Hot Springs, Arkansas

We decided to hit the road and escape Texas for Spring Break this year. Ryan's sister Megan just moved to Dallas over Christmas Break, so first we headed up there. We got a hotel, since they are in a small duplex until they close on their new house in June. We drove up on Friday and stayed until Sunday. Ryan's parents were finally able to get the COVID vaccine, so they were able to fly into Dallas. We haven't seen them since Thanksgiving of 2019, so it was a great treat. 

DALLAS

Friday evening we met up with Megan and Nana & Papa at Hard Eight BBQ. Literally the best bbq we've had in Texas! Too bad they aren't in San Antonio. Afterwards, Ryan dropped Ethan, Kate and I off at the hotel, and he and Collin and Brennan headed to the rental to play games and chat. 

Saturday morning we headed into downtown Dallas to Klyde Warren Park. It is a park built on top of the freeway! Because of COVID, the playground was closed, but the kids still had fun with a little soccer in the field and basketball and scootering under the pavilion. We even rode a little free trolley around the area. For lunch, we headed to a pizza place and the Cake Bar, where you buy individual slices of gourmet cake. Yum!

After swimming and hot tubbing at the hotel, we had cake in the lobby and then all headed to Megan's to play cards while the kids played Among Us on their tablets.

On Sunday, we cleaned up our room and watched our broadcasted multi-stake conference for south Texas. At noon, we checked out and picked up Nana & Papa at Megan's to start our trek to Hot Springs. 

I have to admit I was more than a little excited to cross the border out of Texas. It is such a huge state, we haven't left since we moved here almost 2 years ago. We've gone on plenty of stay-cations, but it was nice to be in Arkansas for the week. 

HOT SPRINGS

We arrived at our cute rental about 5pm. After unloading the car, we walked into town and ate dinner at Superior Bathhouse. It was a HUGE disappointment. Our food took about 1-1/2 hrs, Ryan & Papa's food arrived at the table 20 minutes after the rest of ours, they were out of a lot of things on their small menu, the service was AWFUL, it was super expensive, and their root beer (made from the local hot springs) was gross. Zero stars. 

Monday we headed to Hot Springs National Park. The park is literally right in the middle of town. We could have walked from our rental house to the trailheads. Because of the steepness of the road to the top though, we chose to drive to the mountain tower. We found a nice nature trail that encircled the top and enjoyed a few miles of walking. 

After lunch and some resting, we headed to Pirate's Cove Adventure Golf. It was a super fun course, and despite my early lead, Ryan and Nana went head to head at the end, with Ryan winning out. The course even had one hole under a fake waterfall! I made tacos for dinner, and we had grocery store ice cream to end out our day. 

On Tuesday we headed to Lake Catherine State Park. This was my favorite - albeit exhausting - day. We hiked the Falls Branch Trail to a nice waterfall, about 2 miles. 

After a quick picnic lunch in the park, we headed to Garvan Woodland Gardens. The kids had a fun bingo card with stickers to give them things to look for, and we saw a lots of natural architecture (cathedral, treehouse) as well as blooming tulips and budding trees. It screamed "Spring is around the corner," and it made we want to stay a week to see the daffodils bloom. We were super tired from all our walking at this point, but we still thought it was awesome. The peacocks were fun too. 

On Wednesday it was overcast when we got up, and it drizzled rain as we headed to Ron Coleman's gem digging. Nana & I opted to stay in the car, while the rest of the crew trekked through the red mud to dig for jewels. It rained pretty heavily the first little while, but they stuck with it for three hours and found a lot of cool gems. 

After lunch and more resting, we walked into town for dinner again. I'd made early reservations, but there was no need - Angel's Pizza was empty. I'd read that the kids could make their own pizzas, so I asked for dough, and the owner/host/waiter/cook (yes, all one guy) said "they could do that." In the end, the kids spent all this time making the perfect crust, and then he brought out their pizzas already made without ever taking their creations. Another disappointment! Honestly, if he would have just faked that they were eating the crust they'd pressed, it would have been a better experience. Sigh. Restaurants in Hot Springs left much to be desired. Anyway, it was way expensive and not very tasty, so 1 star because I feel sorry for the one-man show. 

Last but not least, we let the kids each pick a souvenir to remember this trip. As usual, they each wanted a "stuffie." They were all out of their budget, so Nana took pity on them and bought them. 

