DAY 2 – Animal Kingdom – 21,021 steps

Day two was the day I became familiar with the term “rope drop.” One of the benefits of being a resort guest is that you get 30 minutes early entry to the park. “Rope drop” is the moment they open the park and everyone in line rushes to queue up for whichever rides are most popular, so we were fortunate to be allowed to do so a bit early.

The Woods family in Pandora.

We arrived at Animal Kingdom only about 10 minutes later than we had intended and went straight to Pandora (the world from the movie Avatar), but already, we found the line to the extremely popular Avatar Flight of Passage attraction to be 85 minutes or more. Since we hadn’t yet eaten breakfast, we decided that wasn’t the wisest choice. Instead we walked to Pongu Pongu where we had a Night Blossom – a frozen drink with apple and pear topped with passion fruit boba. We also had lumpia filled with pineapple and cream cheese that were actually pretty tasty, but the kids weren’t really into them. [Sean: The Night Blossom might very well have been my favorite snack of the entire trip.  So much yum.]

Having a few calories in us, we decided to check out the Na’vi River Journey. It was, what I came to learn, a dark ride. A dark ride is an indoor attraction where you ride around on a vehicle and are treated to various lit scenes that are accompanied by sounds and sometimes smells and all manner of special effects. The scenery was incredible on the river journey. You truly did feel as though you were part of the Avatar universe. And the animatronics were amazing!

So many Mickeys

We stopped by Kusafiri then for a quick breakfast. The kids and Sean had a giant cinnamon roll, and I had a giant coffee (and a breakfast biscuit sandwich). I wound up having to stow my coffee for later because we had a specific time window in which to go on our next adventure, the Kilimanjaro Safari. This wound up being one of my favorite things that day. You all board a big open-air truck and the guides drive you around the African savannah for probably around 20 minutes, watching animals roam freely. We were lucky (Sean may have requested it) to have the very back seat, so we could turn around and watch what was happening behind us as well as to either side. [Sean: I did request the back seat specifically because you have an unobstructed view.]

Look at them run!

We watched lions and elephants and zebras of course, but the very best thing was seeing the giraffes chase each other. These giant, lumbering creatures were chasing each other across the grassy plains, in evident delight. Giraffes look ridiculous when they run, by the way, and it was so much fun to watch!

We wandered through the Gorilla Falls Exploration Trail and were treated to a mama gorilla with her little baby clinging to her undercarriage as she loped around the habitat. We never got a photo. She turned her back on us, shielding her baby from the horde of curious onlookers, and staunchly refused to turn around. Upon first entering the trail, we encountered several feeding stations set out for the birds. They were amazing, and so close! We felt we had to duck as the birds flew in to land on one of the platforms and chow down. Another highlight was getting to watch a submerged hippo and see just how infrequently she needed to come up for a breath of air.

The kids were fussing at this point. They wanted to trade pins, they wanted to buy souvenirs, they wanted to ride rides. After the frustration of the day before though, Sean stuck to his guns and tried his best to keep us on a schedule, while still including stops here and there for a bit of pin trading.

About those pins … Sean had gotten each of us a laniard and some “starter pins” so that we could trade at various pin trading stations throughout the park and also with other guests. Maya was selective (though oddly so – birds and dragons factored in heavily) about which kinds of pins she wanted – she was trading with a goal in mind. Ian just wanted to trade trade trade. It was the act itself that was fun for him. He went full bore on his pin obsession when he discovered he could buy pins in the souvenir shops.

This one’s not running

The next attraction we visited was what I’ve been calling “The Lion King show” but what is actually called “A Celebration of Festival of the Lion King” (I looked it up). It was kind of a huge show. Giant animatronic puppets rolled out, music and dance numbers ensued, twirling fire terrified Maya. The show was pretty incredible. Plus we got to sit down, which was glorious!

Next, much to our grumpy children’s delight, we did a quick walk through the Maharaja Jungle Trek (my notes read: Asia walk). The big things on this walk were getting to watch tigers pace around their habitats and getting to see a Komodo dragon. Maya was thrilled about seeing a live dragon! One of my favorite things about this walk was getting to see fruit bats dangling upside down. Those guys were huge!

The kids had been begging for some popcorn, so Sean set them down to share a big box of popcorn, while he procured a couple more snacks from his hit list: a mac n cheese with pulled pork and a pulled pork jelly doughnut, both from a joint called Eight Spoon Cafe. These were both delightful, if a little difficult to eat with any real grace. Maya in particular was a bit messy with her popcorn, and we had a lovely white ibis wander over and pluck up a few of the fallen kernels. We had noticed them all over the place, and it wasn’t long before Maya was laughing about it, referring to the ibises as Florida Pigeons.

360 degree photo at the Tree of Life

After stopping to get a 360 degree photo at the Tree of Life, we made our way over to the Feathered Friends in Flight! bird show. Not surprisingly, the kids griped that we still weren’t going on a ride. Then they griped about having to wait to get in, followed by some more griping about when the actual show would start. And then they both loved the show itself.

And it was neat! We were pretty close to the front, so we got to see all the birdy action up close. During the pre-show, one of the bird specialists brought out an owl, and Ian was brave enough to raise his hand and ask her what kind it was (Eurasian Eagle Owl). We learned that the owls are particularly fond of mice (don’t tell Mickey!), and Maya chortled over the fact that they called the owl treats “meeces pieces.” We watched chickens repeatedly turn on a radio to hear their favorite tunes, which the kids thought was funny, even after they worked out the trick. We watched a clever raven untying shoes, a cockatoo answering yes-or-no questions with his whole body, and so many other colorful and interesting birds. The show flew by (ha), and we were back out into the fray before I was ready to be.

He kept turning on the radio to hear his favorite tunes. Maya eventually figured out that there was food up there for the chickens to peck at.

Next up, we were finally going on a real ride again – Expedition Everest! The story is that there’s a yeti hiding out in there protecting the mountain. The “artifacts” displayed showed various yeti representations and footprint casts and things like that. You could tell that Ian was getting more and more nervous as we got closer to the front, but he was committed to riding the ride. It was a really neat coaster. It zings you through its first stage that culminates in a curled up and demolished track (presumably the yeti’s work), and then you pause while the track switches behind you, and you’re hurtled backward through the dark. There’s a point later on, where another track switch occurs and then you barrel forward for the rest of the ride.

Our wild ride on Expedition Everest

Ian had a rough time. First of all, he lost his glasses sometime during the dark part of the ride. Since we had to wear our masks, his glasses didn’t sit as firmly on his face as they might ordinarily, and we found out the hard way. Luckily, they had landed in the floor of the coaster and managed to stay there till Sean could finally retrieve them. The other thing that happened was that his mask laniard had a piece of plastic on the back that’s used to adjust laniard length. Ian’s apparently wound up between his back and his seat and wound up tearing up his back a little. Maya and I got to enjoy it (though I think she was pretty shocked by the backwards through the dark part of the ride). But Sean and Ian were too worried about glasses to be able to really have fun. [Sean: Ian lost his glasses just as we were going backwards into the dark.  I caught a glimpse of them on the floor, right next to the opening of the train car right around Disco Yeti and spent the last half of the ride doubled over trying to stop them from sliding out of the car and being lost forever.]

The kids’ popcorn had worn off, so we got them some hot dogs to eat. (Mealtimes were a pretty fluid thing for anything that didn’t have a reservation.) And then we rode the DINOSAUR ride. This is another “dark ride” whose premise is that a scientist is sending us back in time (against the rules of course) to bring back an iguanodon just before a meteor shower causes a mass extinction event. The car jerks you around, dinosaurs roar, lights flash. It’s kind of an intense ride. Though they told us that against all odds we had managed to rescue the dinosaur, Maya seemed genuinely puzzled that it wasn’t actually in the car with us at the end of the ride.

Merry Menagerie

We happened through the Discovery Island part of the park as the Merry Menagerie was happening. These lovely holiday animal puppets were truly a delight. The kids would pet them and the animals would close their eyes in delight and nuzzle them. This set off germ transfer warning bells through my whole body, but I did my best to swallow my worry and let the kids be kids.

Merry Menagerie

We made our way over to the It’s Tough to be a Bug show next. I remember this as a highlight of my first trip to Disney, on our honeymoon 21 years prior, and it was still a delight. Everyone donned their 3D bug glasses and were treated to stinky smells and splashes of water and pokes in the back and on and on. They loved it – they kept reaching out to touch the 3D images in front of them.

We stopped in at Satu’li Canteen for some cheeseburger pods to tide us over till our late dinner reservation. Then we bought another Night Blossom for the kids to share. And it turns out if you add rum, it becomes a Rum Blossom, which the grownups were quite happen to share. From there, since the wait was “only” about an hour, we finally queued up for Avatar Flight of Passage. We weren’t in that line maybe 10-15 minutes before Maya explained she needed to use the bathroom. There was supposed to be on somewhere along the ride queue (isn’t that a GREAT idea?) but we weren’t sure where. By the time we got to a ride attendant to ask, she was straight up dancing and we were still a ways from the inline bathroom. They let Sean take her out and give him a way to enter later so he and Maya could wait for Ian and I and we could all ride together.

I am told this is called “Hank in the Tank.” If you’ve made it this far, you’re nearly through with your long-line hell.

Ian was a force to be reckoned with in that ride line. He doesn’t complain as much as Maya, but he moves twice as much. He climbs on things, examines every potential knob or button, messes with gates, line ropes, barricades, anything he thinks he can get by with. With no Maya in line with him, he was especially bored.

While all this was going on, apparently Maya had to use the bathroom a second time, so again, Sean took her out of line and they got a pass to come wait for us to come around. Finally, after what I would have guessed was well more than an hour of waiting, we boarded this ride, and let me tell you, it was totally worth it.

