Just Go Fam: Spring Adventures--a blog post to catch you up on what we've been up to lately

It is officially springtime (although the weather has been teasing us with spring-like temperatures for months now). I love Spring here in Central Texas. Everything begins to get really green and tons of wildflowers begin popping up everywhere. We have been busy enjoying the weather and beauty of God's creation lately. I have taken a ton of pictures with my phone and our dslr camera, but haven't had much time to blog about it or share them. So, this may just be a long post about what we've been up to lately. Here we go...

Hikes and Exploration!
We have done tons of this. Hiking and exploring are great passions of mine. I am determined to have this rub off on the kids as well.

Abbey and her friend, Grace, at a recent hike.

Abbey and some of her friends feeling the moss that was growing on a rock along one of our recent hikes.

Some of our homeschool hiking buddies

Abbey and friends in a homemade "teepee"

More homeschool hiking

Throwing rocks in bull creek

hiking with daddy at great hills park

We found a geocache off the great hills park trail.

It had lots of goodies inside.

Abbey and her friend, Kinsey, at a recent hike.

Abbey and Colton at a hike at Balcones Canyonland.

We had a guided hike here with lots of our homeschool friends.

Luke is ready to hike!

We also had very informative, educational presentations before the hike at Balcones Canyonland. Here, the kids were learning about beneficial insects.

At this presentation, the kids were learning about social insects--specifically pollinators like honey bees.

Our hiking group.

We also had out of town family guests. My brother, Jeremy, and his family, along with my dad visited us on their spring break. We had tons of fun! We went to the children's museum (The Thinkery), SXSW Create, we went fishing, shopping and just hung out at the house.

We caught a few little bass.

teeny tiny baby bass

The kids enjoyed each others' company while fishing. Our neighbors joined us at the fishing hole.

Abbey enjoyed coloring her free bandana at SXSW Create

The kids carved designs into leather luggage tags at SXSW Create using Dremel tools.

They enjoyed coloring little flashing robots at SXSW Create too.

the Create Lego wall.

Making music by pushing buttons

With R2D2 at create

Cousin, Traber, enjoyed the wind tunnel at the Thinkery.

The water exploration room at the Thinkery

Abbey and Grandpa

We also had a short but fun visit from Drew's sister, Erica, and kids (our nieces Audrey and Lauren, and nephew Mitchell). We loved spending some time with them exploring a little bit of Austin.

Exploring with Audrey and Lauren at Bull Creek

Abbey and Lauren

Luke and Abbey with their cousins, Mitchell, Audrey and Lauren

Audrey, Abbey and Lauren at the downtown Austin

We have enjoyed attending our town's Music on Main on Wednesday nights. It has been so much fun hearing the different bands, dancing, enjoying the company of friends, along with enjoying the gorgeous weather. The kids even had their faces painted for the first time at one of these events. And, the artist did a phenomenal job within a couple of minutes.

Abbey is a rainbow tiger

Luke and Abbey with our neighbor friends

Luke was a dragon.

The kids enjoyed singing and dancing.

They even got to go on stage, since the artists were kid-oriented for Spring Break.

Luke even went on stage.

We have been loving the wildflowers around here. Our favorites are in our own yard.

We have pulled off the road a couple of times when we saw some beautiful bluebonnets so we could snap a quick pic with my phone.

We joined with our neighbors on the Thursday before Good Friday to have our first annual Flashlight Egg hunt. It was so much fun! There were 30-40 kiddos and their parents who attended (at one time, we counted that 72 people had RSVP'd.) Unfortunately, I was busy hosting and didn't really take any photos.

Watching the Veggie Tales Easter movie after the egg hunt.

Abbey recently had her first dance performance. This is Abbey's first year of participating in dance class (tap and ballet) and she absolutely loves it!!! I am looking forward to seeing her first recital performance.

Luke had his first soccer game this past Saturday. He has moved up to the 6-7 year old league and it is significantly more competitive than his last division. All of the boys are motivated to play, we have a great coach, and Luke is even on the same team as a couple of his homeschool friends. Luke is #20 this year.

Luke and his team receiving some pre-game instruction from coach Aaron.

There have been precious random moments as well. Like this recent one where I captured a glimpse through our kitchen bay window of the kids enjoying a snack at our picnic table. They were having sweet conversations with each other.

Easter Sunday was just awesome. We didn't travel this year, with Luke having his first soccer game the day before, and having so many things going on at home this year. But, it was so nice and special to be able to enjoy Easter Day at our own home. We went to church, worshipped our Lord and heard an Awesome Sermon; ate a yummy Easter Lunch; took a family Easter picture at home after lunch; hid and hunted for Easter Eggs in our yard; took a bike ride to our downtown, stopping at a couple of our favorite parks along the way; enjoyed a snow cone in our downtown; headed back home; had Easter dinner at home, and even took a little walk afterwards. We were so excited to worship our Lord Jesus Christ and celebrate His resurrection and conquering of death!!

Family Easter photo

Luke at a Park on Easter

And this week, we have already had several adventures. Most recently, we visited the science and nature center with some of our homeschool friends. Their favorite spot of this park is the huge sand area, where you can dig for dinosaur bones.