House projects and fall fun

This past weekend we went on a mini family vacation to Lost Pines Resort near Bastrop. We were supposed to have gone camping with Esme, Stella, and Flora's family but unfortunately we had to make the tough decision to back out because Rosemary and Esme have been not very nice to the other kids on the playground lately (including trying to charge all the other kids for using the monkey bars) AND they've been in a bad trend of destroying things during playdates at our house (e.g. PEEING on the floor in Rosemary's room with the door locked and pulling down our shower curtain -- with all the wall plaster). So no more playdates for a while, and we've asked Rosemary's teacher, her karate teacher (whom is really wonderful with her) and her friends' parents to help keep an eye on things. I guess, as Dolly says, its better to have the bully kid than the victim, but I sure felt terrible about this all week -- pretty much ALL I want for her to learn in school is how to be nice to other kids and make other people happy and feel good (and of course, herself). But, I think with a lot of attention we can turn this around.

Since we were disappointed about not going camping, we decided to take a mini family vacation to the Lost Pines Resort in Bastrop, where we did lots of hiking, sitting by the fire, soccer, and visiting a pumpkin farm/corn maze.

The sunken pirate ship...

Rosemary and Nora (who we happened to run into!) on the hay swing... next to them was a sign and picture of the man who used to own this farm. He was scalped by Comanches when hunting and then lived ... with no scalp... for 12 more years....

 

 This five acre corn maze was in ... of course... the shape of Texas!

The home improvements continue!!! This is our brand new, expertly designed and built by James, front yard garden bed. Mom, Dad, Maureen & Paul helped the kids and I plant the garden two weeks ago and everything is growing like gangbusters -- all kinds of lettuce, chard, kale, herbs, carrots, peppers. So exciting!

In the back yard, we have a new stone bench and fire pit, with newly planted Temple bamboo (you can barely see it in the photo but of course it will fill in and provide privacy in a year or two) behind. We broke in the fire pit last Friday with a marshmallow roasting party, it was a delight!