The idea is that you’re flying a mountain banshee over the amazing landscape of Pandora. The ride vehicle is unique. You sit on it kind of like a motorcycle, lean forward to grab its handlebars, and then the ride attendants kind of push the seat-back into your lower back, fixing you in place. Sean tells me some people find it unpleasantly restrictive, but to me it just felt secure. The ride is so, so immersive. You have glasses for the 3D effects. Wind is whooshing in your face as you’re moving. You feel the mists from the water all around you. It honestly takes your breath away, no hyperbole. [Sean: Definitely my favorite ride across all the parks.]

Beacon of Magic at the Tree of Life

On the way out, we managed to see the tail end of the Beacon of Magic music and light projection show at the Tree of Life. Even for the few minutes we managed to see, it was pretty incredible. At each of the parks, for WDW’s 50th anniversary, they had these amazing sound and light projection shows at each park’s iconic location. For Animal Kingdom, this is of course the Tree of Life.

We caught the bus to Animal Kingdom Lodge for our dinner reservation at Boma. This place has the mother of all buffets, chock full of things you actually want to eat. And I’ll be honest, I can’t remember everything I ate. One highlight was the soups (yes, really). There were three of them, and they were all things I wish I had recipes for. The kids were happy to eat their weight in chicken fingers, pasta, and desserts, and by and large, we were willing to let them. Ian ordered an EARidescent Sip-a-bration for his drink. It was a mixture of lemonade and strawberry punch into which he got to drop a bluish-green Donald Duck head that made his drink fizz and change color.

Tree at Animal Kingdom Lodge

For the last third of our meal, every so often, Sean would look at me, eyes alight, and say “Zebra Dome.” This was often around discussions of when the kids could FINALLY have dessert, so I thought maybe the dessert part of the buffet was zebra-looking. I was too tired to puzzle it out, honestly. Finally, Maya and I wandered up to see about getting dessert, and there they were – perfect little Zebra Dome bonbon type desserts. Maya and I each had one, amongst several others.

After some dodgy transportation advice from our waiter, we ultimately just ordered an Uber to get us from the Animal Kingdom Lodge back to Pop Century. The kids again crashed hard and quickly while Mom and Dad figured out how things would go the next day. Luckily, it was our Epcot day, and we wouldn’t be able to hit it quite so early.

[Sean: We had Genie+ for this day mostly because I wanted to be able to walk on to Kilimanjaro Safari after rope dropping Flight of Passage.  While that worked and we avoided a 40+ minute line I don’t think I would buy Genie+ again for Animal Kingdom.  For the rest of the day it maybe saved us 5-10 minutes per ride or show.]

DAY 1 – Travel, Magic Kingdom – 13,932 steps

Third time apparently is a charm. In mid-December, after previously planning and canceling  this vacation twice, we finally, finally made it to Walt Disney World with the kids. Our flight left at 6-something in the morning. Maya and Ian got a kick out of us leaving at “stupid o’clock.” They had been all a-fizz about the trip for the two days prior to leaving because, for a delightful change of pace, we packed early.

This trip was a long time coming

The airport was completely insane. We arrived about 90 minutes early, thinking we’d get to eat breakfast before our flight. Alas, after standing in line for a while to order breakfast and observing the complete lack of urgency from the worker bees at the restaurant, we bailed and bought snack food from a nearby shop. Ian’s breakfast that day was Doritos and Yoohoo. #parentinglikeaboss

Our flight to Orlando was uneventful. After landing, we quickly ducked into a restroom to change into shorts, because we left Austin’s 40s and arrived in Orlando’s 80s. Luggage was collected, and we got into the first of many, many Disney lines – this one to board the Walt Disney World Magical Express (a term here which means: the bus to our resort.) Disney is doing away with this service, so we’re fortunate to have been able to make use of it when we did.

Our room at Disney Pop Century

Our room at Disney’s Pop Century Resort was already available when we arrived, so we rolled our luggage over and checked it out. Since we’d be here for a full week, we decided to book what’s called a “split stay.” We’d stay the first three nights at Pop Century, a value resort, and we’d stay the last four nights at the Contemporary, which is a deluxe resort. This did several things for us. Of course, it let us save a bit of $$ while still getting a taste of the fancy life. It allowed us to compare the two kinds of accommodation for future reference. And, it enabled us to choose hotels that were convenient to different WDW parks. For example, Pop Century was relatively near the Animal Kingdom, and it was a Skyliner ride (or two) away from EPCOT and Hollywood Studios.

I use the word “we” a lot up there, but here’s the truth: Sean planned all of this. Three times. He made spreadsheets and phone calls and reservations galore. Three times. He watched his options for things shrink and morph as COVID changed the rules of the Disney game over and over again. And still, we are lucky. The kids were vaccinated just in time. Sean and I were able to get our vaccine boosters in as well. We sort of slid in before the omicron variant ramped up.

Anyhow, after settling into our hotel room for just a moment (the kids were particularly enamored with the Murphy bed), we boarded a bus to Magic Kingdom. After arrival, we all scanned in with our little magic bands and headed in toward Main Street. If Magic Kingdom is overwhelming in and of itself, it is doubly so at Christmas time. Everything was decorated and festive. The streets were full (thank goodness for those vaccines). Because Maya had been begging to do so, one of the first things we wound up doing was going into a shop so the kids could look for their Disney ears.

These ears have all the bling. And they light up!

Ian tried on several sets of ears and fairly quickly settled on some white ones with a golden bow and lots of sparkles that had a button that would light them up as needed. Maya was unsatisfied with the offerings at the shop. She apparently had seen someone earlier who had some that “looked like dragon ears,” and so she was very specifically looking for that kind. Once she explained all of this to Sean, he pointed out that the only dragon he could think of was Figment and that she would likely have to wait for two days till we were at EPCOT to be able to get these ears. To our astonishment, she chose to wait for the ones she wanted!

Walking out of the shop, we were immediately ushered off the street to make way for the oncoming cavalcade. There would be no parades, thanks to COVID protocols, but the various parks would have little cavalcades running throughout the day. We saw these periodically throughout our trip (we never planned for them, just happened upon them, which was fun). These sometimes featured different costumed characters (Donald, Daisy, Mickey, Minnie, Chip and Dale, etc), there was one that came through loaded to the gills with princesses, and more than once, we saw one that featured Santa himself. I wonder if Mickey felt intimidated with Santa Claus gallivanting around his park system.

In the tiki tiki tiki tiki tiki room

Since there was only a short wait and we had time to kill before our mobile order for lunch would be ready, we popped in and saw the Enchanted Tiki Room show. As with all Disney things, the theming was fun and immersive, and because Sean has been playing Disney music for the kids for months, they were well acquainted with the Tiki Room bird residents. They seemed enchanted themselves as the birds and flowers sang and the statues on the wall moved and danced. Maya confessed to me on the way out that it was a little scary, but she seemed to love it all the same.

By now, our breakfast snacks had long worn off, so we popped into Columbia Harbor House for lunch. Maya had fried shrimp, Ian had chicken fingers (the first of many), and Sean and I had lobster rolls. He and the kids also split a Happy Haunts Milkshake, a blueberry shake topped with a chocolate doughnut.

Happy Haunts Milkshake, garnished with a doughnut

Finally, FINALLY we were going to go on a “real” ride. This is the moment the kids had been waiting for. We had almost zero character interaction on this trip because the kids just couldn’t be bothered. They were there to ride rides. The first thing we lined up for was Big Thunder Mountain Railway. The kids got acquainted quickly with the notion that waiting in theme park lines is no fun at all. By Disney standards our first line was short – I remember it being maybe 30-45 minutes. The theming at Disney is pretty intense. During the line in this ride, a sort of smoky, railway smell was wafting about. Maya was not a fan.

This was also probably Ian’s first real roller coaster. Maya had ridden a few rougher ones at the Texas state fair (last attended in 2019), but Ian had been too little at the time, and had only experienced the kiddie coasters. My memory, admittedly a little hazy from the fully packed park days, is that both kids enjoyed it, though in a startled, overwhelmed, wow-what-was-that kind of way.

Regardless, they were both game to move on to Splash Mountain, one that I think Ian in particular had built up in his mind as the pinnacle of his Disney experience. After the standard long wait, we scored seats up front, which Ian wanted because he wanted to get wet. It would have made a great photo, except I was worried about losing my contacts, so I shut my eyes on the splashy part – whoops!

Bless Maya’s heart, she was uncompelled to pretend Ian was holding something on his hand.

Around 4:00 or so, the cracks in our plan started showing. The kids were clearly exhibiting signs of their truncated night’s sleep. Sean was coping with some frustration over the kids’ desire to go to shops, and eat snacks, and ride allllll the rides and how that ran counter to his desire to do things in an orderly fashion.

We managed to ride Pirates of the Caribbean (which sported some pretty fun animatronics and various aromas to accompany the action), and at the kids’ repeated request, we rode Magic Carpets of Aladdin, which let us control some of the ride action, something that Maya and Ian loved.

Tropical Serenade

Sean and the kids took a break and had a Tropical Serenade from Aloha Isle. This drink / dessert was made of POG (a juice of passion fruit, orange, and guava) and coconut ice cream and was garnished with a cake pop made from pineapple upside down cake. They LOVED it.

At Sean’s insistence and despite the kids’ grumbling, we watched the Country Bear Jamboree (turns out the kids liked it after all, by the way). [Sean: While this was a favorite from my childhood, and I still love the music, the show itself felt a little old and tired.] We took a quick climb through the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse while we waited for our dinner reservation time at Skipper Canteen. If we hadn’t all been so tired, that treehouse climb would have been fun. Even with the tired, it wasn’t too bad and the views were lovely.

