The folks don’t make it down to Austin enough.  So when they do venture out of the Piney Woods, we have to make the most of it. No better starting point than the County Line.  Aside from some of the greatest BBQ in the state, one of the main attractions is feeding the swans. Or rather watching the ducks, swans, and occasional catfish battle it out amongst the 7 million turtles.

7 million.  That’s disgusting.  It’s really kind of freaking me out to be perfectly honest.

PaPa wasn’t scared of the turtles, but he wanted a little closer action with the Swans.

I mean, sure, he eventually fell in, but not before actually hand feeding the swans…and the turtle he found in his pocket made a great pet.  We named it Steve, don’t ask…

It wouldn’t be proper outdoor dining without some live music.  And, of course, you know a man with dance moves like myself had to have gotten it from somewhere…

All in all, a good evening.  However, the next morning we hit up downtown and then a stop at one of my personal faves, Shady Grove.

PaPa leaving the Grove.  He seemed to enjoy it as well, though I’m not sure if it was the ambience or possibly the company.

We saved the grand-daddy of them all for last.  I’m sure you’re all aware of Austin’s reputation for “weirdness”.  Some of it’s true and some is just marketing.  However, Barton Springs is the epicenter of any weirdness Austin may have.  It’s truly an experience.

A standard shot.  You’ve got your bonsai-christmas tree tat climbing it’s way out of the sundress in the lady on the left and I’m pretty sure the little kid on the far right is selling a joint.

Of course, it wouldn’t be an official trip without a Lance Armstrong sighting…

Not to disparage a great athlete, but ever since he got off the bike the LB’s have really been piling up.  And do we really need a sign informing us that he’ll float?  Seriously, he looks pretty buoyant.

One of my favorite shots of the day is what I thought was a cute family portrait.  However, I never noticed the dude on the raft behind me about to go full on Al Bundy…

While the scenery itself is quite compelling, the water is unbelievable.  It’s something like 14 degrees year round.  I had always heard the claims, but I thought, seriously, it’s been over a 103 for three weeks solid.  There’s no way the water can be that cold.  Wrong.  I walked a mile and a half from the parking lot carrying two kids and a basket of junk in a 105 degree heat.  Yet, I made it about 14 inches into the water before backing out.  Unbelievable.

Al made me throw this one in.  I told the girls I’d try out the diving board.  Sure, I’ll jump in, I thought.  I had no idea this was one of those old school boards that turns a “I’ll jump in” into a “Good Lord, why am I spinning, and am I really upside down?”

I’ll have to say that PaPa summed it up best.  After watching the scenery for about an hour he stated, “I believe I could strip down to my drawers and do a backflip right in the middle of this place and nobody would bat an eye.”

Pretty accurate…

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Let’s just call that one above, Andy.  Andy Dufresne.  As you can see from the previous posts, we’ve become quite the Finchers as of late.  Raised two sets of birds this season without a hitch…almost.

Al went out to water the potted plant that our latest Finch family had taken residence in.  Apparently she bumped the pot the wrong way and Andy decided it was time for his escape.  He hops out and quickly realizes the ground is about 6 feet lower than he thought and starts to panic.  He made a few futile attempts at flying, but it was pretty obvious that was still a foreign concept.  He did make it to the ground safely, I’ll give him that much.

Al starts screaming and runs inside.  She’s telling me about the great escape and the girls are now officially horrified.  We all run outside and Andy is hopping around the yard.

CB informs me, “Daddy, you’ve got to do something.”

“What?  Teach him to fly?”

I checked the nest and the other three were still nestled in.  As I walked closer to Andy he starts hopping like mad and inching closer to our back fence.  Not a problem, I think.  I can corner him and somehow convince him to get back in the nest.  Great plan except for that tiny little hole in the fence that I’d never even noticed before.  Again, not a problem.  That hole is so small that there’s no way anything can get through…And there he goes.

The girls are now officially in Daddy Disaster Mode.

