Spring Break

Natalie and Owen were on Spring Break last week, so we decided to get away for a few days. Before that, we celebrated my birthday. It was a great birthday weekend, we had beautiful weather and we had fun doing family stuff and having some friends over to cook out and have cake. I also posted a picture from Natalie's field trip to the natural science museum at the beginning of the month. I helped chaperone and enjoyed the butterfly exhibit with Natalie. We love going there!
So we decided to go camping for Spring Break. We visited three Texas state parks in three different parts of the state. We went to a desert area, the hill country, and the coast. First, we headed to Kickapoo Cavern State Park, southwest of San Antonio (about 25 miles from the Mexico border!). That park is home to a huge number of Mexican Free-tailed bats, and we went to the bat cave to watch them come out at dusk. Pretty cool! I also took Natalie on a little hike before we left. Owen was a great help setting up the tent. Next, we went to Garner State Park on the Frio River in the hill country. Very pretty. We checked out the river (but didn't go tubing, we're going back this summer for that) and did a little hiking. There was a cool tree at our campsite that Natalie kept climbing. Finally, we went to Goose Island State Park, north of Corpus Christi. It was pretty there, and it is home to the oldest oak tree in Texas (over 1000 years old!). We decided to come home at that point - enough with putting up and taking down the tent, and packing and unpacking the car!! But we had fun at the campfires sleeping in the tent and being outside, and had lots of hot dogs and smores! When we got back we went to Galveston for one day and enjoyed the beach. Hank's swim classes have been great - he was fearless! Colin enjoyed the water too. It was a good break, and now we are back to reality.

Natalie Gymnastics Meet

Natalie competed in her first gymnastics meet on Sunday - the Houston National Invitational. She did awesome, finishing 6th in the all around for her level! She also received medals for her score on floor, bars, and vault. So she was on the podium four times to receive medals! I've posted some pictures from each event and the beginning of the meet. In the first picture, Nat is in the middle of the girls with black warm-up suits on. In the event pictures, she has on a red leo - it's fairly obvious where she is, except the last set when she is on bars behind the vault judge. The order of rotation she did was beam, floor, vault, and finishing on bars. She scored 9.05 on beam, 9.55 on floor, 9.0 on vault, and 9.1 on bars. What a great experience for her! We're so proud!!