I just came back from vacation and realized how hard it is to keep a green lifestyle while travelling. They dont make it easy on you, especially if you have kids.

Mike mentioned that he was thankful that I always did what I could to make sure that even while travelling we were healthy and eating well but I honestly did not feel like we did a great job.

We went to a couple of parks and such.  Amusement parks are incredibly wasteful…and some make it almost impossible to stay green.

We went to Schlitterbahn and stayed on the resort at the rapids part.  My reasoning was this. We did not have to drive to the park, the prices at the resort were not that different than a hotel around New Braunfels, we could go back to the hotel to have lunch/dinner/etc. and it would be easier on the kids.

My reasons were all right and we did do all of those things… I have to say that I loved staying there and I loved the park. They encourage people to bring in their own food and drinks, they do not allow styrofoam containers and they really are friendly to packing your own stuff.  It makes it much easier to save money and eat healthier foods. You bring your cooler along and go to town. This part wasnt so bad…

Then we went to Sea World and it all went downhill from there.  Not going into the issues that I have with Sea World (which will be in another post rest assured) they are really awful at helping families eat well while they are there. Their food is outrageously expensive and they do not let you bring in any foods or drinks. For our family with two young children this is incredibly difficult because we have to give them water and food every few minutes, especially in 105+ degree heat in central Texas. We spent a fortune and the food was no better than a McDonalds or Burger King, two places where my children have never eaten and that I hope they dont in a long time…  I have to say that I have no desire to go back to Sea World and that I feel truly guilty for how wasteful we were during this day. They give you everything in paper/carboard. They have nowhere to recycle it, it is all just trashed. While they do have recycling for plastic bottles I saw 3 of those recycling baskets in the whole park (there might be more but not nearly enough) and while I wanted to purchase a reusable sports bottle that they give (a souvenir one with Shamu on it) so that we wouldnt have to purchase and throw away more paper cups with plastic lids, the 4 places where I asked about them were out. I dont understand it. Apart from being the most expensive (by far) day of our trip it was probably the one that we enjoyed the least. We went as part of a family tradition of going and because Mike thought that the kids would enjoy it. They did enjoy parts of it, I wont lie… it wasnt a total bust. The aquarium was really cool for both of them and Kate loved seeing the sharks… but I would have preferred an aquarium, not an amusement park owned by Budweiser. .. I digress. The quality of the food was just abismal. I got 7 strawberries for 5 dollars because I really wanted my children to have fruits/veggies and not just fried chicken strips and french fries while out.

Going back to the rest of the trip. What helped us in trying to both save money and not be wasteful was a) our cooler b) ice and c) local grocery stores and d) our Kleen Kanteens. We loaded those puppies up before we left and they lasted us 3 days so we did not have to get bottled water while we were in our rooms or pay for the overpriced stuff that was being sold in vending machines at the hotels.

We stopped at a Super S Foods is Johnson City and gathered some supplies in the middle of our journey across the Hill Country in central Texas. With those provisions we had fresh fruit, sandwich material, and were able to stop at Pedernales State Park for a picnic and eat at our hotel room. You can never have enough ice. Ever.

What would I have done differently? Had some more shelf stable foods. Made some more snacks like granola bars and cookies. I made muffins and they were great but they did not last very long with a family of 4 in a 7 day road trip.

I will be posting more random ideas that come to me as I get them but I learned a great deal on this trip regarding how to keep your ethical/moral beliefs while enjoying a vacation in a world that does not understand why you dont want to feed your kids doritos and koolad jammers for breakfast/lunch/dinner.

When Calvin was born I did not need more stuff so I havent bought a new babywearing device in ages. This Mother’s day I decided that I needed a really good supportive wrap for my big babies and decided to splurge on a good Didymos waves.

I didnt know if getting a woven wrap in the middle of the texas heat would be a good idea but I went for it. I have worn this wrap every time that I have needed a babywearing device since I got it.  Today is was over 90 degrees and hot as hell.

Here is Calvin hanging out in the new waves while at the park today. I am putting Kate in a swing and he is just chilling.

Here you can see Kate and Aidan walking hand in hand and Calvin’s head peeping out from the top of the waves while I carry two bags.

I am so in love with this wrap. It is cool and supportive. Soft and comfy. I really dont know how I lived so long without it.

Last week was the grand opening of the Children Museum with new and improved awesome ninja rooms for kids (ok maybe no ninjas but supposedly awesome anyways).

I want to see it really bad but I am not interested in sitting there with 6000 of my closest friends and their rugrats because this week is the dreaded Spring Break… so I will wait until some time later this month or early next month. But seriously I cant wait. I love museums.

Living in Houston I have access to tons of museums. We frequent The Houston Museum of Natural Science and have a family membership. We truly love the butterfly center that they have. Kate is still scared of the dinosaurs but she is intrigued as well.