In a tone of awe and wonder, “The back side of water”

Dinner was fun. The theming was cute and Jungle Cruise focused – complete with corny jokes. Our guide / server kept telling the kids their food was being prepared by monkeys, which they weren’t certain they were willing to believe. Maya and Ian each had a meal of chicken nuggets and fruit that included a special chocolate volcano dessert. The grownups started with a cachacas appetizer (which was delicious), and then Sean had char siu pork, and I had grilled steak. Everything was flavorful and beautifully presented. I was a little ambivalent about the quality of my steak and gave up about halfway through. The kids ate pretty well, but were particularly impressed with the desserts. They were little chocolate volcano cakes that were “molten” chocolate in the middle.They featured a swirl of red sugar “lava” perched at the cake’s caldera.

The much-lauded volcano dessert. You’d be upset too if they took your lava!

Maya was happily enjoying her cake, but while her head was turned talking to me, one of the servers coming through and whisked away her plate before she had eaten her lava. She was distraught. This was hugely disappointing to her since she had been specially saving the beautiful glass-like lava for the end. She explained what happened to our server, and lo and behold, the lady came back with some of the lava sugar decorations for Maya to have – she even shared them with her brother.

The tired Woodses elected not to stay for that evening’s fireworks. Instead, we took our bus back to the hotel and while the kids rapidly conked out, Sean and I worked to prep for the next day’s adventure.

Our November started out with a small scare – more of a startle, really. We were notified on a Sunday afternoon – by a call from the principle, no less – that someone in Ian’s class had tested positive for COVID. Since it had been several days since that student had been in school, enough time had passed that we were already eligible to take a rapid test and return to school on Monday, assuming it was negative. Sean was able to take him to one of the district’s testing centers, and all told, I think he missed less than two hours of school.

This was after their first shot. We didn’t bother about photos the second time.

Which is a really good thing beyond the obvious lack of COVID. On November 2nd, after what felt like an eternity but really wasn’t, we were finally able to take our kids to get their first COVID vaccinations. By now, they’ve had their second vaccinations as well, and both Sean and I have had our booster shots. Only Sean really suffered – the rest of us got off with little more than sore arms.

Ian, first grade, age 6.

Maya and Ian had gotten their school photos taken in late October, and we finally received them in November. In deference to COVID, they were again taken outdoors. Other than both kids being a bit wind-swept, I think their photos turned out great! Maya has a hard time smiling on command, but she looks relaxed and natural in these photos. And Ian almost can’t help but be photogenic.

Maya, third grade, age 8.

The big deal event in November is of course Maya’s birthday! She requested dragon-themed decorations and a chocolate cake with blue icing, and I like to think we delivered on both accounts. We tried to go medieval with some knight masks and foam swords and shields for the kids to play with, but it was literally not two minutes after we snapped photos of them hamming it up in their gear that one of them “accidentally” poked the other in the eye.

Maya has officially grown out of her first bicycle, and so we bought her a bigger bike for her birthday. To ensure we weren’t victim of any supply chain issues, Sean had taken her shopping for it quite early. After a brief adjustment period, she was used to the much larger and heavier bicycle and was riding away. It’s a three-speed, and I don’t think we’ve tested out changing gears yet. I’m sure it won’t be long though.

And just like that, she’s 9!

Grammy and Grandpa and Lolli and Pop sent gifts, and we got them all wrapped and piled up with our own. Thanks to the pandemic, we are all now comfortable Zoom users and out of town grandparents can attend things they normally wouldn’t have – like informal little birthday parties. With all the grandparents on the screen, we sang Happy Birthday with an LED candle (because The Maya hates the smell of fire), and watched her open her gifts. Certainly it’s not the same as all of us being in the same room, but it’s a far sight better than not seeing each other at all.

We had planned to stay with our bubble family friends for the whole week of Thanksgiving in the same house we rented last year at South Padre Island. Alas, their daughter had a medical issue to contend with that resulted in them needing to fly to Philadelphia for major surgery. Instead, we rented a little condo in SPI for a few days, so we could all relax and unwind a little before all the December craziness.

Ian and his unicorn

We missed our friends and checked multiple times daily for updates on their daughter’s condition. But otherwise, the little beach vacation was just what we needed. We didn’t have to be anywhere at any particular time. Pretty much every time the kids asked if they could swim in the condo’s pool, we said yes. And since all of us were at some stage of vaccination, we felt we didn’t need to be quite as hyper-vigilant about staying holed up at our house.

Maya and her ice dragon

For the trip, I had bought the kids new pool floats. Ian’s is a unicorn, complete with a golden horn. Maya’s is an ice dragon rather than a standard fire dragon, because again, Maya does not care for fire. They are ridiculously large, and we would probably have no business having them in a crowded pool, but we rarely shared the pool with other visitors, and when we did, they generally stuck to the hot tub anyway. That’s part of what makes South Padre so fantastic over the Thanksgiving week: there are relatively few people there.

We did spend a fair amount of time at the beach and in the gulf on our first full day there. The weather was nice, and we waited till afternoon so it was good and warmed up. The kids LOVED it. Of course, Maya loves her boogie board, but this time, Ian got in on the action too! Ian’s goal seemed to be to ride the waves, while Maya’s preference was to let them crash into her.

Captured seconds before a whiny argument ensued.

We had gotten Maya a better net for capturing and observing sea life for her birthday (in the past, she’s used her bug net, or borrowed nets), so of course, we saw nothing. No crabs, no little fish, nothing. She did find a ton of weird little cone-shelled things in the sand, but no hermit crabs this time around, so she got bored of it pretty quickly. Luckily, once they were all beached out, we could simply walk the 5 minutes back, knock the sand and salt water off under the shower outside the condo, and go straight to the pool for more playing and relaxing.

Our second day there promised to be windy, rainy, and not as warm, so we drove to Boca Chica to check out the SpaceX facility. It was only about 9 miles away from us as the crow flies, but it was more like a 45 minute drive once we drove all the way around the bay. I suspect this is a word that gets used a lot with regard to this facility, but it was surreal. We were never stopped by any security (outside of border control on the way back to SPI), and on our initial drive through, we were clued in to the fact that we had passed all the good stuff because we found ourselves driving directly toward the ocean. After a turnaround on the beach, we took our time meandering back, stopping at several locations to snap photos and wander around to get better angles. Had the kids not been along, I’d have been sorely tempted to see just how far into the various facilities I could wander before someone told me not to.

OMG, Mom, we are so boooooooored.

We tried so hard to entice the kids into being interested. Hey, in your lifetime, a craft just like this one might actually transport humans to Mars! Maya placated us with a mopey, “That’s neat.” And Ian looked confused and said, “What, we aren’t already on Mars?” They can be tough to impress.

I believe one of the groups in the morning dubbed the creature: Lady Gaga

On our final full day, we visited the South Padre Island Birding, Nature Center, and Alligator Sanctuary. We figured Maya the bird lover would enjoy it and that the walk would do us all some good. There were a lot more alligators than I was anticipating. All the literature talks about Big Padre, who’s over 12 feet long, and is a rescue from Port Arther. He has a relatively diminutive friend named Lady Laguna, though I wouldn’t wanna meet her out walking around either. But there are separate areas where many other smaller gators live as well. The kids even got to touch a tiny one that was part of a gator lecture the folks at the sanctuary had been giving.

At the nature center

Maya and Ian were able to see many different birds and got to try their hand at photographing some of them. We saw little crabs scuttling in the water and along the bank, and we even saw one clinging to the bottom of the boardwalk structure we were on. There were lots of fish churning up the water and Maya sure did try to take their pictures too.

I will forget some of what we saw, but I believe she’s added to her list: sanderlings (which were fun to watch as they scuttled back and forth on the beach trying to search for fresh food while not getting caught by waves), tricolored herons, roseate spoonbills, white ibises, common gallinules, American coots, American white pelicans, snowy egrets, and black-bellied whistling ducks. We should probably stop being lazy and try to actually identify the kinds of seagulls we see, but we haven’t bothered with that yet.

The snowy egret that Maya named Winter

We tried one more beach visit that afternoon, but it was a bit cooler and Ian wasn’t interested in toughing it out. I walked back to the condo with him and let him play in the pool, so Maya and Dad could stay at the beach. It must have been boring without Ian there though, because it wasn’t long before Maya was back to play in the pool as well.

We had an uneventful drive back on Wednesday, and got home in plenty of time to pick up the grocery order we had placed nearly a week prior. We planned for only a small Thanksgiving feast for our little family of four. For a change, I didn’t bother spending all day cooking. I prepared food in little fits and starts as I felt like it. I made stuffing biscuits for breakfast and we had them with the bacon that I *had* to make so I’d have bacon grease to use for Sean’s Brussels sprouts that evening. I roasted some turkey legs that I had put in a brine the night before. We made Sean’s mom’s dressing because it’s required. I like hasselback sweet potatoes, made savory and herby instead of sweet. And the kids don’t like any of those sides, so I cut up some raw broccoli and made a cucumber salad to go with. It was just fine. We didn’t stress and outside of the cooking, we more or less just relaxed.

Our feast.

I worked on Friday, but once my workday was done, we went ahead and secured our Christmas tree and spent the weekend decorating it. I figure we’ll save tree photos for December though. December will be a big month for us. After nearly two shitty years of shitty pandemic, we should finally get to take our Disney World trip with the kids and we should finally get to fly to see our families again.

Percentage of US population that has been fully vaccinated (58.0% as of 11/6, 59.9% as of 12/5). Travis County – 11/5 120,366 cases and 1167 deaths – 12/3 123,040 cases and 1194 deaths. Texas – 11/5 4,257,615 cases and 71,802 deaths – 12/5 4,352,098 cases and 74,198 deaths. United States – 11/5 46,446,975 cases and 754,061 deaths – 12/5 49,085,361 cases and 788,363 deaths. The World – 11/5 249,421,209 cases and 5,042,829 deaths – 12/5 265,847,554 cases and 5,255,544 deaths.

October was a good and bad month. If August and September were all angst and apprehension, October was making the most of it, sadness and loss, and then maybe a light at the end of the COVID tunnel.