Thursday was DRIVING, DRIVING, DRIVING. We got on the road at 7am and headed back to Dallas to drop off Nana & Papa with Megan. We had Wendy's for lunch before saying goodbye. It was about 5 hours. From there, we headed home through downtown Dallas, Waco, Austin and San Antonio. Soooo much traffic! I don't think we've ever lived somewhere with some many big cities all nested together, and it was nearly constant construction as well. Whew! Finally, we got home at 6:30pm. Long, stressful day. 

I don't think we'll ever head back to Arkansas. I liked Lake Catherine and Garvan Gardens, but they weren't something that I couldn't find elsewhere. I liked our house - built in 1900 to be used as a rental cottage and remodeled in 2019 for the same purpose. The kids loved their bunk room. It was perfect for our needs, and the location was unbeatable. 

I think the National Park Service felt bad for Arkansas, so they named Hot Springs a national park. It really wasn't anything special, no offense. I am so glad we got away and got to see Ryan's parents though! 

Sno-vid

THE RECAP

What a weird week! Last Thursday, it rained and rained, but the temperature was about 35 degrees. I was subbing at the school, and all the teachers were told to hurry home before it froze. That night, it all froze into ice. Luckily, Friday the kids already had scheduled off school. Ryan's sister Megan just moved to Dallas, and she had planned to come for President's Day weekend but decided against it. Thank goodness! By midmorning, though, Ryan was able to head into work, and on his way home, he got us two Costco pizzas to prepare for the next few days. Lots of pizza was in our future.

Our tropical foliage didn't do so well with ice, snow, ice and then more snow

Saturday we got more rain which then turned to ice, so Church was canceled on Sunday. Sunday night it dropped into the single digits with wind chills in the negatives, and we got about 6 inches of snow... in SOUTH Texas. They haven't seen snow like this since the late 1980s, and they haven't seen temperatures like this since the 1895. 

Anyway, our running water into the house froze on Sunday night. The pipes here are close to the surface because of all the limestone, and we learned late on Monday afternoon that our main line in from the street runs vertical along the wall of the house for about 3 feet. Unfortunately, we also don't get any sun on that particular corner, so the pipe was exposed to extreme cold on all sides (brick exterior and drywalled garage). We started a space heater on the wall in the garage where the water comes in, and Ryan monitored it all night so we didn't have a house fire. 

In the mean time, we brought buckets of snow in from the backyard to dump in the bath tub and melt. We had fresh water in the freezer for drinking, but we didn't want to waste that on flushing toilets. Ryan even microwaved some snow for me to wash my face each morning and night. It's the little things, lol. 

Finally, on Tuesday afternoon we got a trickle that then became enough water to fill all the bath tubs (for future flushing). Ryan and I even got showers. Oh boy, that was heaven. 

Unfortunately, the power went out at the water pumping stations city-wide, and we lost water pressure on Wednesday morning. We are so glad we had the bath tubs full by this point. Unflushed toilets are extremely smelly, as you can imagine. 

Wednesday finally brought temperatures above freezing all day, which melted all the snow. But it also brought more rain - sleeting, cold rain. The district officially canceled school for the rest of the week, citing the unreliability of gas, electric and water. On Wednesday night everything froze again overnight, and we lost water yet again. On Thursday, it snowed all day, from dawn until dusk. We got another 4-6 inches... again! 

A coating we thought our backyard would never see

The power was figured out for most of the state by Thursday, but not the water. The water company told us to expect water on Monday or Tuesday for our area, which is apparently uphill from the rest of the system. 

Friday the temperature was well-above freezing all day. We ran the space heater in the garage again, as neighbors started reporting that their water was back on. Thursday's constant snow was virtually entirely melted by noon. We got our water back in the afternoon, but we were still under a boil-order until Tuesday. 

TENDER MERCIES

One morning the servers were down at Ryan's work, so he couldn't log in. Because we were lucky enough to have power at home, we did a family Mario Cart party! 

Electricity/Heat - There is a government body who determines the power grid in Texas. They decide if the system is going to be overloaded, and then show certain grids to turn off intermittently so everyone has to share the load. They have predetermined certain areas (like ones with hospitals) to never endure a mandatory shut-down. Well, guess what? We live next to a top-secret (it's not on Google maps at all) government base with electric fences and barbed wire. Fort Stanley is one of the essential locations that does not get shut off, and therefore WE HAVE HAD POWER THIS WHOLE TIME! I don't know anyone else in our area outside our neighborhood who hasn't lost power for hours at a time, but we haven't. So the next time we are annoyed on a Saturday morning because Camp Stanley is detonating bombs over and over and over again, I'll remember that it was because of them we didn't lose our electricity. 