“DADDY!!!”  You’ve got to something or he’s going to die!!!!”  There’s a huge ditch behind our house and a stand of trees where apparently the Finches are watching this whole thing.  I jumped up on top of the fence and could see Andy hopping unsuccessfully down one side of the ditch.  The daddy finch is frantically dive bombing Andy, but doesn’t seem to be accomplishing much more than I am at this point.

I was trying to tell the girls that the Daddy finch was there and that everything would be ok. No one’s buying it.

MK is warning me about snakes and hawks and raccoons and everything else that could happen to Andy, and…I bought it.

I jumped the fence and started wandering down the ditch.  I’m watching the Finches in the trees above and they are not too sure about what I’m doing.  At this point, Andy had fallen down in the tall weeds and I couldn’t see him.  However, I knew I was getting close when the Daddy nearly took half of my ear off.  He’s getting serious.

I looked down and say Andy buried half way down in the weeds.  I reached down and scooped him up..carefully and..now what.

I’ve got Andy safely cupped in my hands, but now I’m defenseless and the Daddy is stepping his game up.  I run back to the fence and the Dad is dive bombing me the entire way.  It didn’t take long to realize that I’m not scaling the fence with Andy along for the ride, so I set off to walk around the whole neighborhood to get back to my front door.

As I’m walking through the streets of my neighborhood, of course everyone is outside.  I’m wandering the streets like an idiot, nodding hello with my hands stuck out in front of me and Andy, just along for the ride.  I made it back to the house and the girls are ecstatic.

I got Andy safely back in the nest, and he stayed put, this time for another couple of weeks.  I’d like to think that he’ll go on to great things.  I guess we’ll see.

I swear, the stuff he pulled… Sometimes it makes me sad, though, Andy being gone. I have to remind myself that some birds aren’t meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright and when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice, but still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they’re gone. I guess I just miss my friend.

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We’ve covered butterflies.  Obviously the next step in our nature travel is…raising wild badgers.  Or, baby birds.  This is my life among the women after all, and Al wouldn’t go for the badgers.

Al has a couple of hanging plants on the front porch with some strange bamboo/coconut/cathair baskets.  I’m sure they were soo cute and on sale, but they’re really pretty strange.

It’s fascinated me over the last few weeks to watch a couple of Finches ripping the baskets apart.  Al was pretty ticked, but I told her not to worry, if you watch carefully you can see the baskets are being reassembled on the back porch.

Apparently, Finches are quite adept with bamboo/coconut/cathair products.  Enough so to build a nest complete with all the trimmings.  Eventually, we had four residents.  And in just a few days…

I was pretty impressed.  Here I am thinking of the wonder of life, etc… when CB drops a “What is that???  That thing is disgusting!!!”

MK at least thought it was “kinda cute”.  I thought, great, we’re getting somewhere.  However, there was no way of ever convincing her that it was a baby bird.

Hmmm, badgers.  I’m thinking badgers is the way to go.

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And no, I’m not talking about a Russian Bride, although I have been seeing quite a few interesting offers in my inbox lately.  I’m talking about miniscule fuzzy little worms we received in the mail with the promise that they would one day turn into Painted Lady Butterflies.

Highly doubtful.

Sure enough, day after day these things kept smelling worse and getting bigger until eventually, MK starts yelling that the worms have disappeared.  I was wondering exactly how Seve could get the lid off of the jar, but then realized that we were now officially in the cocoons.

If you’ve never done this before, the coolest thing really is the cocoon stage.  They’re hanging there perfectly still, but if you tap on the outside of the cocoon the whole thing starts beating around like crazy.  It’s supposedly some kind of self defense mechanism.  However, if you can get one shaking enough, it will set off the others and the whole crew starts freaking out.  The girls thought this was horrible, but hey, it’s all in the name of science.

A week or so later, we have five butterflies.  Tinkerbell, Princess, Ariel, Starfly, and William Wallace.  Hey, he was the first one out and inspired all the others – even if the others were named Tinkerbell.