Darth Nox laying on the Millennium Falcon

I spent the first weekend in October constructing something called armadillo eggs. I know, I know, mammals don’t lay eggs, but when in Texas …

Sean was told about these creatures by his boss. My curiosity was sufficiently piqued to look into it a bit, and lo and behold, I found multiple recipes for said creation. How have I lived in Texas for over 20 years and never heard of these? Start with the standard jalapeño popper and push it way, WAY over the edge. It’s nearly like something you’d eat on a dare. Here’s the recipe we used, and I swear to you, it was absolutely delicious. A couple tips: our Texas jalapeños are large and in charge. Mine measured about 4 inches in length. I gutted and quartered these, and the jalapeño punch was sufficient. I had some Fresno chiles growing in our little backyard garden as well. They’re delicious chiles, but perhaps not quite meaty enough to stand up to the meat quotient of this particular recipe.

Armadillo eggs!

I had been trying to book a cabin at Palo Duro Canyon State Park off and on for months and months and they were ALWAYS booked. Finally, I just said fuck it and reserved a tent campsite for a long weekend we had in October. I did this back in May, when I thought we’d have a four-day weekend. Alas, on a Friday, we let our kids miss school so we could drive the 7 hours up toward Amarillo. Since we avoided I-35, it was honestly not too bad, as 7-hour drives go.

Lighthouse formation at Palo Duro Canyon

We arrived at our campsite with plenty of daylight to get our tent set up and our dinner prepared … but then we laid waste to all of that by driving around trying to find a small trail to hike and a good view of the canyon to enjoy. We pulled up to the visitors’ center and got our first good look at Palo Duro Canyon. I think Maya amused the older couple hanging out nearby with her breathless “Wow!” as she got out of the car.

We found a huge yellow grasshopper who was missing a back leg and who Maya dubbed “Lemon.” We wandered out a bit on the trail we’d be walking the next day, just to get an idea of how things would be. And then we drove back and ate dinner in the dark. It was so BUGGY. That was probably the only real downer of the trip. It was hard to eat, day or night, for all the flies and gnats and who knows what else seemingly coating our food.

We hiked and no one got bitten by a snake!

Our evening was peaceful. We left the rainfly off the tent and looked up at all the pretty stars. We listened to coyotes yipping somewhere seemingly far away from us. And in the morning, we woke to find that Tent, Arthur Tent had a lovely praying mantis on the roof. Maya was thrilled. She had brought her bug house and net along and had been busily catching flies and grasshoppers and the occasional beetle. We elected to move the praying mantis off the tent so we could install the rainfly since some “weather” was supposed to be rolling in, but to let it roam free instead of being confined to the bug house. (When it came time to pack up the next day, there was another one on tent; that one I let her keep and observe for a little while.)

We had breakfast and then went on a hike that took us from the rim of the canyon down into it a fair ways. It wasn’t the longest hike the kids had taken, but it was probably the most difficult. Plus, I had them each carry their own backpacks with full water bottles and an extra liter of water as well and a few snacks. Even with the extra weight, they did a wonderful job. It was sooo hot. Mid-October and well to the north of Austin, it was still around 100 degrees out while we were hiking. There’s a lot of truth though to a dry heat feeling less awful than a humid heat, so we just made sure we were all drinking plenty of water and powered through it.

Ice cream!

That afternoon, we took the kids into the town of Canyon for some ice cream at a local soda fountain type place: Rockin’ Zebra Soda Shoppe. They both had big messy ice cream cones, Sean had a lovely malt, and I had some kind of prickly-pear based Italian soda. I’m sure after a day of 100-degree hiking, we weren’t the freshest smelling folks in the joint, but it really was a nice break.

That evening, we had dinner in the daylight in hopes of avoiding some of the insect life. Alas, it just made it easier to see how many bugs you were potentially consuming. We adopted the habit of walking around and eating at the same time, which helped a little. Sean built a nice fire and we roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and generally had a nice time. Another kid in the camp had come by and introduced herself and she and the kids played before, during, and after dinner.

Once things settled down, we found ourselves staring up at the clear night sky, noticing that you could actually see the hazy cloud of the Milky Way galaxy. Another camp neighbor overheard us and invited us over to let the kids look through their telescope at the moon as well. It was so nice to feel normally social instead of COVID social. The big open space and the small density of people had us feeling safe, though I’ll be happier when my brain stops doing a threat assessment on every single social interaction we have.

Beautiful sunrise colors

The next morning, we hustled through breakfast and “out the door” just as fast as we could to try and get to the Lighthouse trail before sunrise. We were the first ones in the parking lot, and we were rewarded with lovely sunrise-lit cloud cover, red rocks that fairly glowed, and a quiet that we wouldn’t get once the “crowds” descended.

Nearly all of the trail is fairly flat. Thanks to the weather change overnight, it was nice and cool and cloudy for our walk. Things didn’t get treacherous till the very end, when we had a combination of rock scramble and cliffside hiking to spice things up. The kids again did great, and the Lighthouse formation is truly beautiful.

After lunch, we packed up all our camping supplies and drove up into Amarillo to stay at a hotel and have a shower and a good night’s sleep before the long drive home. The kids LOVE hotels and hadn’t staying in once since before the pandemic, so they were pretty excited. Plus, this one had an indoor pool, so they even got to spend a delightful hour swimming.

Cadillac Ranch

The next morning, we embarked on the last adventure of our trip: spray-painting Cadillacs. We drove over to Cadillac Ranch to observe the ever-changing public art installation and contribute to it, however briefly. In 1974, ten Cadillacs were planted nose-down in the ground at a jaunty angle, the highlight how their tail-fin designs had changed through the years. At this point though, they’re so coated in layers of spray paint, I’m not sure you can observe much beyond the topmost layer. It almost looked like the cars were made of a plastic that had started to melt and ooze.

And clearly, if you allow people to go wild with cans of spray paint, they will. The cars of course were well-coated. There was art painted on the ground, the fences, the rocks. Even stalks of corn had been spray-painted. We had gotten an octopus stencil for Maya and a unicorn stencil for Ian and showed up with everyone’s favorite colors of spray paint and some rubber gloves and got to work. Maya was all in (isn’t she always?) and could probably have whiled away a cheerful hour painting and repainting cars. Ian struggled to push button on the spray paint can and thus suffered with erratic nozzle aim.

And then, just like that, our little vacation was over and we drove the 7 hours back home again. On our way up to Amarillo on Friday, we had learned that my grandmother’s health had taken a downward turn. News came intermittently since we had all but nonexistent cell service in the park. It was a roller coaster: “she’s in the hospital not looking good” and then “her values are good, she’s stabilizing”, followed by “she’s going home.” Then the steep decline with “we think she’s had another stroke” and then “she’s not going back to the hospital; she’s chosen hospice.” We got back into Austin on the 11th. On the 14th, she passed away. She was nearly 94 years old.

Great Grandma Schmidt. We love you and miss you.

Even now weeks later, after a funeral, after seeing family I’ve not seen in ages, and after lots of remembering and the accompanying waves of sadness and joy, I still find myself tearing up. My brother and I spent a lot of time with Grandma growing up. She was our weekday babysitter. I can still remember her walking us out to the end of her driveway to catch the school bus, and then walking back up the drive after school to snacks and playing at her house. She was one of the people who taught me to sew, who taught me to crochet. We spent time in her kitchen, watching her cook. She had this big table-top that she could pull out of the kitchen cabinets – that’s where the bread dough or the cookies or the pie crust got rolled out. We would ride tricycles around her basement and get ice pops out of her downstairs freezer. We would play and play and play in the fields and barns around her house. She was my last surviving grandparent, and the sense of loss is hard to put into words.

I struggle with COVID anger sometimes, especially when I tally the time and experiences that the virus has stolen. This is especially pointed when I think about how we haven’t seen Grandma / Great Grandma since December of 2019. We could have had several more visits between her and the kids, and it’s hard to feel anything but raw anger.

Grandma was able to make her wishes known right up to the end, and that certainly suited her best. I personally take some comfort in the fact that she was able to choose what was best for her, though of course, I very much wish I could have spent just a little more time with her.

After the few days back in Missouri for the funeral, I spent a week or so kind of catching up, but then it was full-on Halloween. I had gotten the kids a couple of kiwi crates for making a Halloween haunted house and some little luminaries and we spent a fun weekend building those. We bought pumpkins to carve. As is our tradition, Anna drew the faces on the pumpkins, I gutted them (yay?), and the kids and I carved them out. Their carving stamina keeps increasing. Maybe next year, they’ll do them entirely themselves.

An owl and a Minecraft creeper

Ian made my Halloween costume life easy. He chose to be the Ender Dragon from Minecraft. This was a super-cool costumer that I could purchase from Target. Maya has been really into birdlife the past couple years, and so she asked to be a rufous hummingbird. That one had to be made. After a bit of research, I was pretty sure we could fabric-glue some feathers to a shirt and go from there. We purchased wings and a mask and appended a thin, paper hummingbird beak to the mask. Her burnt orange shirt had iridescent black/green feathers around the bottom, orange feathers in the middle, and white feathers around the neck. She admitted it was a little uncomfortable to wear, but she was thrilled with how it looked.

Ian the Ender Dragon.

On Friday, we went to the trunk or treat / Ice Scream Social at the kids’ school. Then on Sunday, after taking the year off last year, we donned our masks and went trick or treating around the neighborhood. We are really lucky – so many of our neighbors really go all out for Halloween. There were so many great decorations. One of our neighbors dressed up as boxed wine; his costume was even functional.

Maya the rufous hummingbird

COVID-19 cases have continued to decline in our area. But the best thing has happened this past week. The Pfizer vaccine was approved for emergency use for the age 5 to 11 set. Maya and Ian are scheduled for their first COVID vaccine shot early next week. All of our December travel plans hinged on this happening, so I’m extremely relieved that we’re finally here.

