Sandy Lake Fun Fest

Sandy Lake fun Fest is a band competition at a small fun park in west Dallas. I went along as a parent chaperone and it was quite something to see the logistics of getting a band of 130 kids and their instruments from one place to another using 3 school buses and the high school band trailer. It was a well-oiled machine and clearly a feat of superb organisation.

Logistics and warm-ups

Eubanks band belted out two tunes Crazy Train & Engines of Resistance and they sounded fantastic, it's hard to believe these kids have only been playing for 9 months. They were delighted when they were awarded a 1 by the judges, the top grade. After playing their pieces the kids got to go around the fun park of fairground rides. I met some really nice parents also there as chaperones, it was great to meet some parents from Alice's school.

Art in the Square

There was another big annual event in Southlake Town Square this weekend: Art in the Square. Town Square was full of stalls displaying pieces for sale from local and national artists. Inside City Hall were exhibitions by the children of the school district. Rockenbaugh Elementary had several stands and the school art teacher, Mrs Taylor was there too. The fourth grade had made models which were photographed and featured as 'Pokemon' cards, David managed to find the card with his model and was delighted. There were also bands playing, food and drink stalls (including a British pub) and activities for the kids. It was all very well organised and busy as usual.

Southlake's Art in the Square 2015

We cycled in to Town Square, an easy mile and a half journey from home, with the exception of crossing the road at the intersections. Even Usain Bolt would struggle to get across six traffic lanes in the amount of time you get the 'walk' light for, still we ran the gauntlet and made it.

Texas Bluebonnets

Bluebonnets are to Texas what the daffodil is to Wales. The state flower of Texas, Bluebonnets can be seen turning fields and roadsides blue all over the state, and they reach their peak of flowering around the third week of April. Rockenbaugh Elementary School has a garden full of Bluebonnets, which we visited today. It was stunning and alive with insects and the ladybirds (or 'ladybugs') the school kids have released there. There were lots of birds around too, using my Merlin Bird ID app we identified the pink-breasted House Finch sitting on the fence poles and a Killdeer pecking around in the grass. There is plenty of wildlife here in suburbia!

Mother & Son Fun Night at Rockenbaugh

Tonight at Rockenbaugh Elementary us 'Moms' got to have an evening at school playing games and enjoying ourselves with our boys. This isn't to say the Dad's and girls missed out, there was a 'Daddy-Daughter Dance' a few weeks ago too. It was a fantastic evening with loads to do: three legged and turtle scooter races, dodgeball games, Mummy wrap, giant Jenga, freeze dance, 'Are you smarter than your Mom' Quiz, musical chairs, hula hooping, doodle boards and a fun photo booth. David loved the dodgeball, sons versus mums, whereas Evan loved the freeze dance and giant Jenga. Every time you took part in an activity you got a card punched, and these were entered into prize draw at the end. I was very impressed that twenty or so players from the high school football team, kitted out in their shirts, were volunteers. They were running many of the games and activities and were really getting involved with the kids, who are generally in awe of them, and setting a great example. The evening ended with a magic show and popcorn which had the kids enthralled. We left clutching chocolate covered pretzels which David and Evan wolfed down.

American Easter

We are used to Easter being in the middle of a fortnight long school holiday with a long weekend of two bank holidays, Good Friday and Easter Monday, for Rob. This year there were no school or bank holidays so Easter felt like any other weekend, with the exception that David had no football match on Sunday, so we thought we'd have chilled out day.

We stuck to our tradition of making Easter nests, which are rice krispie cakes with Cadbury's mini eggs on top. My Mum brought over a supply of Cadbury's mini eggs from the UK, and we compared them to the American version, which were sadly different in both taste and colour, the American version being laced with artificial food colours as we've come to expect.

Spot the difference.

They don't have large chocolate Easter eggs here just the occasional chocolate bunny and lots of 'candy' that you put into plastic egg-shaped cases. We set out an Easter egg hunt on Easter Sunday morning for for the kids and it took them ages to find them all as this house has lots of nooks and crannies. Our kind neighbours also brought round a bag of chocolates for the kids too, so they are well stocked up with goodies, much to their delight. We decided to go ten-pin bowling in the afternoon, which was good fun, and stopped at 'Mellow Mushroom' for pizza on our way home. It was a bit of a strange Easter to say the least.