Barbeque season has begun

The weather this weekend has been absolutely glorious, warm and sunny but with a cooling wind. We've spent a fair bit of time basking in the sunshine watching David's two football games, and the only fair conclusion to Sunday was a barbeque - which Rob had to go out and buy - our first of many at home in Texas.

Man with meat and beer.

Goodbye number 49

So that's it, today we finally sold number 49. Thirteen years, it has been the longest Rob or I have lived in one house by far and it's seen some action; the arrival of all the kids (even the births of the boys) and their Christenings, so many gatherings, parties, BBQ's, visitors. We have had brilliant times in that house and fond memories. We wish all the best to Chiara and family, the new residents at 49, I hope they're as happy there as we were.

Welsh home sweet home

The end of an era also means the beginning of a new one. Let the fun of Texas house-hunting commence, we need to get that pool! I foresee a lot of time wasting on Zillow and Trulia over the next few months.

They're back again...

My Mum and Dad have flown in for a month in the USA. They are spending a week with us in Texas before heading out on a road trip to Arizona for a couple of weeks, with a final week here before they go home. As before, they seem to have brought the weather with them, I've never seen so much rain in the forecast!

They have arrived!

Homeward bound

The kids had to take the opportunity of their first swim of the year before we left our hotel in San Antonio for the drive home.

Back to this again!

San Antonio

Tripling the Welsh defence of the Alamo

Our first stop in San Antonio had to be the Alamo, one of the major historical sites of Texas. The Alamo played a pivotal role in the Texas revolution of 1835-1836, in which Texas won independence from Mexican rule and became a republic (http://www.thealamo.org/history/chronology/texas-revolution.html). Only a small portion of the original site still exists, comprising of the mission church, dating back to 1755 and the long barrack which housed the missionaries. The Church is converted into a museum displaying weapons and a list of all the defenders of the Alamo from the 1836 battle. There are also flags representing the native countries of the defenders and we were delighted to see a Welsh flag for the one Welsh defender, Lewis Johnson. Of course the boys decided they too needed weapons to become defenders, for which the gift shop was happy to oblige.

Next stop was the San Antonio River Walk (http://www.thesanantonioriverwalk.com/), which was nothing like I had imagined. The river has more the appearance of a canal, which is lined with bars and restaurants. It was bustling with the spring break throng so we took a river cruise rather than walk the relatively narrow towpath with the kids; there was no way I was going to jump in the murky San Antonio river to rescue them should they trip over the edge.

Our final tourist destination, before dinner in a restaurant on the River Walk, was the 'Tower of the Americas'. This 750ft tower with a rotating viewing platform offers panoramic views of the city, but not a cup of tea. To be fair, as tea is rarer than hen's teeth in the US, we could have had their version of hot tea, which was warmed-up-in-a-microwave iced tea, no joke! On our next trip I'm packing tea bags and a small kettle.

San Antonio from the water, above, by day and by night!

Texas Hill Country and the Longhorn Caverns

We headed north-west out of Austin towards the Longhorn Cavern State Park in Texas Hill Country. It was a really nice drive through pretty (by Texas standards) scenery and small 'cowboy' towns. We had an hour to wait for our tour of the caverns so we wandered the surrounding trails through the rugged countryside looking at the cacti and the stunning and rather bolshy blue jays. It was great to get out into the countryside, especially as this time last week we were building snowmen!

Cacti everywhere and a Blue Jay hopping around.

The extensive caverns were formed by water moving through the limestone rock some 280 million years ago. Since this time many sections of the caverns filled with mud which was cleared from the caves in the 1930's by Civilian Conservation Corps - part of Roosevelt's 'New Deal' program during the great depression, leaving 1 1/4 miles of walkable caves. The history of the cave use was fascinating, with occupation dating back over 400 years to the Comanche Indians, through Civil War gunpowder manufacturing to the use of the largest cavern as a speakeasy and dance hall during the prohibition years. We even managed to see a single solitary bat, the only remaining resident from what was once a large colony from which the guano was mined, although I wasn't overly convinced it was actually alive.