Percentage of US population that has been fully vaccinated (56.6% as of 10/12, 58.0% as of 11/6). Travis County – 10/13 117,807 cases and 1128 deaths – 11/5 120,366 cases and 1167 deaths. Texas – 10/12 4,162,922 cases and 68,245 deaths – 11/5 4,257,615 cases and 71,802 deaths. United States – 10/12 44,681,561 cases and 719,515 deaths – 11/5 46,446,975 cases and 754,061 deaths. The World – 10/12 239,115,805 cases and 4,873,400 deaths – 11/5 249,421,209 cases and 5,042,829 deaths.

Our September got off to a rough start. After spending so much mental energy trying to decide whether to send Maya and Ian back to school, finally deciding to send them, and then stalking statistics that showed the delta variant was tearing through town, it felt like our apprehensions were being confirmed.

Ian in his new purple glasses.

At bedtime on the Thursday night before Labor Day weekend, Maya pulled me aside and admitted that her throat felt sore.   By the following morning, she was full-on congested and during breakfast, fussed that she couldn’t taste her food. We figured it was probably the congestion, but the only thing we could do at that point was keep her home and try to get her a COVID test as quickly as possible.

I called her pediatrician and the earliest they could get her in was the very end of the day. I worried we would have a hard time getting test results over the Labor Day weekend, and so I checked all around town, trying to find her an earlier testing appointment. There was nothing available. Maybe I don’t know what to check for, but I was getting responses that said offices could see us the following week on Tuesday or Wednesday for testing. That’s five more days into a potential COVID case!

Sean took her in for the appointment. They saw her curbside and in full PPE, since her symptoms were COVID-like. Since I knew Maya had had strep in the past and that it presented in no way I would have guessed, I asked that they do a strep test as well, just to be on the safe side. After an exam, her doctor thought it was very unlikely to be COVID, but we hunkered down at home anyway and waited for test results. By Saturday afternoon, the automated system reported a negative COVID test and a negative strep test. Hooray! Apparently it was just some run-of-the-mill virus, but it did leave me questioning how well Maya was adhering to mask and sanitization protocols at school.

My first crack at smoked pork ribs. They did not suck!

We laid low over the weekend anyway, because Maya still wasn’t feeling well, and Ian was starting to sniffle too. (I whiled away the hours trying my hand at smoking ribs and pork shoulder on the trusty kettle grill.) Neither of the kids ever came up with a fever of any kind, so when Tuesday rolled around, we sent them back to school. I forwarded Maya’s test results and doctor’s note to her principal and teachers and that was that. Then on Wednesday, we got the call that while her rapid strep test was negative, they did manage to grow strep from her throat culture. And so, we picked her up some antibiotics and rushed Ian in to get tested as well. Boom, two days later, he turned up positive for strep too. Ian wasn’t even complaining of a sore throat! Antibiotics made short work of their illnesses, and we were back in business.

Maya and her new friend, the aracari toucan.

It had been about a month since we had the kids out to do something fun, so we decided to mask up and give the San Antonio Zoo a try again, in large part because they had a new animatronic dragon display, and we have a girl who LOVES dragons.

We had enjoyed lovely, cool weather for several days, but when the Saturday of our zoo visit rolled around, it was sweltering. We got our patoots out of the house as quickly as we could for a family of Woodses and tried to get down there earlier in the day to avoid some of the heat, but it didn’t work. Since the dragon area didn’t open till a bit later, we decided to start our day in the zoo proper. We checked out the snakes for Ian, who loves snakes, and we visited the birds for Maya, who loves birds, and we saw all manner of creatures in between. Mask compliance wasn’t as consistent as I’d have hoped, but people were generally good about maintaining distance, and it seemed ok.

Each dragon was labeled with type, country of origin, and notable characteristics. I captured absolutely none of them.

By the time we made it over to the dragons in the afternoon, it was well into the 90s and we were cooking. The up side of that heat was that we also largely had the place to ourselves. We meandered around visiting all the different dragons, letting Maya and Ian snap their photos and watch the dragons move around and growl. It was a good, if sweaty visit.

Herbie was nice enough to let Maya try out his inflatable dragon.

The very next weekend, we got to help Herbie (of bubble family fame) celebrate his 10th birthday! He had his shindig at Son’s Island in Seguin. It was bliss. The kids played all day in the water, sliding on slides, floating on floaties, eating snacks. The weather was a bit cooler, so we could be comfortable without spending the absolute entire time in the water. And the birthday boy seemed to have a great time!

As quickly as the COVID cases ramped up, they seem to finally be leveling out again. I don’t know what to expect as we’re heading into fall. I can tell you, I am beyond excited that Pfizer has requested emergency use authorization for the 5-11 age group. Maybe by November, we’ll be lucky enough to get our kids vaccinated.

Percentage of US population that has been fully vaccinated (53.8% as of 9/15, 56.6% as of 10/12). Travis County – 09/15 111,361 cases and 1038 deaths – 10/13 117,807 cases and 1128 deaths. Texas – 09/15 3,890,444 cases and 60,830 deaths – 10/12 4,162,922 cases and 68,245 deaths. United States – 09/15 41,535,666 cases and 666,598 deaths – 10/12 44,681,561 cases and 719,515 deaths. The World – 09/15 226,321,414 cases and 4,658,267 deaths – 10/12 239,115,805 cases and 4,873,400 deaths.

August wasn’t my favorite month ever. Yeah, it was hot, and I know I’m always whining about the heat, but that wasn’t it. For essentially the entire month, we agonized about the kids and school.

Our new series: Nox sitting on stuff.

Early in the month, with COVID cases ramping up again, we applied for virtual school. It sucked, I cried, we began preparing. We bought Ian a desk for his room and started looking for a vaccinated caretaker who could spend at least a few hours every day helping to keep the kids focused on school. I hated everything about it. Last year, Ian basically did kindergarten-lite. He’s told me over and over again how he was looking forward to going to school and making friends. Maya, who desperately needs to learn how to deal with social situations, had been largely deprived of the opportunity for a year and a half. Our jobs have suffered. Our mental health has suffered. This was, we felt, a necessary but terrible choice.

We listened to a Zoom presentation the school principal gave on all the safety measures at their school. She couldn’t guarantee mask compliance, but they were doing so many things to try and keep the kids distanced. Outdoor classes sometimes, improved ventilation, outdoor lunches, regular hand washing. Plus, we learned that the virtual option was being provided at the district level – they wouldn’t have teachers from their own school. And we (understandably) had to commit to a full semester – no popping back to in-person school if vaccines became available in the fall. In the great state of Texas, the schools were forbidden from mandating masks, and the delta variant has been so terrifically contagious. We wanted badly for our kids to go in person – THEY wanted to badly to go in person – but we just weren’t sure.

Hank and Lumos.

And then the AISD superintendent decided to mandate masks at her district anyway. Given the political climate here, we decided we’d have to behave as if that mandate could go away at any time. After so, so many conversations over the risks versus the benefits, we eventually decided to level up our kids’ masks (they had been using surgical masks; Sean supplied them with KF-94 masks instead), and send them for in-person school. And to be perfectly blunt, I have been second-guessing the wisdom of that decision ever since.

So, we all got brave and masked up to attend back-to-school night in person. The kids met their respective teachers in person. Maya saw some of her friends, who recognized her even though she was wearing a mask. It was so weird. And good. And nerve-wracking.

Fancy camping. That cabin is air-conditioned.

On the last weekend before school started, we packed up the Outback with all the camping and swimming supplies we could possibly want (and still had a little room to spare), and we spent the weekend at Inks Lake in a little cabin right by the water. We reheated or reconstituted our food. Maya and Ian caught bugs and little fish to their hearts’ content. Sean and I parked our butts in lawn chairs in the lake and sipped beverages while the kids played all day long in the calm water. One of my favorite things was that the little minnows (or whatever) would nibble at our feet as we sat. Poor Maya wanted so badly to have them nibble her feet too, but she has such a hard time holding still. Ian was pleased at how far he could swim out while wearing his life jacket.

The kids had one last day on Monday with their beloved summer babysitter, Oriana. She and the kids had planned a Dragon City party (some iPad game they all play), and they painted and played games and had WAY too much junk food and generally gave Oriana a nice send off.

Back to school, 2021.

Then on Tuesday, for the first time in a year and a half, our kids went to school in person. Ian finally got to use the backpack and lunch bag we had bought for him before kindergarten. For a whole variety of reasons, we have chosen to pick the kids up right away after school rather than have them hang out in after school care. To differentiate our white car from the dozens of other white cars in the pickup line, we stuck some fun stickers on the back passenger window – an octopus for Maya and a guitar for Ian. They tell me it helps them see our car, so I guess it’s working.

By all reports, the two of them are so happy to be back. Maya has been good about saying hello to her old teachers (something she used to refuse to do #reasons), and she talks about playing with some of her friends from earlier grades. Ian has been learning the ropes and seems to be making lots of friends and adapting well.

Our long-haired, pink-purple-rainbow-sparkles loving boy has already been bullied once. He was shoved off the running track by some boy who accused him of looking like a girl. Sean and I were both expecting it at some point, but not already in first grade and during the first week of school, no less. He has bounced back with a quickness though and says that boy doesn’t bother him any more. Maybe I can assume it was a good teaching moment and now that other kid is a more open-minded soul.

Monarch caterpillar systematically devouring all the leaves from a tropical milkweed plant.

Around the house, we have enjoyed some new wildlife. I have three different kinds of milkweed planted around the back yard in hopes of attracting monarch butterflies. We have had a couple of them flying around from time to time, but this month, we actually have had a caterpillar! They are so interesting looking. I’ve hunted around a little for a chrysalis, but I haven’t found one so far. We have also had a tiger swallowtail butterfly and a cute little green anole lizard in the back yard as well. The kids were excited to find a cicada on our mailbox who was actually freshly emerging from his shell.

