Filling Those Buckets

With the first day of Kindergarten quickly approaching for Olivia, we decided to have a week filled with family fun. No school-like projects or lesson plans for this last week of summer. Spending time together, filling our happiness buckets was the goal for the week.

We went to the Austin Childrens' Museum on Tuesday for their "Play It By Ear" exhibit. Besides the normal exhibits that are always there (the Construction Zone, the Discovery Center, the train station, and the Austin City Limits music stage), there were all kinds of neat homemade instruments and ideas for making sound. The girls loved the "kitchen jam drum" (my name for it) which was a drum, of sorts, made of all kinds of kitchen pots, pans, and utensils wired together with drumsticks for "jamming". There was also a big bass drum with a tractor chair bolted on it, so Eve sat and felt the vibration as Olivia gave the drum a huge whack. In the Discovery Center, Olivia enjoyed attaching a chair wheel to a board using nuts and bolts while Eve enjoyed making the plastic gears turn. They both enjoyed hooking up a plastic pig to a parachute for the "When Pigs Fly" activity. After we got home from the museum, Olivia was so inspired that we pulled out a bunch of recycled materials I had been saving (yes, I have a problem throwing things away!), and she invented a straw trumpet and a musical walking stick.

On Thursday, we met our friends Ms. Tonra and Ethan, and Ms. Michelle and Jared for a "Back to School" breakfast at Rudy's BBQ in Austin. The kids enjoyed breakfast tacos while the moms chatted. Then, we headed over to Extreme Fun for some jumping fun. Aunt Megan, and cousins Elena, Gabby, and Jonah came out too, and the kiddos had a great time bouncing off that extra energy they seem to always have.


On Saturday, we went to a Farmer's Market off of Burnet Rd. in Austin, and the girls were able to see and eat some of the fresh produce available locally. The beautiful peaches from Mexia were so juicy and sweet and quite different in taste from the peaches we have been getting from our grocery store. This was what a peach should taste like! Eve and Olivia have had two peaches a day for the last three days; they are goooood! We also bought some cherry tomatoes, banana peppers, onions, bell peppers, and a jar of dill pickles. Since our garden only produced basil and cherry tomatoes this year, we were grateful to be able to taste someone else's fresh produce. The girls had to sample our purchases before we even got back into the car. Juice dribbling down chins is just part of the experience of going to a Farmer's Market.

On Sunday, we went to the Creative Playscape in Georgetown, Texas. This wooden playscape was built by the townspeople of Georgetown in 1993, and it is so different (in a good way) from the typical playscape we find in our local parks. There are neat places to hide and climb, and there are balance beams, ladders, a zip line and a sand area all built in. We took advantage of the cool morning and enjoyed ourselves at the park before heading over to some picnic tables at the San Gabriel River for a picnic. The girls were really too busy watching the squirrels and chasing the ducks to eat very much.





Besides going places, the girls also enjoyed their time at home this past week doing their favorite things like drawing, playing in the sand box, drinking water out of the Slip N' Slide (!), and swinging on the playscape. With Olivia starting Kindergarten, it was nice to spend this concentrated time together as a family and "fill our buckets" with positive experience before the school year begins.