Water - Even though we didn't take precautions Sunday night, like we should have, we were able to get the water on long enough Tuesday to store some before we lost pressure entirely.
Our neighbor with our floor plan was also able to tell us about the hidden pipe we needed to heat in order to restore water for that brief time. 

This is how you haul snow inside to the bathtub to use for flushing

Church - We are pros at having Church at home. We even have our fancy sacrament trays now to use. We watched President Nelson's talk from October Conference too. We actually really love home-church. And we were still all able to participate in our 2nd hour meetings on Zoom in the afternoon. 

Food - I had bought enough food for an entire additional family to come stay for the weekend, so we haven't had to worry about going to the grocery store. They have barely been open, the trucks can't get it to restock the shelves, and they have implemented max occupancy numbers because of COVID. It's nearly impossible to get food. 

Kate thought the snow was delicious! 

Sledding with boogie boards is how Texans do it!

Sledding - We gave away our sleds when we moved to the South, but I read of others using their beach boogie boards. Each day I sent the kids to the hill into the drainage ditch by the neighborhood pool, and they sledded for about an hour. We had adequate gloves and hats for everyone, but since they've grown since we moved from a place with winter, only Kate had snow pants and boots. Ethan also had hand-me-down boots, and Collin was able to wear mine. It was quite the hodge-podge of gear, but they had a lot of fun! 

They may have GROWN a bit in the last 2 years!

Brennan is 10!

Brennan wanted to keep his birthday simple this year. He wanted to go to Build-A-Bear to get a new stuffed animal, so we did that before they returned to school from Holiday Break. He got a "red raptor" that has now been named Chompie. 

We also met Ryan for lunch afterwards. We went to Red Robin, where he drank two root beer floats.

On his actual birthday (Wednesday), he specially requested that Dad make him an omelet for breakfast. We NEVER make hot breakfast, so this was definitely a special occasion. His favorite is a variation of the Denver omelet - green pepper, onion with smoked gouda cheese. 

I got some fun cookies for his after-school snack. 

For dinner, he wanted Nana's potato soup with singing and cupcakes afterwards. 

Fortunately, he didn't want to have friends over, which is good because our Covid numbers are skyrocketing and there's a new more contagious strain in the US. As such, I've implemented a "no friends inside" rule at our house, so a no-friend birthday fit the bill. 

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Brennan has had a great year. I have been able to substitute in his class many days, and it is a joy to see him with his classmates. He is SMART and very hardworking. He is always on task and organized. He also has a wonderful sense of humor and devious smile, so the other kids just want to be his friend. 

Last year he wouldn't try out for the school spelling bee, but this year I was his sub the day of tryouts, and I may have threatened some home consequences. Anyway, he did amazing and ended up as his class's runner-up. Runner-up was the perfect spot for my stage-fright prone 4th grader, since now he doesn't advance to the school-wide bee.

His favorite subject is math, and he is finally in the gifted & talented program at the school. He doesn't love their bridge-building project in Challenge Lab, but I'm grateful he is getting some extension work now. 

He is a wonderful sketcher, and we love his little drawings around the house. Often times they are sarcastic and make us laugh. He is a very good babysitter to Ethan & Katelyn, always coming up with a game or activity to entertain them. They love to play hide-n-seek. Just this past week, he started a new after-school art class that meets weekly. He was insistent that the class not just be craft-making, but real instructional drawing, painting and clay, and he's excited for this new extracurricular activity.

He does sometimes have a short temper that results in violence, but he is getting better about managing it. He likes to sometimes escape to his bunk bed with a book and his stuffed animals to keep him company. It's a good way for him to take a break from his siblings, which we all know we sometimes need. 

He is definitely my homebody boy. He'd rather be in pajamas at home than anywhere else. He still plays Minecraft constantly. He also spends a lot of time watching Minecraft tutorials on YouTube. We even had a tablet-free week before Christmas to help them to manage their time better and explore their other hobbies. It went well, and I will continue to establish tablet-free weeks.

Happy 10th, B!

3 weeks of Christmas Break

The kids had a more-than-three-week Christmas Break this year. Due to COVID stress, our school district decided the week before Break to use some academic overage minutes ("Snow Days") as teacher work days to allow them some catch-up time. These days elongated our Break. 