 

We ended a pleasant day with the drive through Hill Country to San Antonio. We decided it must be skunk mating season or something as the car filled with the reek of skunk several times and the  roadkill stench was awful. Still, it didn't put me off the enormous barbeque beef ribs I had for dinner!

Austin

The State Capitol of Texas, Austin

Spring break arrived bringing with it an upturn in the weather, so we decided to join the Spring Break exodus and take a trip down to Austin & San Antonio. Texas history is studied at school in 4th and 7th grades so David fancies himself as somewhat of an expert whilst Alice will be doing it next year, so we thought we'd tick off those historical boxes, namely the State Capitol of Texas and the Alamo. 

We arrived in Austin at lunchtime, grabbed a bite and headed to the State Capitol building where we took the free tour of the building and senate chambers.  David got excited when he recognised big paintings of David Crockett and The Battle of San Jacinto he'd seen in his school books, whilst Rob & I got less excited about the portraits of the Bush's. An impressive building, as the largest US state capitol by square footage, it sums up Texas pretty well.

Congress Avenue Bridge, Austin: A good place to miss the boat.

Afterwards we wandered around Austin and suffered from 'now-what-shall-we-do-itis' as the kids weren't really up for a bar crawl or stroll around the arts district, so we checked in to the hotel to chill out for an hour before heading back in to Austin to see the legendary daily bat flight from the Congress Avenue Bridge. Having not seen the condors at Cruz del Condor after a gruelling 5 hour bus ride to the Colca Canyon in Peru, and not had a better view than the Hubble Telescope whilst Whale watching off Cape Cod or Dolphin watching on the Californian coast, my expectations were low. Which was good, as we only saw about twenty of the million or so bats - the world's largest urban bat colony - residing under the bridge. The upside was that we missed the bat-watching boat tour by seconds because we took a wrong turn (not a rare occurrence for us) and in Texas this usually means at least a 5-mile detour, so at least we didn't pay to see nothing, and we have another story to add to our ever-increasing list of animal no-shows. We ended our day with a nice dinner in the 'Hula Hut', an Hawaiian restaurant recommended to us by our friends that lived in Austin before moving to Southlake.

Dallas World Aquarium

We had a rainy Sunday afternoon so we decided to pay a visit to Dallas World Aquarium (http://www.dwazoo.com/), along with the rest of the residents of the metroplex it seemed. The word 'Aquarium' sells it short a little, as it comprised of all the ecological layers in a rainforest from the tree canopy to below water. You enter at the tree canopy level, which is full of plants and tropical birds, and work your way through the layers passing monkeys, otters, reptiles and insects in a realistic setting. There was certainly plenty to spot and see, my favourite being the sloths. Then you pass into the underwater kingdom with huge fish, a manatee, and of course a shark tunnel. As always when I visit a zoo I would have liked to see the animals in a larger space, but the design was good and the kids enjoyed it.

Snow sheriff!

It's hard to believe but we had yet more snow today, there was nothing else to do but build a snow cowboy. The day started out at -6C but it's already just above freezing so hopefully it will melt and the kids will be able to go back to school tomorrow.

 

Happy St. David's Day Texas!

It wouldn't be right if this blog didn't include a shout out for St. David's Day, so here goes: Dwirnod Hapus Gwyl Dewi! Apologies if that's not the correct way of saying it, my welsh is non-existent so I'll blame Google translate.

The Rugby Six Nations games this weekend have certainly given the welsh something to celebrate with Wales defeating France for the forth year running, and England losing to Ireland, leaving the championship open.

I bought some daffodils and decided to mystify our ever-generous neighbours with some welsh offerings. I'm not sure what Americans will make of Welsh cakes, but an obviously reliable source says they are the best food in the entire world: http://www.buzzfeed.com/tabathaleggett/reasons-welsh-cakes-are#.tcRO7yMbg8.

My batch of Welsh cakes were pretty good, although not on a par with my mother-in-laws'.