Another cheap adventure with Mal

We're still about 2.5 months away from our big family vacation, and this past week, D was really having a hard time with noise. Meanwhile, of course, Mal is the source of all noise in the universe. 

We were already planning to attend free admission day at the Zilker Botanical Gardens today (Monday, Presidents' Day), and it turned out that I had a free night at a Wyndham Hotel. SO it seemed like a good time to get Mal out of the house for a bit, go to a hotel (which is his favorite thing in the world), and give D a good quiet 24 hours.

Sunday morning, we usually meet up with one of Mal's friends for them to play and have lunch at McDonald's, but his friend's grandmother is in town so instead, we went with James to his usual (except it was unusual, because we drove a ways and he usually stays pretty local) Sunday brunch.

We chose Garbo's Seafood ft. Maine lobster. 1) Maine lobster. 2) Small outdoor play area for kids. Everyone was happy, especially my belly.

We got one Cincinnati lobster roll, and one Main lobster roll. OMG.

Mal made a new friend, as usual, and they had us parents exchange phone numbers. Then James headed back home, and Mal and I set off for adventure.

Our first stop was the Tyler's outlet, which was having a huge sale. I was particularly looking for a pair of flip-flops to replace D's favorite shoes... they've had them for at least 8 years, and we bought them at Tyler's back when they had a storefront on The Drag and we could just walk over. Anyhoo, they didn't have the brand in stock Sunday. I figured I'd look for a cool tie-dyed "Keep Austin Weird" shirt for Mal, but he found another shirt he really wanted. It, of course, was not among the $5/$10 sale clothes, so we ended up getting a $5 t-shirt for me and a $20 t-shirt for Mal. Sigh.

Next on the agenda was to go play mini-golf at Peter Pan, which is Austin-famous. Unfortunately, on a holiday Sunday, it is PACKED, and we couldn't even turn in to its tiny parking area, much less actually park. We ended up skipping it and going down to South Congress to visit Big Top Candy Shop. That involved a lot of driving around trying to find 1) an available spot that 2) wasn't neighborhood-permitted parking.

I've been to South Congress on the weekend, but not in many years. It was packed. Once we got into the store, it was fun to look around. We both picked out a couple of things. But the sidewalk was just walls and walls of people. We were more than ready to check into our hotel at that point. We drove through a McDonald's because, of course, Mal hadn't eaten any lunch at the seafood place.

This is a weird stand-alone LaQuinta just off of Mopac, kind of in the middle of nowhere. I think I redeemed a free room there almost 3 years ago, after a few months of the pandemic "lock-down." We were going to visit my sister for the first time in months, and decided to sleep in a hotel the night before just because we were going stir crazy. 

After we got comfy and rested a bit, Mal was ready to go to Windmill Run Park, where we used to visit when we lived in the apartments in Oak Hill. Mal didn't remember it at all, but still liked it just as much as he used to.

We had a free pizza at Domino's, as well as a $3 "tip" from our last carry-out order. I used that to get a 2-liter beverage, so we had our dinner back at the hotel completely gratis!

We walked around a bit, defaced a poster that Mal got with his Happy Meal, and watched some TV before I fell asleep super early. Mal said he ended up going to bed about an hour earlier than usual, as well.

This morning, we had a free breakfast. Mal's "hotel breakfast" staple is Froot Loops. He also had a left-over slice of pizza. Then we checked out and went to the botanical gardens.

Zilker doesn't have any greenhouses, and it's just gone from being below freezing (last week) to over 80 degrees today, so there isn't much in bloom. But the grounds are pretty, and Mal really loved the Japanese garden. I did, too... especially the place where they had a bunch of native Texas trees pruned in the bonsai style. It was extremely beautiful and thought-provoking, even though most of the trees didn't have leaves.

We were going to play at Zilker Park for a few, but Mal said his legs were tired. So we drove around to the Austin Science and Nature Center. Admission there is always free (not just Presidents' Day!). Mal wasn't super enthusiastic about going -- "You lost me at 'science'." -- but he ended up having a good time. His favorites were playing with the small, smaller, and nano magnets; seeing the rescue birds and bobcat; and playing in the dino dig, which he took very seriously. He also was able to look into a microscope for the first time.

By then it was approaching noon and getting pretty warm. We were ready for the half-hour+ drive back home. The afternoon was pretty low-key. Back to our routine tomorrow, with our homeschool library/park meet-up. Then Mal is having a friend over to play after school lets out. 

Well, that was a fast month

I've opened this up to write a blog post several times over the past few weeks, but there's really not much to talk about. We're staying busy, but it's minutiae-type stuff.

Mal had his first friend sleepover last weekend (as opposed to the time his grandma stayed here several years ago, he would like to point out) and that went well. 

D has a learner's permit and has a driver's test scheduled in about six weeks.

It's maybe our last freeze of the winter, and everything is closed down for a couple of days due to ice accumulation. Today, the surface roads weren't terrible, but anything up in the air was treacherous (including our porches), and tomorrow will undoubtedly be worse.

(It's "tomorrow" now. I'm NOT closing down this window without posting this time!)

Today, we do have icicles, which will make Mal happy. He won't wake up for a couple of hours, but it's supposed to be cloudy all day, so the icicles should hold out. I might try to get out and get pictures, but see above about our porch. I might send D out to snap some shots instead. You know, youthful balance and ability to recover from minor falls. 

We're also in tax prep time, and James got his W2 last week. This happens every year, but I just cannot fathom how people afford health insurance if they don't get it through their employer and don't qualify for reduced rates in the Marketplace. We pay a few hundred dollars a month for D, Mal, and me; and James working for Indeed has been the first time that we've been able to afford it. He's had other employers before who offered lower rates than market and we still couldn't swing it. So we're lucky. But the shocking part to me is that James's work's portion of our health insurance is more than 10% of his gross income. Ten percent! Call me a socialist all you want, but access to healthcare should be a basic human right (along with safe shelter, food, and water). It's not fair at all that I can be on a maintenance plan for my asthma and someone else can't, simply because of finances. It's been three years that we've been able to handle this for me, and it's a life-changer. I wouldn't die without it, but I'd be shelling out $30 a month for a rescue inhaler and using it 4-6 times a day, as opposed to using it maybe once or twice a month. 

I need to empty the dishwasher and get dressed for the day. It's super dark because of the clouds, so I feel like this is going to be a sleepy one. I'm mostly off caffeine but am partaking at the moment because I only got 7 hours of sleep last night (my average is just under 8) as Mal and I both slept in the master bedroom with James since Mal's new rule is if it's below freezing, that's what we do. We have all camped out in there when it's been in the 20s because Mal's room has drafty windows on 2 sides, and it gets super chilly. I have a space heater in there to help out during the day, but Mal doesn't want to sleep with it on (even though once I'm under my blankets, I'm fine and being cold doesn't seem to keep Mal from sleeping at all). But sleeping with two people who both go to sleep later than I do and also getting punched in the face when my son rolls in bed doesn't lend to a super night's rest. Here's hoping for an afternoon nap, after I crash from the caffeine hit. 

Happy February, friends!

Packing Light? A Test Run

We're going on a trip in the spring which will mark our return to flying after more than three years (don't tell Mal). The environmental impacts bother me, but we're going far enough away that we can't afford (time or money) to drive up, spending more nights in hotels and having to take more time off of work.

Because of how expensive it is to check bags, and because we're going to be relying on public transit to get to our hotel and back to the airport, we do not want to take anything more than a carry-on and personal bag for each of us.

The past couple of trips we've taken, I've tried paring down what I pack. This time, we took half of the clothes we'd "need" if we were wearing new clothes every day. I also had some Febreze to freshen everything up at night, and some laundry soap if we encountered stains. I didn't have to wash anything, but I did have a couple of "wardrobe malfunctions" that I hadn't anticipated.

Getting undressed the first night, I realized that the seam of my (many years old) leggings had worn through. Again. I've sewed them probably three times. They just gave up the ghost this time. So there went one pair of pants I couldn't rewear.

A couple of days later, as I was changing into pajamas, I realized that the jeans I'd worn that day had a quarter-sized hole in the right buttock!! I'd worn them so much, they'd gotten "concrete butt" and had just rubbed straight through. (James assures me that it wasn't visible when the pants were on, but he's also not super observant, so I'm skeptical.)

Finally, one of the shirts I'd worn has elastic around both sleeves. The elastic came untacked from the seam on the right arm. I have a small sewing kit in my purse and was able to darn 2 holes in socks while we were there, but this is more of an operation than the tools I had could handle. So I did rewear that shirt, but it felt weird with one fitted arm and one loose one.

My lesson: Closely inspect clothes before packing them! Also, I needed to replace the clothes I discarded. When we were packing to leave, I realized that I've also worn the bottoms of my sneakers through in a couple of places, and have worn the tread down the rest of the shoe. As much as I hate spending money, I needed stuff. So I ended up buying shoes from the same brand I am replacing (Keen) when I looked and saw that I'd bought those shoes in July 2021 and have worn them walking almost every day since about a year ago, when I had to take my Skechers out of rotation because the bottoms of those are worn out, as well.

Galveston for the holidays

After we opened gifts at the house last Sunday morning, James, Mal, and I drove down to Galveston to spend the week. We had a great time! 

On Monday, I got up and walked along the beach, then we tried to go to East Beach. The road out there was flooded, so we hung around Fort Jacinto point and enjoyed the shore birds (and a couple of stray cats) then took Mal to Schreiber Park to burn off some energy before we visited Galveston Island State Park. Mal wanted McDonald's so, we took him there and James and I got take-out from Sunshine Bakery. Our energy rallied, we walked up and down Broadway a bit to admire the architecture.

Tuesday, we saw rain in the forecast do decided to try to do some outdoor stuff while it was nice (spoiler alert: the weather ended up being beautiful the whole week, though we did experience some fog). We visited the Tall Ship Elissa and the "Ship to Shore" museum, about the immigration experience in the 19th Century. Mal kept calling the Elissa a "pirate ship," and after correcting him twice, we just let him have at it. He loved it and had so much fun. He kept wanting to walk back through it and explore more. Next, we walked The Strand, then got take-out for lunch and rested up for the evening activities: Iceland ice sculptures and the Festival of Lights at Moody Gardens! We ended the night with several trips down a big sledding hill they had, and Mal declared this "The best day of my life!"