I was trying to impart to MK how dangerous it was entering the feeding grounds.  But somehow, dropping a hibiscus and sugar water into the cage wasn’t as awe inspiring as I’d hoped.

The coolest part was the release.  Again, I had underestimated my own butterfly raising skills.  Apparently, these things had become so domesticated that the release wasn’t some mad dash off into the wild blue, but it did lead to something even better.

Really, how often do you get to hold one of these things.

I’m thinking these butterflies were a little too much like my girls.  They were having way too much fun hanging out with me to ever leave… not to mention the constant supply of hibiscus petals and orange slices.

Eventually, it all came down to William Wallace.  Once I cracked the lid open just a bit, he attacked me and soared off to FREEDOM!!!!

Oh well, on to the next adventure.  I’ve seen a couple of sites offering Bald Eagle eggs.  The shipping’s a little higher, but understandably so.  I’ll keep you posted.

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I’m proud of Al, but can’t say that I’m that surprised.  About a year ago, Al tells me that she’s going to start running.  I told her we could work things out, and she needed to think about the girls.  However, once I figured out she was talking about doing 10k’s, then I was on board.

I started her off on a routine that involved running one minute and walking four.  You’d do this for a week, then run two minutes, etc. etc.  I didn’t expect this to last.  How could it?  She’d never run before, and who would actually stick with something that boring.  Did I mention the part about Al saying she decided she was going to start running – once she has something in her head, forget about it.  Now that I think about it, all these problems with MK and CB are starting to make more sense.

Fast forward a year, and all the run two minutes have turned into run 5 miles and get back to me.  So, in April of this year, Al joined in with 20,000 of her closest friends to run the Capital 10k in downtown Austin.

Since I’m a complete trainer, the one thing you can never overlook in these events is nutrition.  It’s all about the carb loading.  So, the girls and I dropped off Al in the drizzling rain about three blocks from the starting line and headed to Magnolia Café on South Congress.

When you’re talking carbs, there’s nothing better than the Chocolate Chip pancakes at Magnolia.

It was long, it was grueling… it was tough.  But eventually we found parking and managed to brave the morning rush hour crowd.  Oh, yeah, we also made it back in time to pick up Al and celebrate.

Needless to say, I’m proud of my student.  In no time at all I’ve brought her from rank novice to experienced vet.  I think it’s time to now broaden her horizons.  I’m thinking Mixed Martial Arts in 2011.

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Video killed the radio star, so it’s a natural progression, I understand.  But seriously, I think it’s  a question worth exploring.

I’m not a huge fan of Facebook, and I’ll explain why.  Alfred Hitchcock once said, “Drama is life, with the boring bits cut out.”  This is very true.  However, I think Facebook is the inverse of Hitchcock’s quote.

“I can’t believe how long the lines at (insert HEB or Walmart depending on your preference) are today!”

“I can’t decide if I’m going to make spaghetti or that new casserole tonight…hmmm…”

“I’ve done four loads of laundry already today…I should do more, but I’m stuck on Facebook.”

How many of you have seen these, or some slight variation thereof, a thousand times over as a status update?  It’s absolutely mind blowing how anyone could think this is remotely interesting to someone else.

I don’t live a charmed life by any means. I have an incredibly mundane existence.  However, I don’t put that on my blog, or at least I try not to.  Like Hitchcock says, I leave the boring parts out.  Enough of my rant, and back to my original problem…Facebook vs.the Blog.  I give you Plaintiff’s Exhibit “A”.

Al in her natural pose. Believe me, her motto has become, “If it ain’t on Facebook, then it didn’t happen.”

This was our trip to Disney on Ice.  The girls loved it, and I thought it would be great to post some pics, talk about MK and CB’s argument over whether or not it’s proper, or even allowed, to dress up for such an event.  However, Al has already posted 23 pictures and has 378 comments about the whole event, and we haven’t even made it to intermission.  What’s the point?

I say all that to say this, I’ve got about 6 months worth of stuff to post, and I’ll be doing so over the next few days.  I know, it’s old news, but hey, what can you do?  And by the way, I was planning on setting up an intervention for Al and her Facebook issues.  I mentioned this to her, and a few minutes later she had 472 friends willing to help. Somehow, I think we’re missing the point.

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The year of The Breakfast Club, Back to the Future,  E.T.,  We are the World,  Tears for Fears, and Wham.  I’m still not sure if it’s harder to believe that 1985 was 25 years ago or whether it’s the only other time I’d seen any snow.  So, when all the meteorologists were calling for the Great Blizzard of 2010, I was more than a little skeptical.

It took all of four seconds to get over that and for Al to be bombarded with “Mommy!! Daddy’s doing it again.  He’s not playing fair!!!”

Unfortunately I had to go to work, but I was getting these random updates from Al on the girls’ snow day.  Of course, the talk quickly turned to snowmen.  I don’t know what you think of when you hear snowman, but I’m not thinking of something that strolled out of the pages of In Style.

Another example of My life among the women, complete with purple shades and Turquoise scarf. For, as CB informed me, “When it comes to snowmen…it’s all about the accessories!”

Requisite snow angel shot.  About the only one who wasn’t excited, and was in fact, downright disgusted with the whole affair was Seve, our 12 year old Chihuahua.

“A wild leopard stalking it’s prey on the frozen tundra.”  Great idea in theory, but Seve was more interested in his electric blanket, and actually tried to bite me if I muttered the word outside for the next two days.

I finally made it home, and we got to work on building a real snowman.

MK got into the spirit gathering snow for the toes.  Al warned the girls about “Daddy’s projects”  What?  Just because it doesn’t count as a snowman unless you can see it from Google Earth?  I’m trying to teach these girls something.

They’re quick learners.  Putting the boot to it.

I would show you the final product, but Al wouldn’t let me rent a backhoe or a small crane.  Seriously, how do you make a real snowman without heavy machinery.  It’s just as good, we were back to the eighties by the end of the week.  Oh well, there’s always 2035.

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How do you get from this?

To this…

Other than in the blink of an eye, but that’s another topic for a teary-eyed old man.  Seriously, what’s happening to these girls?

We spent an afternoon at the museum of the Texas Natural Science Center and the girls had a blast. Once I convinced MK this thing wasn’t coming after us.

One of my favorite pics of the day was from the primates room.  I started in on what was clearly a fascinating discussion on Evolution v. Intelligent Design.  Of course, I presented the merits of both with an in-depth discussion of how they’ve shaped our history on both political and religious levels.  I turn for questions from the crowd and get this.

Uhh, right.  She gets it.

All in all, a fun day, and I got something more valuable than an education…leverage.

I don’t know what MK saw in there, but it obviously had quite an impact.  Now, when she starts to throw a fit or refuses to clean up her ever increasing wardrobe from her bedroom floor, all I have to do is remind her of “That thing.”  That thing from the museum that didn’t bother sister, and I have no idea what it was?  That thing.  Yeah, it’s coming to get you if you don’t snap to it.”  Instant obedience.  Sure, it’s not right, but with Miss MK you’ve got to take it wherever you can get it.

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It was Friday night and Al was on the couch, shivering.  I finally convince her to get in bed after assuring her I’ll take care of the girls for the evening.  We’re only a few days out from CB’s mysterious stomach bug, so we’re both thinking it’s her time for fun.

“Don’t worry,” I tell her.  “I’ll take care of everything, and besides I never get sick.”  Which is somewhat true.  I’ve probably had a stomach bug twice in the last ten years.  It’s not some incredible immune system or vitamin regimen.  No, I think it’s just proper training.  After years of eating Panchos and fried gas station burritos, my system can’t be touched by some mere virus, or so I thought.

