Tuesday morning I woke up to Henry and Caroline making pancakes. They've cooked them often enough at this point that they have the process down.
Josiah spent time throughout the week drawing pictures of Whopper-ios so he could decorate the walls of his room.
By mid-week, the pace of our days quickened. Errands were run all Wednesday morning and then we met friends at a new place called Bounce Bounce. It was a trampoline park and more. They had bumper cars (unfortunately they were out of order), a zipline, and an area with human-size hamster balls in water. The kids played and bounced for a long time. They made their way through the obstacle course quite a few times. They tried soccer and basketball, dodgeball and a foam pit. They even got permission to do the maze area, which is usually reserved for kids 4 feet and under. We like to go to these places during school hours when there are very few people around.
All three kids tried the zipline which went the length of the facility. It was really high up. The kids said it was scary, but fun. They could feel the wind on their feet because they were only wearing the rubber-footed socks. Once they finished the zipline, they ran down to the trampolines to watch the next person's ride.
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| Henry |
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| Josiah |
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| Josiah |
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| Caroline flying over her brothers |
From the trampoline park, they went to their Wednesday night activities at church. When we finally made it home, Henry's legs felt like jelly, Josiah was hobbling with a bad knee, and Caroline had muscle aches from muscles she didn't know existed.
The following day we went on a field trip with our CC group. It was to Sea Center Texas, which is a fish hatchery. We had a great tour guide who walked us through the museum/aquarium portion, showing us all the many fish that are in this area. They had a touch tank with blue crab, fish, sea anemone, and hermit crabs.
Then he gave us a tour of the hatchery. They hatch flounder, red drum, and spotted seatrout. Millions at a time. They had three females and two males of each species in these massive containers.
The water was constantly spinning because as they laid their eggs, there was fish oil on them which made them float. The spinning water allowed them to be caught by a trough where they were collected and put in a different tank. A 5mL cluster held about 5000 eggs. The babies:
At the end, he brought us outside where they had many shallow ponds of water where the fish grew large enough to ship out and replenish the Gulf and bays. We stopped at one specific watering hole where they allowed kids to fish (catch and release) twice a month. Caroline said no thank you to that. But they did get to feed the fish in that area and they were huge. We were surprised by how big most of the fish were.
Our favorite thing that we saw were the moon jellyfish. They looked like a lava lamp.
Josiah wasn't able to come with us on the field trip because he had a yearbook meeting. However, when we got home he said he was the only one who showed up. Besides the two adult sponsors (and their two kids), Josiah was it. So that was a bust.
By the end of our break, the boys got back into their Legos. Henry spent a good deal of time building a sandwich shop. He had the assembly line for making the sandwiches, the kitchen in the back, and a fountain drink area. Clever kid.
Josiah finished out his break week going to a friend's birthday party at an escape room. He had never done one before and they had 60 minutes to solve all the clues and get the door open. They cut it down to the wire, but made it out with five minutes to spare. The party continued at his friend's house. When I came to pick him up, Josiah asked me to hold on a minute. He made his way back into the kitchen and reemerged with a handful of cookies for the road. He did share with all of us, though, so he was very thoughtful in that respect.
Monday morning we are back to business as usual.
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