Our Week (07/18 - 07/24)

With my friend Shanna Farley. They moved to Idaho this week: 

The Millers and the Farleys. This was at our 4th of July BBQ:

Helping them pack up:

Our Olympics watch party. In case you can't tell what it is, we made our pizza to resemble the Olympic flag:

We made gold medals out of Fruit by the Foot and golden Oreos:

Emily helped in the greenhouses at our youth conference service project on Friday. These were some of the girls in her group. We spent about 3 hours filling hundreds of pots with soil and planting starters. Down Home Ranch raises the plants and then sells them to the community. Down Home Ranch is home to 40 individuals with intellectual disabilities. They live there and work there. In addition to their greenhouses, they raise cows and sell the beef. They have chickens and sell the eggs. They also have a day program and a summer camp. It's a really neat place! 

We met up with Emily's old roommate, Elisa Donison Houston, in Brenham. We went to the Blue Bell factory and then swam at the aquatic complex:

Preschool:

Hanging out with friends at our pool and the park next door:

Our Week (07/11 - 07/17)

Emily and Liz took a mother-daughter trip to San Antonio. They did an escape room:

Had lunch at the Chart House, in Tower of the Americas (750' tall with a panoramic view of the city; the restaurant actually rotates 360 degrees every hour):

The Alamo Dome (where President Nelson spoke 3 years ago):

See the helicopter?

We could see our hotel, the Alamo, the Riverwalk, etc. from our table:

Yanaguana Gardens at the Hemisfair:

Witte Natural History Museum:

Exploring our hotel, the historic (more than 100 years old) Sheraton Gunter Hotel:

Alamo Plaza:

You can see Tower of the Americas in the background:

Breakfast at Denny's:

A museum in the basement of our hotel. Pictured is an old switchboard:

Our pool. We were going to swim, but Liz forgot her suit!

We were going to have dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, but there was a 3-hour wait!! We contented ourselves with the animatronic alligator:

The Riverwalk:

We took a riverboat cruise, and we learned a lot of great history about the Riverwalk. For example, this Tower Life Building is almost 100 years old and is iconic. It has gargoyles on the upper levels and grotesques on the lower levels:

We ended up eating Mexican food on the Riverwalk since the Rainforest Cafe wasn't an option:

We toured Natural Bridge Caverns, the largest known commercial cavern in Texas. It was about a 3/4-mi hike, 180 feet below the surface. It was very impressive:

You can see the natural bridge that the cave is named after in the background:

We also did a maze while we were waiting for our tour to start:

Liz went to a birthday party for a friend and made this candy bar poster:

William found some socks in the car, so he decided to make dog ears. I told him he looked like Dobby the House Elf:

Swimming with friends at our HOA pool:

More pre-K fun:

At Pease Park in Downtown Austin. It was renovated recently: