Touring Texas and New Friends

A week or two ago, the kids and I drove Aaron to work and then spent the day being tourists in Austin. It was exhausting, but I felt really happy that we'd explored a little. We first headed to the Austin Nature and Science Center. It was free, and they had some cool stuff there.

 There was a pit where you dig for dinosaur bones. I told the kids to start digging in the dirt, work hard, find some fake fossils. Then we saw the huge dinosaur a few feet away from where they were digging. Apparently, the dinosaur had already been uncovered. I wonder if they ever send anyone out to re-bury the dinos.

 They had live animals, too. This was the tank of the sad turtle. Two of the turtles were totally content, just hanging out in the tank. But this third turtle was doing everything it could to find a way out of that tank. At least, that's what it looked like to us. Very sad. But also kind of funny. I guess that's why Annie was smiling so much.

 Outside there were owls and vultures and a groundhog, a fox, a porcupine, a bobcat, and more. Most of these animals were injured and would never be able to live in the wild. We got to see a hawk eating a dead baby duckling.

We had to take a picture of this owl because it was a tyto alba owl which reminded us of all the fun we had listening to Guardians of Ga'hoole as an audiobook.

It was a totally cool place, especially considering that everything was FREE! Even the parking.

After this we went to Zilker Park and hung out at the playground next to the Zilker Zephyr, a little train that goes through the park. It was a lovely day, and on a Monday afternoon we found more free parking.

Next up was the state capitol building. It was quite busy, even on a Monday afternoon. But it was a beautiful building with beautiful grounds. We realized later that we missed a fun little museum thing that happened to be in the visitors' center building where we went to the bathroom. We'll have to go back some time.

After this, we hit up the Texas Thrift Store. I've been making a tour of all of the local thrift stores, and it has been interesting to see the differences between all of them.

The kids were great on our day as tourists. There is lots more to see in Austin, and we're excited to explore again.

Oh, and we also finally made it over to Round Rock Donuts...where we got cinnamon rolls.

Annie and Scotty have really started having fun with the neighborhood kids. Right next door are three boys with a pet duck and a trampoline. Kitty corner are two boys who homeschool. Down the alley is a family in our ward with four kids who also homeschool. They've all been having a blast this week. They tried a cookie sale in the alley, though, and it wasn't quite the big-time money-maker that Emma and Annie had going in Provo. I think moms and older brothers were the only customers. But they had fun anyway. And Annie made the cookies herself and learned the difference between tablespoons and teaspoons. Very important cooking skill, especially when dealing with salt.