Break started celebrating Collin's birthday. Friends over after the half-day, trampoline park with Dad and the park (Raymond Russell). More on that in his birthday post. 

The week before Christmas, I took the kids to LegoLand again. Now they have up a Lego Christmas tree and mini-San Antonio is all decorated with lights, Santas and trees. We were able to design our own mosiac to build too. 

Collin - Boba Fett helmet

Brennan - Pikachu

Ethan - Pichu

Katelyn - candy cane & tree 

We also spent an evening at Six Flags to wrap up the Christmas spirit. We even went to dinner at BJs afterwards. 

On Christmas Eve we did our traditional family bowling in the morning. Ryan and I both broke 100, which is some kind of miracle. The boys did quite well too.  

Christmas Day brought us a wakeboard for the jet ski and a new laptop computer. Collin's favorite gift was an MP3 player, so he can't hear the swearing on the bus. Brennan's favorite gift was his Grogu stuffed animal. Ethan's favorite gift was a huge Ninjago lego set. Katelyn's favorite gift was her Olaf stuffed animal. I got a new Kindle Reader, and Ryan got a 1000-piece Lego minifig puzzle. 

Unlike Thanksgiving, we are used to spending Christmas with just our little family, except for bowling, so Covid didn't seem to disrupt as much this year with Christmas traditions.

The day after Christmas, we took down all our Christmas decorations and clean, clean, cleaned. That evening, the Davis Family (Kim & Rich and their 3 girls arrived). We were so excited to see family! It has been almost two years since we saw them (Feb 2019), and more than a year since we've seen any family. 

We had a great week together! The kids picked up right where they left off, and it was seriously the best week. 

On Monday, we gave them the royal tour of San Antonio - San Jose Mission, Alamo, Iron Cactus dinner and Go Rio boat cruise. The boat cruise was particularly neat after dark with all the Christmas lights. So gorgeous! They were definitely impressed with our new hometown. 

The next evening the adults went to dinner (Rudy's) and a movie (WW85) while the kids stayed home. It is so nice to have children old enough to watch themselves now and not need to pay and schedule a babysitter. 

On Wednesday morning, we headed to the coast. After stopping at Land & Sea (delicious food despite hideous building) in Corpus Christi, we played at the jetty until our check-in time. 

It was warm and sunny, and the kids weren't supposed to get wet. Haha. 

Our rental house was beautiful and perfect! It was filled with bunk beds and had two master suites, as well as a 3rd bedroom that Brennan and Collin shared. We had plenty of bathrooms (3.5) and kitchen table/bar space. We loved it! 

The first day was cold and WINDY. The dads took the kids to the heated pool, but it was way too cool.

Kim & I took the oldest kids on a drive along the sand in their rental car, a Jeep. We ventured out into the cold only a couple times and found some seashells. 

We were supposed to do "drive in fireworks" to celebrate New Year's Eve too, but they were cancelled because of the high winds, so we had fabulous "lazy kabobs" on the grill.

Instead, on New Year's Eve, we played a charades-ish game altogether. We each added 3-4 words to the bowl, and depending on the round, we used clues, no words, and one word to guess that word. It was some of the kids favorite part of being at the beach house! 

On New Year's Day, we bundled up and met a Sandcastle Instructor at the beach. He worked with us for 2 hours, and the wind died down and the sun peaked out at times. We had a great time learning how to create this masterpiece! He was really knowledgeable, good with the kids and our large group, fun to chat with and a perfect fit. 

That night, we were able to see the postponed fireworks and watch Ohio State in their Bowl Game. They played GREAT and have now advanced to the National Championship yet again. 

Saturday meant packing up and hitting the road again. 

After some souvenir shopping, we took the ferry back to the mainland and wandered on the Corpus Christi jetty by the giant ship. We had lunch at Pier 99 - one of our favorites - and enjoyed our drive back home. 

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and they had to leave on Sunday afternoon. Tressia and Katelyn really didn't want to say goodbye, and Katelyn actually walked hand-in-hand out to their car saying, "I'm going home with the cousins!" We truly had a great time together. 

This week has brought dentist appointments (no cavities but the doc said no more blanket-sucking for Ethan) and park days (Kinderpark & Norman Vestal). 

The last day of Break, I took Brennan to Build-a-Bear and out to lunch with Dad to celebrate his birthday. More on that in another post. 

Whew, three weeks is one LONG Break, but I feel like we made the most of it. Don't you?