Mike and I are huge art lovers so the Art Museum or Houston Museum of Fine Arts has tons of great shows, sometimes shows from the MOMA.

The Contemporary Arts Museum usually has cutting edge things to see, eventhough I kind of have issues with the selling of the museum to pop culture but I am a bit of a purist…. even Mike doesnt agree with me on that one but I am seriously bothered by icons and what seems to me like advertising at museums.

We lived in Montrose for a while, very close to Rothko Chapel and the Menil Collection which is free and full of beautiful art. It is also a great place to have a picnic and take a walk around a great part of the city. It can be a true day event.

Older kids will love the Health Museum, it is fun and gross… as well as informative. My fave kind of learning is the learning the sneaky ninja kind.

This place is gonna be crowded but it is popular… i say with a warning that while this is a fun place to go it is a true “zoo” during Spring Break. It is.. the ZOO!. We have a new little red bear that people are going crazy for. I want to see it but am not going this week. No way. No how.

Is that enough suggestions for now? I’ll post more tomorrow. Off to bed!

It is so relaxing to not have communication with the outside world for most of this time. When I first started dating Mike we didnt even have phone service out there. Now we do but no internet still. As much as I complain about it, I love it. It is the only way to get me to disconnect from the outside world for a while and quite honestly I need it sometimes.

Please meet Paux Paux.

Or at least the back of his head.

Paux Paux's head

This is my father in law and Mike’s awesome dad. He drove us around in tractor and tractor trailers and we loved it.

Tractor Love

I was loving it, Calvin was asleep on my chest… as usual and Mike was having a blast.

Wow I look tired.

Here I am fashioning a new camera that Mike had to bring with us.

It is so small, it fits in a pocket.

It is a Sony High Def flash media AVC HD camera. Teeny Tiny and adorable but powerful.

Look at the TEENY camera!

Mike’s parents live in this adorable and sleepy little town called Buna Texas.

The place has one stoplight and at the most a couple thousand people. It is around 30 minutes away from Beaumont, Texas and close to the Texas/Louisiana border. Mike grew up there and his parents lived in the same house for over 25 years.  I believe that their plan was never to get a new house but their home was totalled by the insurance company after Hurricane Rita in 2005. They live in Jasper county which was right where the eye of the storm came in, and eventhough they are pretty inland they had sustaintial damage in their county. A tree fell on the corner of their house and punched a hole or two in the roof. While the insides were ok and the house itself was livable they needed to purchase a new home sooner or later so they looked and looked for a new perfect home for a while.

They have a little over 6 acres of land and their old house was on one end, so they decided to move the new house to another end of the land.  To do this they had to drill a new well (they are obviously on well water), new septic system, put up a new light pole, you know everything… this was finally done and they were able to move into their new house recently.

While I understand that to many people a septic system isnt the most interesting thing one earth, I believe this one is fascinating. Their system takes all of the waste water and the bacteria inside of it breakdown the waste material in it. After it does this, it sprays out the water onto their garden. No harmful stuff that stays underground and the water is used to do a greater good.

Septic System

There is tons of random stuff all over the land. This is the car that Michael learned to drive in. Still looks good as new doesnt it?

Hidden car

I will update more about the food situation during thanksgiving and about what other things we did while on our trip out into the country of east texas. I loved it, but I am glad to be back.

Sunday we made it to the Renaissance festival in Plantersville Texas.

Much fun was had and much food was consumed. The day was really quite beautiful, it was not hot and it was not cold. There was a light breeze and it was just comfortable with little humidity (well little as far as Houston is concerened).

Kate and the Flowers

Kate loved eating smelling the flowers and dancing around like a monkey child. We watched a group do a little jig and dance a fling and Kate danced right along with them.

Dancing Kate

I dressed the kids up in tie dye as you can see because if Ren Faire isnt the time to let your freak flag fly then when can you? Calvin was also wearing lime green baby legs and yellow socks. He has more colors on than Superman.

Tie dye baby

My two favorite things on earth. Food and hot men babywearing. As a side note : You dont not realize how wonderful a father a man is until you are driving back, tired and weary from being out all day long and the baby starts crying. Then the man in question busts out in a harmony with you of “The Lion sleeps tonight” to try and calm the baby down a bit, and then when the song is over start singing about how we are exiting the freeway just for the him and to not cry because we are going to get him out. There are fewer things on earth that are sweeter and more heartwarming than this.

Real men wear their babies.

Days like yesterday, with the perfect weather… the sunlight and the ren freaks… are days that I love living in Texas. With its big cities and small towns. WIth the little feed stores and big trucks. With its multitude of faires and get togethers that are just excuses for people to get together and be merry. This weekend was a weekend where I loved Texas.

Country feed store