Sean and I have tried a few date nights over the summer – just little things – meeting a pair of friends for an outdoor dinner, a masked and socially distanced movie. In August when things started getting bad, we decided we’d keep it small. Just us, a quick shopping trip since we were both needing clothes, and outdoor dinner. We went to sort of an outdoor mall. To our surprise (especially to me – I don’t get out much), everything closed earlier than expected – we’re assuming due to either staffing shortages or stores trying to manage their expenses in a tough economy. It was kind of weird. And then we went to a restaurant with outdoor seating, and other than the hostess, not a single soul was wearing a mask. We couldn’t figure it out. Don’t they watch the local news? We had nearly canceled date night given the horrible case counts and the full-to-capacity ICUs. Out on the sidewalks it was like a ghost town. And inside (or outside on the patio), it was all business as usual.

The covid statistics are just straight up terrible these days. Every time I look at them (daily), I rethink this back to in-person school decision.Percentage of US population that has been fully vaccinated (49.5% as of 7/31, 53.8% as of 9/15). Travis County – 07/30 89,433 cases and 900 deaths – 09/15 111,361 cases and 1038 deaths. Texas – 08/01 3,142,184 cases and 53,296 deaths – 09/15 3,890,444 cases and 60,830 deaths. United States – 08/01 35,002,148 cases and 613,224 deaths – 09/15 41,535,666 cases and 666,598 deaths. The World – 08/01 198,283,776 cases and 4,224,015 deaths – 09/15 226,321,414 cases and 4,658,267 deaths.

One of the first things we did in July was to adopt a new cat! This whole notion started a few months ago. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had an affectionate cat again? We really loved having a siamese / mutt cat; I wonder if we could find one of those again? Wouldn’t it be funny if we had a Lumos to go with our Nox?

Lumos, hiding in my desk drawer.

I had gotten into the habit of occasionally finding cats that were up for adoption and texting photos to Sean with the simple caption, “Lumos?” All of this was safely just a funny notion until he showed one of these photos to the kids, and then as if by magic it became, “We are adopting a new cat!”

Still, we took our time finding just the right one. I scoured the Austin Pets Alive site looking for a cat with the personality we were after. It took probably a solid two months between “We are adopting a new cat!” and “Hey, we found one we might like that hasn’t already been adopted!” She was known to her foster person as Blanca. She had just had kittens, who had just been weaned whenever we came to meet the cats. The kittens were adorable, of course, but after spending a few minutes with Blanca and having her roll around and purr and present herself as an absolute sweetheart, albeit a very nervous one, we were sold. She was definitely the cat for us.

Once at our house, Blanca became Lumos. She spent a couple weeks sequestered from the other cats back in our bedroom and bathroom, getting used to us and recovering from her spay surgery. The kids would make a visit or two each day to get in some pets and see the new feline resident. We’ve let her have the run of the house for the past couple weeks, but she still feels safest back in our room. One of her favorite places to snooze is in one of my desk drawers. She, and Hank before her, learned that you could climb into the drawer from the back side and enjoy a very peaceful siesta.

Maybe starting to be friends?

Lumos wants to be friends with the other two cats in our house. Hank is mellow, but I think she came on a little strong, even for him. Especially at first, she would follow him around the house a lot. Now they more or less seem to put up with each other, and I have a notion that given a little more time, they will learn to play together peacefully.

Nox, though. She was always going to be a tough sell, and wow has that proven true. Early on, while Lumos was at the vet, I tried to take Nox back to the bathroom where Lumos had been largely staying, so that Nox could get used to the smell of her. I had barely crossed the threshold into the room before she had turned into a panicky ball of hissing, growling fury. I still don’t know how I managed to not lose any skin. Since then, Nox has calmed down to the extent that she will only turn on her low-rumble growl and occasional hissing if Lumos comes too close. And Lumos really wants to come make friends with the pissed off black kitty.

Maya’s favorite firework, which she’s please to have not used.

We didn’t do too much for our second annual crappy-tacular stay-at-home Fourth of July. Our summer babysitter’s family owns a restaurant and food truck in town serving Venezuelan and Mexican food. It’s called Aleida’s, and for lunch on the fourth, we stopped by and tried it out. The kids liked the sodas, and Sean and I very much enjoyed trying some dishes that we hadn’t before (check out the cachapas).

Maya is off-screen, pinching her nose and complaining about the smell of fire.

Sean tried, at the very last minute, to find a few small and hopefully innocuous fireworks with which to entertain the kids later. He found a little purple dragon for Maya that had fireworks in its mouth and its pooper, which promised to be hilarious at ignition time. Once it got darker, we played with some sparklers and threw the rest of our poppers and lit some relatively quiet fireworks that we had from the previous year.  Then we tried one of the new ones – an ice cream cone. The guy who sold it to Sean, upon being questioned about the noise level, assured Sean that it only crackled a little. We didn’t want to spook the neighborhood dogs or annoy the neighborhood neighbors, so we were trying to make good choices. We lit the ice cream cone and were treated to a glorious volcano of lovely sparkles. It was so pretty! And then suddenly it sounded like heavy artillery in our front lawn. It was so boisterous, we actually started making for the house to take cover. That was kind of the end of our fireworks for the evening. The next day, I asked Maya if she felt sad that we didn’t get to light up her dragon. She told us she was kind of relieved that we wouldn’t be destroying him.

Going on a hike! In July! In Texas!

We had been taking morning walks together throughout summer vacation, just to get our housebound kids (and grownups) a little more exercise. We decided to go to Palmetto State Park for a longer hike one weekend. It got us away from the house for a little while, and we were able to assemble a pretty flat 3-mile hike, that even in July was manageable. Maya, ever the wildlife spotter, took joy in finding all manner of bugs and snails and toads and lizards along her hike. We saw the most amazing giant walking stick bugs all along the trail. A couple of hapless armadillos bumble-hustled through at one point. And Maya found a little green lizard (green anole?) toward the end of the trail. I had visions of stopping in Lockhart for barbecue on the way back, but we were all so terribly hot by then that it just didn’t sound enjoyable. Next time, for sure.

Art camp owls.

The week of July 12th, the kids did art camp at their elementary school. They joined a class of about 20 kids, all of them in masks, and spent mornings for a whole week making various kinds of art. Maya created more artwork than she could carry. Ian made multiple new friends, taught several kids how to make origami stars, and secured a playdate with one of his classmates.

Gray fox loved the peanuts we put out for the squirrels.

I nearly forgot! Art camp week was also a good week for the critters around our house. Maya managed to catch a toad in our yard, with her bug net of all things! I actually left a work call a little prematurely to rescue the poor toad and make sure it got safely away. One evening, as the kids were getting ready for bed, we saw a little gray fox in the back yard. We had seen one only a single time last summer as well, so it was exciting to have another sighting. It seemed to be enjoying the peanuts we chuck out there for the birds and squirrels.

Sean coaching Maya.

Back in May, I had booked us a 2-hour swim block on a Wednesday afternoon toward the end of July at Jacob’s Well. It is a 137-foot hole that leads to an underground cavern system. The site is beautiful, the water cool and clear. The thing to do here is climb up on the rocks to various heights and jump into the big hole. Sean did this immediately, with zero hesitation, though it was clear from the look on his face when he surfaced that the plunge into the 68-degree spring-water just about took his breath away. Maya wanted to jump, but she had some trouble climbing up. Once she was up, she clearly had to talk herself into taking that first leap. After she jumped in and paddled herself over to where her feet would touch, she had barely stopped before she was shouting, “Again!”

Ian is cold and would like to get out.

Ian wants very badly to do all the things his sister does, but he is a more cautious fellow. He had me take him over so Dad could jump in with him, but in the end he decided against it. He was upset with himself and explained to me that he wanted to jump but he wasn’t sure he was ready yet. Also, the water was very cold to Ian zero-percent-body-fat Woods.

On a less happy note … how did we get here? At the beginning of the month, Sean and I were happily making vacation plans and getting the kids kitted for back to school time. In the middle of the month, we were pleased at how well the kids did with their masks and friends and art camp. Now at the end of the month, we’re AGAIN evaluating whether to go with virtual learning. The current COVID caseload in Austin is insane AGAIN. The ICUs are full AGAIN. I suspect I’m not alone here – I have spent this past week on a downward spiral of emotion.

Anyway, here are our monthly coronavirus statistics. Percentage of US population that has been fully vaccinated (47.0% as of 6/30, 49.5% as of 7/31). Travis County – 06/30 84,728 cases and 881 deaths – 07/30 89,433 cases and 900 deaths. Texas – 06/30 3,000,069 cases and 52,337 deaths – 08/01 3,142,184 cases and 53,296 deaths. United States – 06/30 33,666,198 cases and 604,718 deaths – 08/01 35,002,148 cases and 613,224 deaths. The World – 06/30 182,303,080 cases and 3,948,970 deaths – 08/01 198,283,776 cases and 4,224,015 deaths.

What do you do when you purchase a brand new car (I think it had 9 miles on the odometer when we bought it)? You immediately drive it four hours to the coast for a beach trip! We had about a week to kill between the last day of school and our first day at the beach, and then it was off for vacation. I won’t lie – the new car was much easier to pack than the old car.

Our home for eight days

After our bubble family’s success at this exact same beach and rental house last fall, we decided to all spend a week in June with Chris, Holly, Ruby, and Herbie at Surfside beach on the Texas coast. The house we stayed in is built up on stilts, and its front half is actually in the water. You could feel the house sway slightly as the waves beat against the front pilings. A good scattering of boulders seemed to help mitigate some of the abuse, but there’s no doubt, maintenance on that guy must be a constant concern.

