For Jessica’s birthday today, we took them out to Aquarena Springs. It’s a research/environmental conservation center that’s part of Texas State University. It also has glass-bottom boat rides, a nice little gift shop and a small, but interesting Aquarium. We thought the girls would enjoy the glass-bottom boats and the Aquarium (which they did).

The interesting thing is that I went to Aquarena Springs when I was a teenager. My mother, sister and I went on an outing there one day and I remembered finding the glass-bottom boats exciting. What I didn’t remember well were the other attractions that made up Aquarena Springs back then. When we went, the Springs was an amusement park with the glass-bottom boats as a big attraction but they also had an underwater “theater.” The “Aqua-arena” which is where the name came from. You would go into an underwater seating area and watch little underwater shows through the glass (ladies dressed up as mermaid having tea, pigs swimming and doing tricks for their food, etc.). I suspect they probably stocked the lake with various fish and aquatic animals so that the visitors would have plenty of underwater critters to watch during the boat rides. I remember enjoying it very much but the new Aquarena Springs is quite a bit different. We did find it to be very interesting, although the details weren’t what my girls enjoyed, of course. They loved seeing the fish swimming under the boat, the blue heron resting at the edge of the bank, the glimpse of a turtle or two going by the boat, going through a little interactive museum area that shared information about the underwater springs throughout Texas, and, of course the gift shop with all it’s goodies to browse through.

They probably enjoyed the aquarium the most. It was feeding time while we were there so we got to watch a diver inside one of the tanks actually feeding tiny snakes to the fish–they would take the snakes from her hand while she fed them. The tank also had a really large catfish in it that both girls were tickled to watch swimming around.

I forgot to bring my phone with me to the Springs so I didn’t get any pics of what we did there. I did however catch a couple of the most important pictures of the day:

This takes a lot of concentration...

Oh, forget the spoon!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESSICA!!

Ok, this really more of a test run to see how well I set up coordinating my flickr account with my blog. Thought I would use an “awwww” picture. My daughter Jessica (on the right) with a small bjd (Dollzone BB Judy, 27cm).

My computer was giving me problems so, while it’s still functioning alright, it crashes regularly and just generally causes problems while working with it. It has been taken apart and checked out by a professional and then reformatted. It still has problems.

Instead of waiting for it to die on me and losing everything, I took steps this time to keep from losing it all. I got an external hard drive and did a full back up of my docs and application data. I also got a new laptop, so I can slowly migrate and clean things up before my old computer keels over. So I’ve been working on switching things over and finally got around to adding some of my email addies (to find hundreds of emails waiting for me).

I’ve also been taking care of mom’s mail-order business for her while she’s “on vacation” for a month or so. She went up to Ohio to visit my sister and her family. Sis recently adopted four kids (ack!) and then went and got pregnant. She just had her baby last month (or maybe it was the month before) so mom wanted to go meet all her new grandbabies.

Needless to say, I’ve been busy here and making books and dolls hasn’t been at the top of the list. Hopefully, I’ll have something art related to post soon (once I get my photo-editing software on this new computer and can get some photos ready).

Journal: Syeda, comment #162

Barry, the Grixie art doll: Sarahle, comment #131

Both winners have been emailed. If I don’t hear back from them by tomorrow night at 8p my time (Central), then I’ll draw new names.

Thanks everyone for participating!!

Jessica on the left and Alexandra on the right.

My youngest Jessica went as a witch, using a costume she wore last year (yep, it was a tad short) with some long black leggings with silver stars on them and a new hat I bought her.

Jessica the purple witch

My eldest was a bit harder to figure out. Someone had given grandma yards of this weird gold material (it’s pretty but not very easy to work with) and grandma told Alex we’d use it for her costume. So guess who played toga designer? We ended up with a Roman goddess (someone even asked my husband which goddes she was).

Alexandra the Roman goddess

I added elastic straps to her costume before sending her out. It kept slipping down in a rather naughty fashion. As you can see, she already thinks she a model of some sort.

They brought in waaay more candy than they needed and grandma and I already picked through the chocolate…yum!

Jessica with her first assemblage doll!

One afternoon, while I was working on one of my Etsy shops, Jessica came into my office with her stuffed bunny rabbit sporting a new “head.” A pumpkin head, in fact, which was the plastic pumpkin that she’d taken off of a Halloween flashlight Grandma had given her recently. Yes, I felt a moment of pride before dissolving into laughter since my daughter had actually made her first assemblage doll!

I have no idea why she felt the need to do bunny ears behind the bunny rabbit, but I had to share the second picture because she’s just too darn cute.

Jessica mugging for the camera.