This is D and then Mal on the same staircase of the Elissa, both age 8!

Wednesday, we went to the Galveston Children's Museum first, then toured Bishop's Palace. They're both old houses, but one had a basement that has been converted into kids' space and the other a gift shop. We then had a fabulous lunch at Gaido's. We'd rested a bit in the hotel room until we'd gotten hungry, and on a whim I placed a reservation for 2:00 PM, even though I didn't expect it to be that busy. It was. They had a wait of 45 minutes to an hour, and their reservations were booked through until 8:45 that night by the time they arrived! After lunch, we went to the Galveston Railroad Museum, then finished the day at Seawolf Park, where Mal played on the playground while James and I enjoyed an amazing sunset.

Thursday, we went back to Moody Gardens and walked through the Rainforest, then went to the Discovery pyramid where they had a musical exhibit. James could have stayed there all day. After lunch at Darlene's Shrimp Shack, we went back to the hotel to rest. Mal and I went to the beach for a bit later, but otherwise, we just had a low-key night at "home."

Friday morning, instead of walking on the beach, I walked through town to tour the tree sculptures. In 2008, Hurricane Ike killed a bunch of mostly very old oak trees. Many homeowners took what was left of the trees and had artists turn the losses into something beautiful. Later in the day, we drove around and I showed James some of them; he just has to be careful on trips because we walk so much more than usual and his Achilles tendonitis threatens to flare up. We want to keep it at "threat" level because if it progresses, he's basically immobile.

After breakfast (we were grateful that it was included with our hotel stay), we went to the Galveston County Museum, which is in the courthouse. Then we went to the Bryan Museum. I'd warned Mal that it was something James and I wanted to do and that he'd probably be bored, but they ended up having hidden elves throughout the building, and Mal got to hunt for them. He was very tenacious and found them all! As a reward, he got an iron-on patch that I'm going to put on his coat later today. 

We had a super tasty lunch at Shykatz, then the guys hung out at the hotel while I retraced some of our steps and got some souvenirs to bring home. We ended the day with dinner at Ben and Jerry's, which makes me concerned that Mal will have nothing to dream about in his future. 

We drove home yesterday, stopping at the Galveston Bagel Company and Hruska's (for kolache) for New Year's Eve snacks. D took great care of the cats, house, and plants while we were gone. And we came home to Christmas gifts for Mal from D and Ace. So thoughtful of them.

Happy New Year, everyone!

PogoPass + Hyatt homeschool "field trips"

Two cool things happened at the end of October/beginning of November.

The first thing is that another unschooler made me aware of a Halloween sale on something I'd never heard of: PogoPass. Basically, you pick your location (there are only a half-dozen or so, and we were fortunate that south-central Texas was one of them), and for a flat fee, you get admission to dozens of museums, zoos, and activities in your area. They were already $5 off of the normal $100 cost, but for Halloween, they were on sale half price! So we got one for Mal and one for me for a TOTAL of $100. We didn't get one for James because often, the weekends are blacked out and, ya know, poor guy has a day job.

Since Mal had been asking to go to the Cameron Park Zoo in Waco for months, we decided to spend a day in Waco... right about the time I got an email from Hyatt "reminding" me that I had 19,000 points set to expire in January if I didn't use them. I had no idea! I guess we racked those up back in October 2020 when we spent three nights at Hyatt Lost Pines. That was a GREAT place, and SUPER expensive, but we'd also had to cancel a planned trip to California (Disneyland, LEGOland, etc.)  due to Covid, so we decided to splurge.

So at that point, our day trip turned into a 2-day trip to Waco, with a free night at a hotel! Mal's favorite!

We went to the Cameron Park Zoo, the Dr. Pepper Museum, and the Mayborn Museum on the Baylor campus (which I didn't know existed), stayed at a nice hotel with free breakfast, and only spent about $20 on food.

Mal's fave: sliding with the otters!

We had a great, relaxed time, and we still get to visit the zoo one more time before next Halloween!

Later in the month, we went to The Thinkery in Austin, and this time we brought James along. Though we had to pay for his admission, at this point, the PogoPass had paid for itself.

And now, Mal and I are using up our hotel points. We're halfway through a 2-night stay in San Antonio. Yesterday, we went to Rush Adventure Park, and then played Monster Mini Golf.

Today we're planning to go to the San Antonio Zoo, then to see the Christmas lights at the Riverwalk. In the morning, we'll visit the Witte Museum before we head back home (stopping at Wonder World if time and weather permit).

Again, we're staying at a hotel with a pretty good breakfast spread, so are only having to buy food for one or two other meals, and everything else we're doing is either already paid for or free!

Mal was disappointed when he learned James wasn't coming with us, though. Which is one reason we're ALL looking forward to our Christmas vacation! We'll have to pay for it all, but going places as a family is pretty valuable.