Double trouble or twice the fun?
Such a great afternoon with our wonderful friends!!!!!
We were finally able to take Little Miss A and Mr. D on their birthday trip horseback riding. It was so wild to see how many places require their riders to be 8 years old! We found an amazing place in the Hill Country and will definitely be going back in the summer to enjoy the rest that the place has to offer! :) 
The both had the most amazing time!!!! As soon as our ride was over, they both began asking when we were going to go again. Little Miss A thought we'd be able to go again the same day...sweet girl!
Mr. D with Tony
Unfortunately, we weren't' able to take our phones or cameras on the ride, since they scare the horses, but as the trail caboose, I had a vantage point of the kids at the front of our family line and they just looked SOOOOOOO incredibly grown up. They both did an amazing job with their horses...turning them when/where they needed to and pulling up their heads when they stopped. We crossed through some of the most amazing sections of the hill country across several streams and creeks. It was amazing!!!!!
We are already so excited to go back this summer to experience all that the resort has to offer including additional horseback riding. :)
Little Miss A and Mr. D both had TONS of friends all over the place and bounced from friend to friend. It was hard to keep up with who was heading in which direction with whom. With lots of games, bouncy contraptions and a great petting zoo...
Little Miss Social did not want to leave. She and I outlasted the boys by a good hour and a half. Her "big" friends (some of my 4th graders) were quick to find her and take her under their wings and play. Such amazing girls!! So glad my Little Miss A has such good girl role models to look up to. :)
We had so much fun reading the exhibit write-ups on each animal. This was truly the first time we actually stopped to read each animal's info, usually we catch their names and what they are and that's about it. The kids really got into it this year, which was so much fun!!! It was almost like we were on a fact finding mission for all of these new friends. :)
Of course one of the MAJOR highlights of the zoo is the petting corral. We bought bags of food to feed the goats, sheep, deer and llamas and the kids could have spent the day JUST doing that....so fun!
We had an iced treat before to help keep cool in this crazy summer Austin heat. It wasn't long after this picture was taken that Little Miss A lost her snow cone to the ground, we've been totally butterfingers over here lately, but that's another post in and of itself. :)
As we were leaving the kids spotted a sunflower. I am only including this because they have literally been on the hunt for sunflowers for the past MONTH and this is the first one we've found. There are TONS of wildflowers on the side of the road everywhere here in the spring and early summer and the kids were convinced that the little yellow ones we kept spotting were sunflowers. When we FINALLY found one today, they realized how special they really are. I was telling them about the sunflowers I remember seeing on the side of the road when growing up in Salt Lake City...way taller than Daddy. They were completely shocked!!! Maybe we need to purchase some seeds to plant our own little Sunflower garden in the backyard. :)
You may recall the THRILL of finding the GIANT "carantula" on the road a while back. Well thanks to Mr. B, the Caswell kids were able to see one up close and personal on a smaller scale/in a safer setting...within the confines of a mason jar
Daddy brought this fun friend to the hotel tonight and the kids were beyond ELATED to see this wonderfully, creepy creature. Little Miss A was carrying the paper towel lidded jar around in her blanket like a baby. She named her Fleet. (NO CLUE where that one came from.) Mr. D on the other had was SOOOO worried about it needing to be set free. "Come on guys, we need to let it go outside so it can find friends and live." So after a while of observing this fascinating arachnid, we found a very wooded section of trees around the hotel and let our new friend go. Fleet actually had a little trouble "letting" go...it took a while for her to leave the jar and start walking away. Of course, once we actually let Fleet go free, Mr. D immediately wanted us to recapture her. He had changed his mind and wanted to keep Fleet after all. (Another pet in the hotel? Sorry, not happening.) Anyway, I'm sure we'll be on the lookout for Fleet every time we take Spencer for a walk this month. I know I will be anyway, that little friend freaked me out enough INSIDE the jar...EEK!!!!
Well, after over a year of a roller coaster ride with male/female bunnies and all the litters of baby bunnies we've experienced over the course of that time, we finally had to say good-bye. With the small amount of space we had to offer them here, we are so excited that Miss Whiskers and Thumper are going to live in a zoo...literally. (A friend of mine from school has a wonderful set of grandparents that have a virtual zoo about five hours from here that have graciously accepted our "babies" to come stay.) Ms J was taking a weekend trip to see them and took our sweet bunnies with her. They are going to thrive on lots of land with other bunny friends to hop and jump around with. :) Though it was difficult to say good-bye, Ms J said we could take a road trip with her to the zoo this summer to see how well Miss Whiskers and Thumper have adjusted to their new life with their new friends. :)
A friend at school recently acquired bunnies for her classroom. Nice, right? EEK!!!! Well, they apparently have "bunny leashes" so you can take them for walks to get some exercise. Of course this was a "must have" for the Caswell house. We found the absolute cutest leashes for Miss Whiskers and Thumper and took the "bunnies" for a walk this afternoon after school. It was a total riot! A & D were in heaven with this new and extremely novel concept. Although A definitely outlasted D in the bunny walk. It wasn't too long before I was holding Thumper's leash and D was riding his bike in circles around A and I. Poor Spencer doesn't even get out on a leash much anymore, let alone the bunnies! Of course, it was brought up that the kitten (Sophie) now needs a leash as well. I wonder how that would work out? Look for a future post on that one. :)
