Angelina Eberle

Did you know that Sam Houston sent armed forces to forcibly move the capitol to Houston during the Texas war with Mexico? Angelina Eberle impulsively lit a cannon and blew a hole in a building, rousing Austinites to fight them off and keep the capitol in Austin. If she hadn't it might not be the town it is today.

We had a very quick trip to Austin last week and did a bit of letterboxing as a break from driving all day back and forth. I have come to enjoy letterboxing because it provides history, interesting stories, free collectibles, tourism help and a secret treasure hunt that is enjoyed by my kids.

Munchkin wasn't happy to have to put the letterbox back though. She thought it was her new treasure box.

Tuesday Oct 14

Woke up late, had green smoothies and eggs for breakfast.

To the midwife for a checkup. Boys are super helpful and aid in taking my blood pressure and hearing the babies heartbeat. Love child friendly places.

Went letterboxing in a nearby park to the midwife house. Found two stamps, good times.

Visited the party supply store for upcoming birthday celebration.

Baked miniature train and dinosaur cakes for frosting fun.

Put dinner in the oven, only messed it up a little bit.

Frosted cakes with boys and friend, had some fun.

Dinoguy played Age of Empires more - its his new thing he's trying to conquer.

Went to Family History Center, no one came in for help today.

Grandpa Actuary called and had some free time after business today, came to visit with BBQ and ice cream!

Played Scrabble Jr with Grandpa and kids.

Ate tasty ice cream, watched some Peep & The Big Wide World with Trainboy.

Took Sarge out for a walk and came back to help kids into bed.

Busy day, good times.

Blueberries & Letterboxes

Saturday was a fun adventure for the boys & I. Fixitman is up in Idaho at his high school reunion and having lots of fun without us, so we decided to go have some fun ourselves. (He has the only camera battery, even though we have 2 cameras, and I never went to the store for another battery, so no pictures!)

The morning was spent playing trains with a little friend from church while his parents helped move someone else's refrigerator with our truck. We built the train track around the house again, and the boys played for over an hour driving trains and building track. Then we moved outside and played in the backyard with bikes, slides & bubbles, and enjoying popsicles.

Our promised new front door was finally put on by the landlord and looks wonderful. Fixitman will do the finish painting on the frame and door when he gets back, it looks much better and is safer too. (Though our neighborhood is a safe one, I still prefer a solid wood door to an old hollow one!)

After all of that fun, we packed up the truck and drove east to pick some of the last blueberries of the season here in Texas. It was hot and the berries were smaller since it was the end of the season but we had some fun and then ate blueberry muffins and drank blueberry lemonade in their store afterward.

Then we went letterboxing in the nearby town and country and found 6 boxes and 1 hitchhiker. One of the boxes was quite a spooky adventure for me, it was in a cemetery behind a church with waist high grass. Both the church and the cemetery had an abandoned look though there were recent stones, so I think its just not kept up, but it really gave a spooky feel. Add to that big spiderwebs and the possibility of snakes in the high grass and I was quite jumpy. There was another box there, but I didn't find it right away and my nerves decided I should quit. (The boys had smartly decided to stay in the nice cool truck for that box.)

We stopped at a gas station for snacks before driving home, and the boys slept most of the way. We gorged ourselves on blueberries at home before freezing the rest. It was a wonderful day of play and adventure.

Home Depot crafts & a Letterboxing meet

Saturday was a busy day. We first loaded up the truck, made sure we had all eaten something and made sure to get to Home Depot before 10 for the boat craft. Both boys chose to do pirate ships, which were very cool. But Fixitman really wanted to make catamarans too. So after we drove up to the letterboxing meet, they dropped me off and went to a different nearby Home Depot to make the Catamarans. :D They still need sealant and paint to be water worthy, but they are great toys!

I had a lot of fun and planted my first letterbox. I had spent the previous day carving, printing clues and cooking so we would be able to have fun and enjoy the meet. I really enjoyed the meet, which was our second. The people we have met at letterboxing meets are wonderfully nice, extremely family friendly and interesting conversationalists. I got to exchange signature stamps with several other boxers I met, find personal traveler boxes with the clues, and also go find the new boxes others planted as well to go along with the Camelot theme of the meet.

Fixitman and Sarge played a lot of fetch in the nearby pond and Trainboy & Dinoguy had many adventures. They stamped some, played with the mystery castle and found a few stamps hidden in a fun way, played at the playground some and more.

I took a camera but never took it out. Others from the meet uploaded their photos and here is a cute one of Trainboy & I stamping.

Letterboxing fun

Hiking on paths at a nature preserve, trying to follow directions when you are somewhat directionally challenged. Keeping 2 kids and 1 dog hydrated while you are lost for about a half hour. It's a bit of work.

Finding the box and stamping our books? Priceless fun with my kids. They both enjoy a good letterboxing expedition occasionally and ask if we're going to do it sometimes. I try to stay prepared to find a box wherever we go.

The labyrinth

Letterboxing, our newer hobby of printing off clues and going off into the unknown to search for hidden boxes with a stamp inside is taking us to interesting places. One of those places is this labyrinth. For a boy who loves mazes, couldn't be a better place in the world right now. Dinoguy loves mazes. He loves to try to do them, maybe part of that is the awesome books by Roxie Munro.

We keep one of her maze books checked out from the library most of the time. This is since last January really when in the co-op preschool we used to do, I decided randomly to do the topic "mazes" for the letter M and checked them out. The kids were fascinated, especially my kid. And with a few short breaks, we've kept renewing them from the library. We really should buy copies.

So we ran around this labyrinth for a while before going to find the cool stamp hidden nearby. Trainboy loves to search for hidden treasure and use his train stamp, Dinoguy loves to open the box and pull out the stamp and make an image in his notebook. What an awesome exploring hobby. :)