Pocket beach next to the house

The house was just about perfect for us. There were two bedrooms for the two sets of grownups, and there was a third bedroom full of bunk beds for the kids. There was a little pocket beach basically right at the base of our stairs that we could just walk out and play in. It was a little treacherous because of the currents and the rocks, but it scratched the itch when the adults were too worn out to walk to the big beach.

The big beach was maybe a five minute walk from the house. There we could set up our beach tents and spread out a little. The kids could take their boogie boards in the water. Maya spent a lot of time hunting for crabs and catching them in a net. As with all animals, she likes to name them. She had lots of really great names, but the only one I can remember is Clinky Claws. Ian spent a lot of time hunting for seashells along the shoreline because obviously the ocean was lousy with crabs.

Crabs!

Speaking of crabs – Chris brought along a crab trap! And it worked! He managed to capture several blue crabs and even the odd stone crab (which Ian hilariously referred to as a “stoned crab”) in just a couple days. Maya in particular was fascinated by the whole business. I didn’t realize it till after the fact, but she apparently talked Chris into releasing his largest crab because it was so beautiful and blue, and blue is her favorite color. I’m not sure I could have been as nice as he was.

Ice cream truck at the beach!

Holly had guessed that there might be an ice cream truck visiting the beach at some point during our week in Surfside, and so on the day it actually did, she was prepared. She and four eager kids walked up and placed their orders for frozen treats. Then, coated in half-dried seawater and barefoot in the sand, they quickly consumed their ice creams and popsicles. Our kids are still talking about the ice cream truck on the beach – it may be one of their best things from that vacation.

A deck on the ocean side of the house was the perfect place to sit in the morning while the rest of the house woke up or in the evening after feeling worn out from being on the beach. I could sip coffee, watch the sun rise, see pelicans and other water birds going about their feeding. And best of all, sometimes we would see dolphins. One afternoon, a fair ways from the house, we saw a congregation of birds in one particular spot and surrounding them, periodically appearing dorsal fins, sometimes in pairs, regularly surfacing. The consensus view was that there was likely a school of fish out in the ocean and the birds and dolphins were feasting.

Ian on the bunk beds

Because of all the rain that had originally been forecast for our beach week, I had been neurotically checking the forecast a couple times a day. We had arrived on Friday and had been enjoying increasingly calmer waves when the kids played in the ocean. Just like every other day, I had checked the forecast Tuesday and (as I recall), there was no rain of any kind predicted. Well, mother nature didn’t care.

Maya approves of the shower curtain

Chris and Sean had gone into town to pick up takeout dinner. I just checked back through my texts. Sean had told me they’d be home in about 20 minutes. I told him that it looked like it would like to storm. By the time they arrived, it was hard to stand upright. We hustled to pull all the stuff in from the deck. We were about 95% successful at getting things pulled in. Sean and Chris were down below the house trying to put all the beach stuff in the cars and make sure the kayaks were secured. In trying to help me locate one of my shoes that had blown off the deck, Sean literally had the glasses blown from his face. It was bonkers.

For as much as the house seemed to sway during normal day to day operations, I was surprised to find that even in that heavy storm, the house movement didn’t increase substantially. Once the majority of our stuff was secured, I think everyone felt reasonably safe staying in the house.

The ocean got a lot rougher toward the end of our trip

For the rest of the trip, it felt like the ocean activity was ratcheting steadily upward. I’m not sure it had so much to do with the rain we had just had as with the tropical storm that was developing in the gulf. On Thursday, our last full day, we decided to have one final big beach outing. The waves were rough. It felt like a workout just standing out in waist-deep water, watching the kids. Ian got over his crab aversion in time to go play in those big waves, often diving into them instead of jumping over them. He was so proud of himself. For my part, I was beat. I think we spent three hours on the beach that day, and maybe only half that time battling the waves, but I was worn out.

The seashells in Surfside were pretty great. The kids came home with bags and buckets full of a beautiful assortment of shells. I had my eye out for some little conch shells that hadn’t been half obliterated by waves, rocks, or birds. Both times I found one intact, it turned out that a hermit crab had gotten there first. We took the crabs to the house and let the kids examine them and let them crawl around on their hands a bit before finally releasing them back on the seashore.

The sand dollar

Maya’s seashell quest was different. She had the goal before we even left Austin of finding a sand dollar while she was in Surfside. She didn’t search rigorously, but every day she was at the beach, she would keep her eye out for them. By the last day, she had not yet succeeded, and Herbie told her that if he found one, she could have it. Then, as we were walking home from our last beach visit of the trip, he found one! It was only about 3/4 of a sand dollar, but if anything that was even more interesting because you could get a good look at its internal structure. True to his word, he gave it to Maya.

I think this was the one named Chompy

On our way home Friday, we stopped by the Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge. We drove around the loop, checking out alligators and various ducks and other water birds. I wish we knew our waterfowl better and my resident bird expert (Maya) was only half interested. Had we been out walking, I think she’d have been more engaged. Later on, when we stopped at the visitor center and walked the little boardwalk trail, she was in full wildlife spotter mode. We saw a little purple gallinule family, a very fancy red-winged blackbird, and as we were leaving, Maya saw what she thought was a snake in the water. Turns out, it was actually a very small alligator. (The alligators we spotted were given names too: Little Snap, Chompy, Fireback.)

Galaxy

Two days after we got back, we celebrated Father’s Day. All of us were pretty worn out, so it was low key. We placed a delivery order with Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream. I grilled our home-grown shishito peppers and some ribeyes. The kids used their bounty of Surfside seashells and some canvas and various other materials and made Sean two really neat looking pieces of art. Ian wanted to make a galaxy; Maya wanted to make the big beach at Surfside. I think they both succeeded.

Surfside

For the week before we went on vacation, the kids had become acquainted with their new summer morning babysitter. She’s had her COVID vaccine, spends lots of time doing projects and playing games with them, and apparently is incredibly patient. When the kids got back from vacation, they planned a little back-from-the-beach party with her. They made decorations, ordered up snacks from us, planned out their activities. It kept them busy for a couple of days and softened the blow of vacation being over.

That very next weekend, my parents came to visit. We hadn’t seen Grammy and Grandpa in person since December of 2019. Just as with Lolli and Pop’s visit last month, as soon as he knew they were on the road, Ian began his “when are they going to get here” offensive. They arrived on a Friday afternoon, and it seemed like ten minutes later, Grammy and Grandpa had given them the gift of crafts and they were gathered up at the kitchen table painting sun-catchers.

Craft time with Grammy and Grandpa

They played together and visited for a while. We had Texas barbecue for dinner. Maya and Ian taught them all about their favorite ipad games. Ian showed off his origami skills. Maya told them all about the birds that visit our yard.

The next day, after more visiting and crafting, Maya made breakfast tacos for lunch. Ian, for his part, arranged a lovely fruit tray for everyone to share, complete with some mint sprigs from the back yard. They talked their way into visiting Grammy and Grandpa’s hotel so they could swim in the pool for a while. It was awesome – much warmer than even just a month ago, and we all but had the pool to ourselves. After a good long swim, the kids changed into dry clothes up in the hotel room. Maya apparently talked Grammy out of her sack of cherries. She enjoyed them so much, we had to cut her off so she wouldn’t make herself sick.

Here goat, nibble my finger

That afternoon, we all drove down to Jester King Brewery for the weekend’s special event. After our disappointing not-visit with the goats over spring break, when Jester King offered a ticketed visit with the goats, I sprung for it. For a full hour, we got to learn about and hang out with their little herd of Nigerian Dwarf goats. The kids were thrilled. I’d love to tell you it was all about them, but I was pretty thrilled too.

This is the closest we could get to a group shot

There were so many goats! We saw lots of baby goats, which Maya and Ian really loved. They’d climb around on the kids and chew on their hair and clothes and fingers. Both kids had what we were calling their “goat lock” – a little goat-spitty dreadlock, one per kid. The bigger goats would sidle up to you and kinda lean a flank into you as if to say, “scratch me now.” You’d run a hand along their backs, and their faces would go all blissed-out and mellow. Toward the end, Maya and Ian each had a chance to bottle feed one of the babies.

And then, when all that was done, we got to go have pizza and beer! Plus, for June in Texas, the weather was fantastic. I think it was in the low 90s and there was a breeze. We really couldn’t have asked for better.

The next morning, there was more random hanging out. Maya and Ian got it together to provide a little piano and guitar concert from their grandparents. Maya hastily wove a fresh potholder for Grammy and Grandpa, and after she was done, they started their long journey back to Missouri.

Ian lost his first tooth!

This week has been pretty quiet so far, with the exception of some big news: Ian has finally lost his first tooth. I’m not sure why, but our kids hang on to their teeth for a while, apparently. And unlike his sister, Ian wasn’t in a big hurry to yank is kicking and screaming out of his head. He basically nonchalantly wiggled his tooth with his tongue for a week or whatever until it was looking so dangly, I thought he would swallow it. I told him I thought he could pull it now, and with no effort it all, he plucked it out of his mouth. He is ecstatic. As I write this on June 30th, his tiny little tooth is tucked safely under his pillow, waiting for the tooth fairy.

Here are our monthly coronavirus statistics. Percentage of US population that has been fully vaccinated (41.9% as of 6/06, 47.0% as of 6/30). Travis County – 06/04 83,910 cases and 873 deaths – 06/30 84,728 cases and 881 deaths. Texas – 06/06 2,962,934 cases and 51,719 deaths – 06/30 3,000,069 cases and 52,337 deaths. United States – 06/06 33,326,471 cases and 597,627 deaths – 06/30 33,666,198 cases and 604,718 deaths. The World – 06/06 173,197,944 cases and 3,726,107 deaths – 06/30 182,303,080 cases and 3,948,970 deaths. We’re moving in the right direction, but please oh please GET VACCINATED.

 

I know that I shouldn’t complain. We have been under drought conditions for a while now. Our winter, snow-and-ice-mageddon aside, was pretty darn dry, and spring wasn’t shaping up to be much better. Then May happened. It started with a rained-out camping trip the first weekend. Haha, we said, what were the odds? And then it rained for darn near the whole month. Austin had over 12 inches of rain in May.

With all the moisture comes the fungus.

The nice thing has been the really mild temperatures we had throughout the month. I write this on a 90 degree afternoon, which is more typical, so expect the whining about the heat to resume soon. I have managed to sneak in some gardening, between the raindrops. We haven’t had to water much of anything, so that’s been nice.

I wound up spending a certain amount of Mother’s Day weekend installing plant life. The kids also made gifts for me, and we ordered a sushi picnic dinner.

The new palm tree

Now that a certain corner of our yard had turned very sunny with all the limbs we lost during the freeze, and since we also lost the palm tree we had growing in the back yard during said freeze, we decided to convert the sunny corner into a tropical-ish bed. We thought we’d go to a nursery in town that had palm trees for sale. Turns out their “for sale” roughly matched our “holy crap, that’s expensive,” and that’s the story of how I ordered a 7-gallon palm tree from a grower on Etsy.

The upside of a 7-gallon palm tree is that it’s a decent enough size that maybe the animals and kids won’t accidentally destroy it. The downside of a 7-gallon palm tree is that now I’d need to dig a 7-gallon hole in our very rocky soil. I spent a couple days digging, and the kids wanted to help too, believe it or not. With all the rocks and roots to work through, our method was to dig the softer stuff and smaller rocks up with a cultivator. Once we hit bigger rocks, we used the pickaxe to break them up and pry them out. Sounds weird, but I would bet you that anyone in central Texas that regularly gardens has a pickaxe in their arsenal.

Cotton candy at Dolphinfest

Mid-month, the kids participated in a socially distanced Dolphinfest. The kids – all of them, not just ours – have had to give up so much this year, we decided to give it a try, explaining to the kids we would bail out if it felt unsafe. Several families offered up their yards to host games, and the kids biked, scootered, or walked from house to house, participating as they went. Maya and Ian seemed to really love it. Several kids said hello to Maya, having recognized her from previous years or from Zoom classes. Impressive, seeing that she was masked.

Bird-watching trip with Lolli and Pop

On the 20th of May, Sean’s parents, Lolli and Pop to the grandkids, arrived at our house. We hadn’t seen them since Christmas of 2019. The kids were thrilled. From the moment they let us know they were on the road from Alabama, Ian in particular was on us *constantly* to find out how close they were. They played games together, went swimming in the very cold hotel pool (Lolli was the only grownup brave enough to get in), relaxed together. The kids showed them their cascarones from Dolphinfest. One afternoon, we took a little bird walk at Mills Pond and saw turtles, rabbits, a blue jay, and even the famed wood duck. Lolli crocheted the kids little stuffed animals – Ian received a unicorn and Maya received a dragon. All in all, it was a really good visit. Maya and Ian, of course, didn’t want them to leave.

Ian and Ms Carver

Ian’s kindergarten teacher chose to retire after this crazy year, and so we wound up going up to school to help her celebrate. This is the only time Ian has ever seen his kindergarten teacher in person, and since she’s retired, he won’t see her roaming the halls next year. With mask on, Ian ran and played tag with a group of kids his own age. It was yet another little punch to the gut, thinking of all the things he has missed this year.

Sean and I kind of took it easy for our anniversary. We ordered a meat, cheese, and goodies tray from Antonelli’s Cheese Shop and a bread and cracker plate to go along with it. The meal was top notch, the cheeses interesting, the accompanying fruit, olives, mostarda, and peppers delightful. With the bread and cracker tray, it was easily enough to feed the four of us that night with leftovers for Sean and I to enjoy the next morning for breakfast.

The best car-washing help!

We really did very little over Memorial Day weekend. We had a vaccinated friend over for dinner (hooray, we can do things like that now). Sean and the kids cleaned up the Prius because we were trying to get it traded in for a larger car. One day we all donned our masks and went over to the outdoor mall to get ice cream cones from Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream. With our cones already dripping, we hustled to an unpopulated outdoor spot to sit down, remove our masks, and eat ice creams like semi normal people. The kids were an unholy mess by the time their cones were eaten, but it was a nice outing. Also, sweet cream biscuit and peach jam ice cream is incredible.

On the Wednesday immediately preceding the kids’ last day of school, I took Maya up to campus very early in the morning for a face to face meeting with her teacher. It’s the only time so far that Maya had been around her in person. It was very kind for her to make time for us to come see her, and Maya for her part was thrilled.

Maya and Ms Markos

And then on Thursday, just like that, school was over. We now have a third-grader and a first-grader living at our house. And then over the weekend, we traded in the Prius for an Outback. We bought the Prius while I was pregnant with Maya, so it’s been our car her whole life, and Ian’s too. At first, we weren’t allowed to buy a new car (Maya). Then, once we got our hula lady from our trip three years ago to Hawaii off the Prius’s dash, we could move on. The kids were weirdly thrilled with the new car. The dealership, the car, the smell, the soft ceiling <shrug>, they loved it all. Each time I change cars, it feels like a new era. The Prius has seen two new kids, several vacations, and a pandemic. It has worn amniotic fluid, vomit, and blood … and probably more boogers that I want to think about. Who knows what the Outback era will bring.

I keep posting these statistics to remind myself that while things are definitely improving, coronavirus is not over yet, not that I really could forget, since it still factors into so many of our decisions. Percentage of US population that has been fully vaccinated (34.2% as of 5/08, 41.9% as of 6/06). Travis County – 05/09 82,901 cases and 858 deaths – 06/04 83,910 cases and 873 deaths. Texas – 05/08 2,914,504 cases and 50,643 deaths – 06/06 2,962,934 cases and 51,719 deaths. United States – 05/08 32,707,359 cases and 581,752 deaths – 06/06 33,326,471 cases and 597,627 deaths. The World – 05/08 157,946,278 cases and 3,288,638 deaths – 06/06 173,197,944 cases and 3,726,107 deaths.

After Easter, we had kind of a quiet month. The big thing to look forward to was our friend Ruby’s birthday. Poor kid has now celebrated two birthdays during a pandemic. Her parents rented an inflatable water slide though, and in a year with very little playing in the water, this was A Very Big Deal. Maya played in the water nearly the whole time she was there. Ian played in the water until he was chilled through and then switched to sword-fighting with Herbie and eating WAY too many cookies.

Bouncy water slide! Happy birthday, Ruby!

We watched parts of our garden come back to life, and we also had a few things we just had to give up on. We finally left our palm tree for dead. During its long and neglectful life though, it had established one hell of a downward root system – so much digging! On the other hand, a 15-foot tall bay laurel tree looked deader than dead, and so I finally cut it down. As I was clearing leaf litter from its base, I notice little pink buds. Not long afterward, bright green branches popped out. By now, we’re back to having a small bay laurel bush again.

The little bay laurel that could

Maya made a kente cloth in her art class. They spent WEEKS on this project painstakingly weaving. Seeing a tedious project all the way through can be tough for our girl, and so Maya was quite proud of herself when she was finished.

Starting in March, we were on bluebonnet watch. We drove by our “normal” photo locations. Heck, we even watched the highway medians (not that we were out driving much). Except in a few drainage ditches here and there, we weren’t seeing much. We had heard over and over again that our big freeze shouldn’t have any impact on the bluebonnets. But it turns out our very dry fall probably did.

They spent most of their time catching ladybugs

We were starting to get desperate and began seeking locations outside of Austin. In poking around, we found out that Muleshoe Bend puts on quite the bluebonnet show. A quick hour-long drive out, and we were there. We didn’t have to wait in line, but certainly they were doing a hoppin’ business. On initial glance, it seemed horribly crowded (go figure), but having camped there just last fall, we knew that there were pretty views up ahead and hopefully less traffic. Jackpot.

The kids were much happier here than at our normal spot. Instead of wall-to-wall bluebonnets, these grew in little clumps. Maya and Ian were able to run around between the clumps catching ladybugs and grasshoppers and didn’t have to suffer their parents telling them to be careful not to step on the bluebonnets a hundred times. We cajoled Ian into wearing jeans (which he hates). Maya, you may notice, chose her own outfit. At any rate, the tradition remains intact.

We were there too!

The big news this month has been that Sean and I both received our final COVID vaccine doses. Sean unfortunately was laid up for a few days after his second dose, having suffered a pretty fierce reaction. I lucked out and didn’t have much beyond a sore arm and possible tiredness that could have been blamed on a dozen other things (I’m always tired). We are still wearing masks when we go out, but at least now everyone in the house has had a haircut. We are doing our part to limit COVID spread, and that is a good feeling.

Apparently, there’s finally enough going on that I haven’t managed to be as obsessive about COVID case counts, though I’m watching vaccine percentages like a hawk. For our first vaccines in late March / early April, we had to drive out of town, demand was so high. By late April, we were both able to schedule second doses in town. I hear supply is finally outpacing demand. That is not a good thing if the reason is that demand has slackened. C’mon people, if you’re able, please get your vaccine.

Anyhow, here are comparative numbers from yesterday, since I failed to grab them at the end of the month. I’d like to breathe a sigh of relief, but as mentioned, vaccine adoption seems to be foundering, and the state of things in India is pretty damn scary right now. Percentage of US population that has been fully vaccinated (16.6% as of 03/31 according to the data Google compiles, 34.2% as of 5/08). Travis County – 03/31 79,217 cases and 817 deaths – 05/09 82,901 cases and 858 deaths. Texas – 03/31 2,791,910 cases and 48,252 deaths – 05/08 2,914,504 cases and 50,643 deaths. United States – 03/31 30,460,837 cases and 552,073 deaths – 05/08 32,707,359 cases and 581,752 deaths. The World – 03/31 129,006,800 cases and 2,817,932 deaths – 05/08 157,946,278 cases and 3,288,638 deaths.