Texas Trip 2015, Part 1

Last February we traveled to Texas for my sister's wedding.  It was a fabulous family vacation and obviously a momentous occasion.  We figured it would be years before we could get all the kids back down to the Lone Star State even with the lure of Aunt Abbie and Uncle Zac making their home there.  But amazingly, here we are in Texas only 16 months later!  God totally provided every little detail to fall into place so that we could again have a family vacation in Texas.  The catalyst was a wedding invitation from a dear college friend (one of Doug's groomsmen).  Then we started brainstorming to see if we could pull it all off.  We chose to again fly into Dallas and stay with our friends, Dave & Kristen, in Fort Worth.  Then the plan is to drive to Waco for the wedding, where Aunt Abbie will meet us and pick up the three oldest Melder boys for a sleepover in Austin and Doug and I will stay behind in Waco for the wedding (with Jansen of course).  Then on Sunday we will rejoin the rest of the crew and Abbie and Zac in Austin.  The Lord provided a home for us to stay in while in Austin, which was a blessing that made this whole trip financially possible.  Not to mention we flew here on points and buddy passes mostly, again making this whole trip feasible.  We were so thrilled that each of these frugal finds, blessings and arrangements came together so that we could see dear friends, celebrate with our friends at the wedding and of course, be with Aunt Abbie and Uncle Zac.  

So, on Wednesday (the same day Koen finished school) we headed out to Texas.  Here we all are at the airport.  Can you find Jansen?

We were so excited that Tavin and Doug got on our same flight from Pittsburgh to Houston (they were flying standby on buddy passes) and then again they got on our flight from Houston to Dallas.  Yay!!  We didn't get in to Dallas until almost 10:30pm and didn't arrive at our final destination at Dave & Kristen's in Fort Worth until about 11:30pm.  The kids were all down a bit after midnight and then we fell into bed shortly thereafter.  It was a super long, long day.  But Doug and I were both glad we took the later flights on Wednesday rather than using up much of Thursday to travel (not to mention Wednesday was cheaper).  Instead on Thursday we had a super day of fun!  During Jansen's first nap of the day, the boys pulled out many of the fun toys in the garage and played out in the yard.  They were thrilled about the battery-powered Frozen car!

After I fed Jansen at 10am, we loaded up for a pool adventure at the country club nearby.  It was a great opportunity to get the boys all re-acclimated to the pool outing routine (that I hope we will be repeating a lot this summer).  Penn was a little nervous at first, but in no time he was jumping in and swimming around in his puddle jumper fearlessly.

Koen and Tavin both were brave enough to jump off the diving board.  Check out Koen's pencil dive (his favorite).

I had so much fun just being silly and swimming around with the boys.  I also really enjoyed getting to see them show off their swim skills which have improved so much since the last time we were all together in a pool.

Doug told them to give me kisses.  They were crazy kisses of course.

Tavin and Penn and I had lots of fun practicing jumping off the sides.  Then Daddy told them to smile for a picture.  These kids are too silly for the photo opp!

We stayed through lunchtime at the pool and needless to say the kids were exhausted after all that pool fun and they took some great afternoon naps (all but Koen).  That evening they played in the yard again and then we headed out to a playground nearby to run out the last of the energy (although we totally had no idea how hot and sunny it would feel, so we didn't stay long).  Only pictures I got were of Jansen being cute having some tummy time.

On Friday, we spent the morning at the Fort Worth Zoo.  It was a beautiful zoo.  It was another really hot day, but we got there right after it opened to take advantage of the "coolest" hours.  And the zoo has done a great job of building in lots of shade, tree cover and misting stations.  Ahhhhh...  Here are some pictures from our walk-through before lunchtime.  The giraffes were pretty close up and this guy was going for a snack in the trees.  Check out that tongue!

Baby elephants.  Always a crowd pleaser (and one of my favorite animals to see at the zoo).

Check out my crew (minus Jansen in the stroller to the left).

The tiger exhibit was amazing.  These beautiful animals must have agreed that it was hot, hot, hot because one was laying in a stream at the top of a waterfall...

...and the other was in the shade on a cool rock.  

The lions were staying cool too.  We almost missed it, but as we walked past the lioness we spotted her little cub right at her rump.  So cute!

Koen LOVED the birds at this zoo.  Our zoo doesn't have many birds because we have the National Aviary in town. But this zoo had a wonderful assortment of birds and Koen really enjoyed checking them out so close-up.  They even had a special area where you could walk in and feed the birds and have them climb up on sticks you held for them.  Koen was so excited!

Tavin got to try it too.  Look at how Koen is just pleasantly staring at the bird.  I just love seeing them enjoy God's creation and be amazed by it.

Penguins are always a crowd pleaser and these little ones were so cute and funny to watch waddling around in their habitat (sort of tempted to crawl into the pool with them).

So, you may have been wondering why the boys were all in their swim gear in those zoo pictures?  Well, it's because just 3 weeks earlier the zoo in Fort Worth opened "Splash Safari."  The best idea ever for a zoo in a hot climate.  Nothing feels better than running through sprinklers and riding down water slides after walking around a hot zoo.  We adults didn't really get to do all the fun the kids did in this space, but I definitely "accidentally" got hit by a few sprinklers and didn't mind a bit.  The boys came alive with the refreshment of the water play and Koen LOVED the water slides and just kept saying, "this is awesome!"  Good call, Miss Kristen (and thank you, Fort Worth Zoo!).  Penn wasn't into the water slides, but he found plenty of ways to get soaked and have fun.

Olive coming off the elephant slide masterfully.

Koen happily popping out of one of the big waterslides.

Penn squeezing behind a waterfall and loving it.

Olive playing in the sprinklers (why is it that girls always look like they are gracefully dancing?).

We headed home in time for a later naptime than usual, but the kids all went down without a fight.  We let Tavin not take a nap so that he would go down better at night (things got a little silly between he and Koen the prior night at bedtime).  It was probably a good call, but the big morning took its toll and he was a tired mess by dinnertime.  Thankfully there were plenty of great moments still.  Here he is driving around Princess Olive.  How precious!

We went out to dinner that night and had some tacos and burgers totally Texas style (and even chose to eat out on the porch in the heat).  Then we came home and got the kiddos all to bed and enjoyed one more evening of adult chat and catching up before heading on to our next adventure on Saturday morning.  Before doing so though, all the kids said goodbye to each other.  Check out the adorableness of Penn saying goodbye to Olive!  Don't worry, she's not cringing, the sun was just super bright!

Then we loaded up in the van and drove to Waco for the wedding.  First we had a few to-do's.  We stopped at Magnolia market, the store that the stars of HGTV's Fixer Upper, Chip & Joanna Gaines, run in addition to their other businesses.  Koen and I are huge fans of the show and this couple.  We've enjoyed watching the show together, so it was our special treat to drop in on their turf.  We were hoping we'd get lucky and the Gaines family might be there, but no such luck.  Oh well.

Then we met Aunt Abbie and Uncle Zac at Chick fil A for lunch.  They had driven up to grab the 3 oldest boys and take them back to Austin, so that we could attend the wedding (with Jansen).  It was so fun to see Zac and Abbie, although totally random to be meeting up in Waco.  We can't wait to join them all tomorrow in Austin for more family adventures (although 24 hours with just our little babe is a nice little refresher amidst the family vacation!).  Thanks, Abbie and Zac.  Hope you have a blast!  Looks like it was off to a great start when I received this pic on their drive back to Austin.

Well, I'm caught up for now.  Check back in for more about our trip in the coming days!