after that. ;)  2015 is the year of the sheep!  I had some coloring pages ready for the boys to do and we finished off the celebration by going out for cupcakes.

On Saturday we went to a Lunar New Year Festival in Houston.  The boys favorite thing was the bounce house area, of course!  The weather ended up being perfect.  The rain held off and it was overcast and the perfect temperature for enjoying the event.

Watching Arirang, a traditional Korean dance.  The women looked so beautiful in their hanboks.

Swords.  Don't have a thing to do with Lunar New Year but, boys need swords.  Daddy said those same swords cost $3 back when he was a kid too.  But, he said the ones back then were made much sturdier.  I think only 1 of the 3 we brought home is still in fighting shape.

The Lion Dance, a Chinese tradition.

A special gift!

We got a package in the mail a few day's ago from lil' peanut's foster mom.  He was so excited (especially about the candies)  I am so thankful that she continues to stay in touch with us.  What a gift for our little man to have that connection to his early life in Korea as he grows.  She sent the sweetest note and I had to laugh at the part where she said that "Keonwoo still seems naughty and I love it!"  She still knows him pretty well. :)  She is fostering an 18 month old boy right now and said that he is super naughty too.  There was even a gift for me, a neat hair pin.  I was so impressed with myself that I was able to get my hair into a twist with it on my first try (considering my hair lives in a ponytail these days).  We need to get our computer into a shop.  Without it up and running my posting is limited.  Here are a few pictures I took on my phone of getting our special gifts in the mail.

Strawberry Season!

In January!  Crazy, right?!  I do enjoy Texas, and these bright, beautiful strawberries in the middle of winter are definitely a reason why.  We made it back to Froberg's Farm this weekend with C in tow so everyone could partake.  The weather was perfect for it.  I'm actually the only one who likes to eat strawberries. ;) But, the kids slurp 'em up in morning smoothies so we froze most of the ones we picked.  Reminds me of going blueberry picking as a kid.  I didn't even like blueberries, but I loved picking them.  It's all about the experience.