We're back from our vacation! One of the best parts of living in Hawaii is that, once you get home, your surroundings whisper, "I'm really still on vacation." Ocean, palm trees, mountains... it's good to be back.
We had a fantastic time in Texas. We spent most of it at Ari's parents' place in Fredericksburg. They have a large property with a swimming pool, lake, large pavilion, and even a chapel. The children went swimming and fishing every day, while I enjoyed playing the piano in the chapel and helping B7 assemble 400- or 1000-piece puzzles. We saw more wildlife this time than we have before: in addition to deer and fish, which are usual, there was a tarantula in the courtyard, and in the swimming pool two dead scorpions and a dead rat one day, and a live frog and live grass snake another day. Friends from Ari's grad school days who live in Houston were able to come and spend part of a weekend with us, and all the children hit it off while the grownups enjoyed catching up. Then, Ari and I spent 6 days off by ourselves while the children stayed with their grandparents. We stayed in a bed and breakfast in San Marcos for 3 nights, exploring museums (without anyone to stop us from reading every caption) and riding in a glass-bottomed boat. Then we spent 3 nights in a cabin near Lost Maples State Park (named for maple trees that wandered into Texas during the last Ice Age and got left behind when the cold receded, adapting over the years to the conditions in one particular microclimate and giving Texans an opportunity to see fall colors). The hiking was great, and Ari enjoyed spending an hour or more taking pictures of turkey vultures so close you could see details on their wing feathers. We read Dorothy Sayers mysteries aloud to each other in the evenings as well as editing Ari's new book and even doing some recreational calculus!
Since we traveled back on Monday, and our logistics involved a 4-hour wait at the airport while Ari took the bus home to get our car, I packed many of our school things. We sat outside in the bright sunshine, trying to convince our bodies that it was still supposed to be daytime, and finished much of our school reading and other work. E11 left his reader, Mara, Daughter of the Nile, either at the airport in Texas or on the plane, and H5 left the first volume of I Can Read It at his grandparents' house, but we got through pretty much an entire school day except for math on Monday.
In addition to school, we had extra activities every day the rest of the week, too: we all attended Community Bible Study on Tuesday morning, I gave violin lessons on Wednesday morning and Thursday afternoon, P13, E11, and B7 went to archery on Wednesday afternoon, and we did math club on Friday morning. What with getting our household up and running again (unpacking, groceries, catching up on laundry), school went on pretty late every day. Part of it is just that children have a hard time adjusting to "school mode" when they've so enjoyed "vacation mode". Little E3 came into the kitchen a few nights ago, looked me in the eye, and ordered, "Take me to the airport." I explained that even going to the airport wouldn't get us back to Oma and Opa's house, because we hadn't bought plane tickets. The next morning, while I was preparing breakfast, he commanded, "Mommy, buy plane tickets." We plan on flying back at Christmas for a big family reunion, but it's hard for a 3-year-old to understand the concept of 3 months!
We had a fantastic time in Texas. We spent most of it at Ari's parents' place in Fredericksburg. They have a large property with a swimming pool, lake, large pavilion, and even a chapel. The children went swimming and fishing every day, while I enjoyed playing the piano in the chapel and helping B7 assemble 400- or 1000-piece puzzles. We saw more wildlife this time than we have before: in addition to deer and fish, which are usual, there was a tarantula in the courtyard, and in the swimming pool two dead scorpions and a dead rat one day, and a live frog and live grass snake another day. Friends from Ari's grad school days who live in Houston were able to come and spend part of a weekend with us, and all the children hit it off while the grownups enjoyed catching up. Then, Ari and I spent 6 days off by ourselves while the children stayed with their grandparents. We stayed in a bed and breakfast in San Marcos for 3 nights, exploring museums (without anyone to stop us from reading every caption) and riding in a glass-bottomed boat. Then we spent 3 nights in a cabin near Lost Maples State Park (named for maple trees that wandered into Texas during the last Ice Age and got left behind when the cold receded, adapting over the years to the conditions in one particular microclimate and giving Texans an opportunity to see fall colors). The hiking was great, and Ari enjoyed spending an hour or more taking pictures of turkey vultures so close you could see details on their wing feathers. We read Dorothy Sayers mysteries aloud to each other in the evenings as well as editing Ari's new book and even doing some recreational calculus!
Since we traveled back on Monday, and our logistics involved a 4-hour wait at the airport while Ari took the bus home to get our car, I packed many of our school things. We sat outside in the bright sunshine, trying to convince our bodies that it was still supposed to be daytime, and finished much of our school reading and other work. E11 left his reader, Mara, Daughter of the Nile, either at the airport in Texas or on the plane, and H5 left the first volume of I Can Read It at his grandparents' house, but we got through pretty much an entire school day except for math on Monday.
In addition to school, we had extra activities every day the rest of the week, too: we all attended Community Bible Study on Tuesday morning, I gave violin lessons on Wednesday morning and Thursday afternoon, P13, E11, and B7 went to archery on Wednesday afternoon, and we did math club on Friday morning. What with getting our household up and running again (unpacking, groceries, catching up on laundry), school went on pretty late every day. Part of it is just that children have a hard time adjusting to "school mode" when they've so enjoyed "vacation mode". Little E3 came into the kitchen a few nights ago, looked me in the eye, and ordered, "Take me to the airport." I explained that even going to the airport wouldn't get us back to Oma and Opa's house, because we hadn't bought plane tickets. The next morning, while I was preparing breakfast, he commanded, "Mommy, buy plane tickets." We plan on flying back at Christmas for a big family reunion, but it's hard for a 3-year-old to understand the concept of 3 months!
No comments:
Post a Comment