Dragon Boat Races

Sometime in April, Emily received an email from Freescale Employee Communications announcing the Austin Dragon Boat Festival. Freescale was looking for volunteers to work a booth at the festival.
Emily did NOT volunteer, but she did take note of the festival, and the races. So, the last Saturday in April, we headed to Festival Beach at Town Lake for the 8th Annual Austin
Dragon Boat Races and Asian American Festival.
We saw demostrations of Martial Arts, and traditional folk dances.
Here are some of the dancers.






Are you wondering what dragon boats are? Here are some photos from the web. The races are very exciting. Drummers keep time for the rowers, who row mightily. We watched the semi-finals, the last race of the day. Whoever won this race, won THE race. And guess what?
Freescale won. Emily was very proud.

Finding this festival was like finding a little hidden part of Austin we didn't know about. To think this has been happening for 8 years! We will go every year, and next year, we're going to join the final dance when we're invited. (This year we watched....)

Easter Day

The night before Easter, Lydia carefully dyed some beautiful eggs.














Guthrie watched from his chair, while stretching his legs a way you and I can't.














Sunday morning, we stepped out of the house and discovered this:














Of course, that wasn't the only surprise. The Easter Bunny hid eggs all over the yard! (We think he hides them in the front yard because of the dogs - they are always in the back yard, and they're very noisy.
Of course, Easter morning we heard them barking and took this photo. Look closely behind the leg of the swing. . . . . )














Now, we don't want you to think the Easter Bunny forgot Guthrie. He left this lovely monkey Easter basket. And while Lydia's basket was full of chocolate, Guthrie's was full of jars of organic baby vegetables. Smart bunny.











After the egg hunt at our house, we went to Messiah Lutheran Church. Here is Lydia by the cross they decorated during Sunday School.



















And here she is during the egg hunt. (Lydia is the one in pink, in the middle, picking up some Easter booty.) Messiah has a pretty good size high school youth group, and they were in charge of the egg hunt.











After church, we picked up Mo and Kirke, and we all went out for Easter Brunch. I was going to ask our waitress to take our picture, but it didn't happen. But, it was a very lovely brunch, with incredible food, and we all looked very nice.
After brunch Emily, Lydia and Guthrie went home and took naps. (Brit, Mo and Kirke waited for us at the Showdown.)
After our naps, we picked the rest of our party up at the Showdown, and we all went to our friend John's for his annual Easter party.
Here are Guthrie and Brit. Guthrie has cascarone confetti on his little head. And the goofiest smile ever. This is Emily's favorite picture at the moment.

Here's Guthrie a few minutes later, too.




















And with his Mommy.
It was an especially good Easter, full of family, and fun, and friends. John's house is an old tradition with the Leuba Jones family, and it was nice to have Guthrie there this year. And I think brunch after church with Mo and Kirke will be a new tradition. Y'all should join us next year, too.

Water Balloon Fight!

Brit and Lydia spent part of Good Friday planning a water balloon fight for Saturday.
This partially involved calling Emily at work and asking her to bring home a water balloon spout attachment for the front spigot. It's fun to be at work and get a call from Brit and Lydia. You never know what to expect!
On Saturday, Lydia had a difficult time waiting for the balloons to be filled. But eventually, we had a basket full, and the party started!
The whole thing was a blast. Guthrie watched his crazy family run around the yard, while he stayed nice and dry.

The Last Nice Weekend before HOT

So, what do you do for fun on the weekend when it's NOT your birthday, but the weather is still so nice? If your us, you find a festival. Thankfully, that's easy to do in Austin, in April

Any festival worth its salt has a moon walk castle.

Afterwards, Brit, Guthrie (in the stroller) and Lydia found a nice kid-sized park bench (in Republic Square) where Lydia finished her chocolate covered banana. Particularly satisfying festivals have chocolate covered bananas.

Later, we finished our lovely day with dinner at the Central Market playground. It was Guthrie's first visit. He seemed very content.

Cascarones!

Lydia's godmother Mo has a cascarones painting party every year, usually on Palm Sunday. On Easter Sunday, we go to John's house to hunt the eggs, and break the eggs, we painted at Mo's the week before.

Here, Lydia paints with our friend Cheryl.












But before they can be hidden, we paint. Lydia was anxious to get to the breaking part, too.

Swing into Spring!

Guthrie tried out the swing in our backyard yesterday. He liked it. 

The Greatest Birthday Weekend EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So of course, while we were on the coast, we did other stuff, too.
On Friday, we had a birthday dinner at the Rain Forest Cafe in Galveston. It was very fun, and very fancy. They put sparklers in the dessert!

The staff sang to Lydia, and she seemed just delighted.

After dinner, we went on the Rainforest boat ride together. Here we are in the boat.

We spent the night at a hotel right on the beach. Here is a view of the beach from our hotel.

This is a view of our hotel from the beach. We're in the second room from the right. It was great.

So, as you know from previous posts, Lydia and I spend the morning on the beach.

About now you're probably thinking, "wow, this is the best birthday ever! What could possibly top this?"

Two words: Pony Rides! It's true. The weekend we were in Galveston happened to be the weekend of their annual Children's Festival. There were all kinds of great activities and crafts for kids. Lydia made "sand in a bottle" art, she went on a moon walk and gian slide, we fed animals in a petting zoo, and Lydia had her first pony ride.

But Wait, There's More!

We left Galveston early Saturday afternoon, and headed to Kemah. Our first stop was our hotel, a lovely new Days Inn. I learned an interesting fact at the Days Inn. They were founded by a man named Day. That was his last name. I'd always assumed it was named after the unit of time you were likely to stay, but no.

In any case, Brit and Guthrie checked out the beds while Lydia and I got all gussied up for the big birthday celebration. You see, Lydia and her Gan share April 1st as a birthdate. So, we met Gan, Grumps, Gigi and Aunt Mandy at a very nice seafood restaurant on the Kemah boardwalk for dinner.

Here, Guthrie and his grandfather enjoy the ocean view. This was Guthrie's first real view of the Gulf. (Other than looking our the car window, of course. Remember, he and Brit didn't join us on the beach in Galveston.)

Aunt Mandy, Guthrie and Lydia enjoy some bread while we wait for entrees.

Our waitress showed Lydia how to filet a fish. Our waitress was awesome!

Lydia and Gan were presented with lovely and delicious birthday desserts. Mmmmmm.

After dinner, Lydia rode the Ferris Wheel with Grumps and Aunt Mandy. In this picture, they are in the car at the very, very top.

Lydia and Emily concluded a perfect evening with a ride together on the carousel.

It really, really was the BEST BIRTHDAY EVER.

More Birthday Pictures

Here are more pictures of our beautiful and fun six year old, at the beach.
(It was just Lyds and Emily on the beach - Brit and Guthrie were resting in our hotel.)