Fast forward to midnight.  I jump out of bed just in time to begin my body’s full on liquidation sale.  We’re talking closeout deals on both ends…everything must go.  And go it did, for the next 7 hours.  Needless to say, I didn’t sleep.  Al found me on the couch the next morning with the girls wandering around the den.  She quickly told me I looked like death, and wondered if I was ok.  Whatever she took the night before worked on her, because she was in a 12 hour coma and completely oblivious to my all night symphony.

I spent the rest of the day on the couch.  I didn’t eat, didn’t drink, didn’t move.  At 1:00 Al left for a baby shower, perfect timing on her part.  I warned her that if the girls decided to take my keys and cruise downtown, all I could do to stop them was a stern look.  She told me everything would be fine.  Sure.

I finally managed to sit up around 3:00 that afternoon, a bold move on my part.  CB, being my perfect little nurse maid informed me that I had nothing to eat or drink for the past 24 hours.  Apparently, she thought I looked even worse than Al said.

CB just brought over a plate of crackers, when MK walked up.  MK opened her mouth to say Daddy.  At least, that’s what I thought she was trying to say.  It was hard to tell with the 73 pounds of vomit that came out when she opened her mouth to speak.

I don’t know about you, but when you’ve spent 12 of the last 24 hours bunkered down over a commode, being puked on is probably the last thing on your agenda.  However, I didn’t have much of a choice.  MK aimed, opened her mouth, and I was covered.  Literally, the part that didn’t splash off my face managed to land in my lap.

MK starts crying, CB is doing her best Nana Connie impression waving her hands frantically in the air and screaming, and me…I just started laughing.  What else could you do at this point?

I grabbed MK, stripped her down and put her in the tub.  I told CB to sit in the bathroom with her and if MK threw up again, then well, just yell.

I stripped my clothes off and was standing in my boxers in the middle of the den when Al walks in, completely oblivious, from the baby shower.  I’ve got puke running down my leg and still scattered on my chest.  She barely makes it two feet into the house before she’s trying to back out, and rather quickly at that.

I direct her to the bathroom where she gladly goes to avoid the puke duty, and I continue my clean up.

It’s a horrible situation, and one I wouldn’t wish on anyone.  Yet, somewhere, in the not too distant past, the refrains of “Boom ba-ba Boom ba-ba” are echoing through my mind. Truly, it’s probably the only thing that could compare to my living room.

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Al has been bothering me, all over me, won’t let up about the blog. I’ll admit, it’s completely my fault. I’ve neglected the blog, but there’s a reason; there are plenty of reasons. Work, more work, sick kids, holidays, etc… But the main reason is inspiration. I’ve had no muse…until now.

If that’s not enough to move you,  I don’t know what is.  Except maybe this.

Seriously, I can’t stop.  What does this have to do with anything?  And who are these people? Same questions my parents were asking when the girls said we were going to the best parade ever.

The Chuy’s Parade, a regular tradition for our family the last several years, but a first for Nana and Papa.

One thing that amazed me was MK’s reaction.  She has this, thing…shall we call it, when it comes to dress up characters.  And by thing I mean she buries her head and/or runs screaming.  Yet when this comes down the street…

It’s all smiles.  Maybe I truly am doing my best at raising a Geek Girl.  And on a similar note, I think I’m in love.

Seriously, what 9 year old boy that saw Return of the Jedi didn’t fall in love with Princess Leia?  Nostalgia, that’s all I’m saying. Nostalgia. That’s the only reason for the 47 pictures I took.  Help me out here, people, I know Al’s reading this.

After the Chuy’s parade, there’s only place to go from there…South.  South Congress.  MK insisted on introducing PaPa to the wonders of Hey Cupcake.

When you’re tearing into the Red Velvet deluxe, you quickly learn the power of wipes.

From there it was on to some people watching, second hand smoking some lettuce while watching a bluegrass string quartet, and witnessing Nana single-handedly take down a turquoise street vendor.  Good times.

Of course, to do all this properly, you’ve got to do it in style.

No problem for my ladies.

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