Stickbugs, Grasshoppers and Chuck Norris

I think one of my families favorite places to stay are at the State Parks.  This park happens to be inside a big city.  This is a strange feeling because we take the freeway to get here, surrounded by all types of stores and neighborhoods, and yet we are in an enchanting, fairy tale like forest of wild life and trees.  It is beautiful and breath taking.

They say most things in Texas are big, we have met some BIG insects!!  It has been fun to catch these bugs and let the kids see first hand and up close the details of each one.  Our two favorites have been the stickbug and a huge yellow grasshopper.  The pictures should give you an idea of how big the bug is when compared to my hand. 

Along the way, we have also seen lots of turtles, spiders and lizards.  At first I thought we would not be able to stay here because of the lizards.  I have a fear of lizards...thanks MOM!!....anyways, I took a shower the other day with a lizard.  I surprised and shocked my family that I did not leave the shower freaking out (that was when I found the lizard in the bike cart)...I basically had a talk with the lizard that went something like this:

ME:  Listen  lizard , I am hot, itchy and I NEED this shower.  If you move, I will kill you.  If you look at me, I will kill you.  If you think about doing anything out of the ordinary, I will call Chuck Norris and your life will be over. 

I think he understood me and we had a deal.  Granted he was about 2 inches long, but you never know what kind of friends he might have.  The last thing I needed was a hostile lizard take over in the shower.  Two words are all you ever need to put the fear into anything.....CHUCK NORRIS! 

If you are familiar with our blog you know that we destroyed one of our bikes at the beach.  This park has wonderful bike trails and it was a priority to buy new bikes.  I am so glad that we did.  We have had a lot of fun riding the trails, visiting the waterfalls and exploring this park.  I would recommend this park to anyone staying in the Austin area.  The park is named McKinney Falls State Park.  The host are very nice, bathrooms are clean and its picturesque!

We had the chance this weekend to visit the Pecan Festival....LOVED IT!  Austin has a saying..Keep Austin Weird!  This festival is on the renowned 6th street with live bands, artist and the best freaking food we have had from street vendors in a long time!!!  I think we like Austin because the diversity is so abundant.  The artist that reside in Austin are truly unique and at times make you say WTH(HECK)...but it must appeal to someone somewhere.  In fact Cory, Isabella and I went yesterday and Rye and Cory went back today.  The music was awesome!!  all this for free too.  My pictures are on my camera and I am trying to figure out how to get them downloaded...I will post some later.


Cory is still actively looking for a job and he has had some great leads thanks to past friends, thank you so much!!  He is a little overwhelmed with trying to find work.  I know that something will work out, he is still teaching at night and this is wonderful for keeping us on top of food, gas and bills.  We could survive on this but we are hoping for something else too. 


Drake was able to start school this week!!! It's been so fun being able to work with him again.  He loves the science and history.  Math has been challenging, but it's moving along.  His least favorite subjects are grammar and writing. 

Yes, we are the family that puts a harness on our cat and then expects it to walk.

This is how we walk and exercise our cat.

I had finally had it this week with the school that Rye is trying to do high school with and had to turn up the enraged MOM dial a notch.  I have had all of the paper work into the school for 2 months.  Every time I call they say it takes 2 weeks...ummm, OK we are going on 2 months,  but ok...maybe they meant in 2 week increments for each process to be done...Anyways, she is stressed out!  Rye wants to get started with school, she is excited to get going.  All her friends are complaining about homework and she wants to do the same..LOL  So I called them and left a message saying either she is in our she is out. I need to know by Monday.   They emailed me on Friday saying " Your sons welcome packet will be sent on Monday"....ARE YOU SERIOUS....So I wrote back saying "Thank you but my son is a girl named Rye".  I instantly got a reply saying they were sorry...I know people are over worked and under payed, but impressions are in the details, and I felt a little bit like a number and not a person.  I am hoping that things will improve and I can go back to being the sane Mom and not the raging lunatic that calls every other day.  You know they probably have my number on the board for all of the phone techs to read saying something to the effect..." BE ON GUARD, DON'T MAKE ANY SUDDEN MOVES, SOUND LIKE YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR DOING"....and next time I will make sure I eat and try to be more patient.  Although, in my defense I do think I was very, very patient.

Yep..that's Rye walking our cat..LOL

We are moving to a new location on Wednesday and this will be for a month.  Cory has several leads in Austin and we feel like we need to stay and see what happens with them.  We are staying in a nice RV park.  Yay we will have a sewer hook up again...it's the little things that bring us joy and happiness!!