Day 2

This week's camping trip was much more primitive than the one that I deemed cushy earlier this month. When I wrote that post about all the amenities my dad's response was "I thought we raised you better". Well, dad you would have been proud of our two little tents set up on the edge of a cliff overlooking lake Travis.

There were no cabins, mirrors, electricity, running water, NOTHIN'. It was gorgeous setting though and I was able to enjoy some nice quiet time on my own in the early morning light at 6:30 am.

Once everyone else was up we went swimming, hiking, kite flying,

and even hung out in a lagoon like setting under a water fall

where I eerily almost stepped on a huge snake.

After we experienced our fill of nature we headed into the city to eat at a trailer park (these set ups are popular there),

followed by some homemade ice cream which was served up by a guy who tossed the scoops over his head to be caught in a cone behind his back, very entertaining, and delicious. Then we dropped our pals off at a concert and J and I went thrifting and Ikeaing. Then we both took in the Mumford and Son's concert bootleg style, meaning we didn't have tickets, but it was outdoors and there were plenty of other people to join on the outskirts.

We left the next day, so other than a few more stops at some indie coffee shops, that is pretty much the whole trip. On the ride back the fatigue and allergies had begun to take their toll. We were going off of little sleep and we all had work to get back too, but that still didn't stop us from reminiscing about the experience we had just shared and our favorite Austin moments. I don't think I will ever forget this little time away, but if I do I can just read this.

What a Trip

We got back from our Austin visit yesterday and it never fails that I need a vacation to recooperate from my vacation. We had a blast though. It was our first adults only road trip since we've had kids. J's parents watched Z and SJ while we made our way to the "live music capital of the world" with two of our nearest dearest friends. Since I had my hands free of kiddos I was able to take lots of pics, but I won't bore you with them. Oh, who am I kidding? Here is a little play by play of day one.

First stop coffee of course.

Then we hit this cool park to play some bocce ball.

If you've never tried Bocce ball you are missing out.

Then we walked to the bridge were all the bats sleep during the day.

And we waited for them to come out.

And we took pictures while we were waiting.

It was really difficult to see in the dark, but thousands of bats came swarming through the city, and they moved really fast!

We made time for sushi that evening.

And ended the night with one of the cities randomly distributed public pianos.

Austin Texas!!!

Hey guys, I am currently hanging out in the fun, beautiful, and unapologetically WEIRD Texas state capitol. We just got done watching the world's largest urban bat colony fly out from under a bridge. Anyway, I've got to run for now, but here are some Easter weekend photos for you all to enjoy. I'll check back in when we get home in a few days.

The Chicks Are Here!

This year we surprised the kids with chickens for their Easter present. That's not why we got them, but it was convenient since it's Good Friday and all. They actually came in the mail, but they have been staying at my friends house until I went to pick them up today. She lives in a residential area just like we do and not far from here. Yet, even in the city they manage to keep an impressive vegetable garden along with 10 chickens.

It's always nice to have someone ahead of you proving that it can be done.

So now we are the proud owners of five baby Rhode Island Red chicks!

Just like most newborns they pretty much sleep, eat, peep, and poop. These little rhodies will probably start laying at the end of the summer and have the potential to produce from 250 to 300 eggs a year.

This basket of eggs is from my friend's chicken shown in the second photo.

I am definitely looking forward to eating fresh from the nest eggs in the morning, and that is the main reason we got the chickens, but they will also be the family pets. The kids have both been SO excited to meet their new little friends and the chicks are really excited too, or maybe anxious or shocked might be a better word. Actually this breed of hen are known to be extremely good natured and have even been called the "lap chicken" because of how much they act like a sweet household pet.
The surprise was supposed to be for the kids, but I think I am more surprised than anyone. Do we really own five chickens? We just started talking about the idea a few weeks ago and I figured it might be something that we do next spring, but now here we are with a bunch of peeps, and they are not made of marshmallow.

Our First Garden

I have never been able to grow a darn thing. J on the other hand has a knack for agriculture, so he's been leading the way as we embark upon this family gardening adventure together.

With as much as I want to be a country girl I still have a lot of city left in me. I couldn't believe how much the pea seeds looked like peas. If you've got the "are you serious?" look on your face right now it is probably the same look my husband gave me when he told me that peas are seeds. That makes sense, but I never thought about it.

I was also shocked about how quickly everything has sprouted. Some stuff grew overnight and by a week we had a little growth from almost every row we had planted!

My biggest concern is that there are little animals to contend with so we need to get the chicken wire up pronto. I've seen what those birds can do to a fig tree. But for now I'm still in the honeymoon stage of gardening.

The whole experience has been great and while I may not know the fate our plants, at the end of the day I do know that we've done something right if we are all outside together and I hear or say the words "you kids need a bath!"

Going Paper Towelless

I was so encouraged by the positive comments from you all about "my green side". I got most of those ideas from things I had previously blogged about, but there is one other thing that I have never mentioned on my blog before that is not only helpful to the environment, but also easy on the budget and very cute. It's been 2 years now that I have been using cloth napkins and I love them.

My sister in law made most of the ones that own and at first I was hesitant to use them for everyday things because it felt like they were too nice to mess up, but I had to remind myself that they were made for this purpose (my sis is very green) and we use them ALL THE TIME now.

I feel a little awkward when company comes over and asks for a paper towel, because we don't have any, but no one has ever protested to using cloth when I explained our system. Kitchen towels are most absorbent when it comes to spills and heavy duty stuff, but the dinner napkins work great for messy hands and faces. I have a bucket in the laundry room where I throw all my rags, towels, and cloth napkins so they all get washed together. The only problem I have run into is cooking bacon because I use a lot of paper towels when it comes to draining bacon, but then I read this story on Michele's blog about how she uses the newspaper (along with a couple paper towels) to soak up bacon grease. One day she didn't have the Sunday paper accessable so she grabbed a stack of papers off the counter, which accidentaly included her son's homework. Later when he was looking for his papers they figured out what happened, so she actually had to dig it out of the trash and put it in a ziplock for him to bring it to school. It sounded like something I would do and thanks to her story I have totally gotten into degreasing bacon on the newspaper now. If you are like me and you don't keep paper towels in stock you could put the bacon on a cooling rack over the newspaper, or in our case we often have a couple napkins left over from take out, either way it cuts down on the paper towels.

There is nothing wrong with disposable stuff I think it comes in handy on many occasions, but the cloth has been working for us and so I don't plan on stocking up on paper towels or napkins anytime soon.

Do you use cloth napkins? What works for you?

This post is linked with Works For Me Wednesday at We Are That Family!

My Green Side

Yesterday morning I watched Z run out to the curb begging his daddy to let him help carry the recycling container back inside. They each had one end while Z struggled to keep up his end of the big green bin. Then in the afternoon after we opened up some of our creekey old windows to let the breeze flow through the house so that we wouldn't need to turn on the AC. At night I was cleaning up from the weekends camping trip and emptied out some plastic bags that I had used to carry some of our stuff around, I went ahead and reused the bags a second time by lining the bathroom trash cans. These little mental snapshots are what come to mind when I think of just some of the subconscious ways my family is in the habit of doing our part to go green. This Friday is earth day, so I thought it would be appropriate to do a top ten list of some of the things I try to do for our little earth.

1. We use filtered water and reusable water bottles instead of plastic.

2. We buy our cars, computers, MOST of our clothes, and furniture all USED.

3. We have gradual increased the amount of home grown ingredients we consume, but this year we have two big gardens and I am SO excited to eat all the goodies we've planted together as a family.

4. I made a new years resolution to use "green" shopping bags back in 2009 and I have them EXCLUSIVELY done so ever since then. J even installed hooks in the kitchen just for that purpose.

5. Cloth diapers are super frugal, but believe it or not it was listening to a podcast about the harmful impact of disposables on landfills that got me started with the reusable diapers.

6. Hanging clothes on the line is therapeutic for me. The clothes smell good, the sun removes stains from whites, and of course it saves energy.

7. My parents just bought a hybrid

and while I may not be able to compete with 60 miles to the gallon I try to carpool, walk, and drive in a way that reduces my carbon footprint.

8. Our kitchen is run off of energy efficient appliances and maybe some day our laundry room will be too!

9. My husband is a tree hugger in the sense that he literally loves trees and we have planted and transplanted many of them every year.

10. This last one is a surprise that I will share later, but I will give you a hint they hatched today!

Cushy Camping

Before we left for our church camp retreat I took one finally bubble bath to last me the weekend because I didn't plan on any showers while out in nature. Then I cut my finger nails really short and painted my toenails a dark color hoping that it would camouflage the dirt that would incur when I hit the trails.

It was dark when we got to the camp sight so we conveniently moved into one of the unclaimed screened shelters instead of setting up our tent and since it was a concrete floor we graciously accepted the offer to borrow an air mattress.

It was a really nice park with running water (including toilets and a shower).

There was electricity and even a kitchen and dining area were we had some fantastic country cooking.

So no it wasn't exactly the survivor weekend I was expecting, but I still had three days of no makeup, no internet, and no cell phone so I felt like I did get to experience some degree of distance from my day to day suburban life. Oh, and before you picture our cabin as a Hilton equivalent you should know that within an hour of lying down on the first night the air mattress started leaking. J refilled it while the kids and I were still asleep and the song "you raise me up" by Josh Groban was playing in my dream as I felt the mattress inflate. No matter how many times J tried to patch the holes this continued to happen throughout both nights that we spent there.

I didn't get many pictures of the beautiful scenery because between the poison ivy and the steep cliffs that surrounded us I couldn't afford to take my eyes off the kids for a single second. The sights were gorgeous though, and the weather was great.

We got to take in plenty of hiking and times for worship, and even though there was a burn ban we did manage to fit in some smores over a charcoal fire.

This was the first camping trip ever attempted for us as a family and we may not have had a tent, a real fire, or a soft ground to sleep on, it was still a great time and J and I are determined to go back and do it all again.

Distancing Myself

Last week my phone was going shorter and shorter intervals in between charges until it eventually just stopped working entirely. It’s a long story, but I went without a phone for 5 days. This week a tornado touched down and a high wind storm went through my city. Roofs were torn off, trees were knocked over, shopping carts and patio furniture were tossed around as if they were made of Styrofoam and we had to go about our business without any electricity for the day.

Lots of debris to pick up

We all are doing fine by the way. It did affect our home some, but we may actually get a new roof out of it.

J checking out on of the trees that snapped in half.

In the midst of having no phone and no power I finished up the book I had been reading about unplugging from the hyperconnectivity of the digital age and it really got me thinking. I have a new phone now (more on that later), my computer is working (even if it is on it's last leg), and the power has been restored in our home, but I don't want to return to life as usual.

Call me crazy, but today we are taking off to spend a couple nights in a tent and purposefully distance ourselves from the comforts and luxuries of our home. I am looking forward to this little adventure, but I am even more excited about the big adventure that is life and the direction that I feel the Lord is calling me. I didn't plan on taking a blogging break this week. I had a topic planned, and some posts loosely written. It pretty much took a tornado to stop me, but I will be back to blogging next week and I want to share some about some of the bold, but exciting changes we've made as a family and what I am learning through all of this distance.