Where's Waldo?

We have decided to hang up our Nature Challenge hats for awhile in order to become Waldo-spotters!

Apparently, he's visiting cities around to country to see what makes them so unique.  He's hanging out at some of the local, independent businesses waiting to be spotted and our local bookstore is hosting a competition to see who can find Waldo!  How could we resist joining in?

So far we've found 8 Waldo's and discovered some wonderful shops and businesses.

We celebrated Lisa's birthday at Polkadots Cupcake Factory

Fed our sugar rush at the Big Top Candy Shop

And had the most amazing Peach Basil Ricotta pizza at Sauced!

We have a few more Waldos to seek out and then we'll get back into the nature business.

Wish us luck!

Russian Love

My sister Lisa came up to visit with us for a few days, so we decided to take advantage of her language skills and visit a Russian grocery that I read about recently.

The store looked cool from the outside, but was decidedly less exciting inside.

There were about 4 racks of food items, a wall of wine, two coolers of frozen foods and drinks, and two tables full of candy.

With Lisa's help, we picked out some interesting chocolates to try

and thoroughly enjoyed them!

I mentioned to Lisa that the trip was a bit anti-climactic and her response was, "That's pretty much how Russia is too."

Ah well, I guess we can check that adventure off of our list :)

Baking Cookies?

Independence Day around here tends to be a little on the crazy side... or at least it seems so to someone like me who isn't really big on crowds.  For that reason, we made an effort to find things to do around the house today.

Our first order of business was to get some cookies in the oven - the oven in this case being our car.

I recently read somewhere online about someone doing this, so we decided to give it a try.  The website suggested that it works best with slice and bake style cookies, so our dough has been rolled up in the fridge awaiting the perfect conditions.

Today probably could have been a little hotter, but it was close enough.  We started at about 11am.

Here are the cookies about half way through (1 pm)

And here is our finished product at around 3 pm.  The cookies don't get brown like they do in an oven, but they were definitely cooked!  And tasty!

They do take a long time to bake, so while we were waiting we made insect and fairy pictures

Then we fired up the grill and ate some tasty hamburgers with roasted corn on the cob!

And finally, we walked up the hill to watch the fireworks over downtown.

My kids aren't big on loud noises - and I don't like crowds - so we had the perfect seats to enjoy the show!

Happy 4th of July!

Barton Springs

 We got a late start on our challenge this morning... so it was already pretty warm by the time we were walking around Barton Springs...

 

Luckily, most of the trail was somewhat shaded and we found yet another place we had never been before

 

The Sunken Garden... one of several places where the springs come up above ground.

In the late 1800's, there used to be a flour mill at this sight.  When the spring was running high, the mill wheel could get up to 5 horsepower - pretty impressive!

Elisabet Ney

 

Our challenge today took us to the Elisabet Ney Museum.

This is one of those places that I've driven by countless times, but never have time to stop and look around.

So that was what we did today.

 

 The kids decided that the studio (Ney was a well known sculptor) looked like a castle.  It certainly stands out in this residential neighborhood.  The land surrounding the studio was left as natural prairie land by Ney.  Over the years, many non-native plants have been creeping in, so there is currently an effort to restore it to "native prairie land".

This includes lots of wildflowers - especially this one, known as Purple Horse.

 We eventually made our way down to Waller Creek where we waded in what little water trickled through while Leah made some sketches.

 Of course, Eli managed to find the deepest, slipperiest spot in the creek

 and was soon wet from head to toe.

 

 When Ney was alive, she built a dam to create a small lake on the property.  However, the lake didn't survive for long because it attracted too many bullfrogs and the noise they made could be heard up to a mile away!  The dam still stands, but it has a large archway cut out of it to allow the creek to run through.

The kids insisted on walking back to the dam along the creekbed and then climbing back up.

As they were climbing up, I told Leah and Peter to help Eli.  

They both gave me an odd look and said, "He's Eli, he can handle it."

And of course, they were right.

This has definitely been one of our favorite challenges so far - and we'll probably come back for another visit soon since the studio wasn't open and we really want to see the sculptures!