Hunting

 Yesterday, Kate and I were talking about possible FHE activities. She mentioned hunting. I thought, "Wow, she really is a Texan." But I asked her what she meant; what would we be hunting?

"You know, like rocks and bugs and buried treasure."

Of course.

It's one of their favorite activities. We're talking twice a day.

As many of you know, we're renting a little house here while we figure out what the heck we're going to do with our lives. I hadn't seen it before we got here, but Greg had and he was skeptical, to say the least. Some aspects of the house he was okay with, but the yard, he said, was pretty bad. "There's very little grass, tons of weeds and quite a few big trees. It's not even a yard."

Well, he was right. Not a yard, indeed.

A child's wonderland is a better description.

They probably spend 3 to 4 hours out there, every day:

Skipping on the path that leads to nothing...

 

Smiling our most handsome smiles... 

 And most importantly, hunting for treasures...

The loot:

Kate's  

 

 Drew's

 Ethan's

As you can see, we use the term "treasure" pretty loosely around here.

 And here's probably one of my most favorite Kate stories to date:
One of the treasures they always find is acorns. Apparently, Kate "planted" one the other day. Then, yesterday morning, before we had headed out for the day, the gardeners came and planted this tree/bush, unbeknownst to the young-ens. Then, as we were loading the car to head out, I hear Kate screaming,

"MOOOOMMMM!!!!!! My tree grew!! My tree grew!!! My tree grew!!!! Come look! I planted an acorn yesterday and it grew!"

How do you tell this face that it wasn't her acorn?

 I hope the correct answer is that you don't.

As far as an update on our life, here's where we stand:
We really like San Antonio. The weather seems to be a smidgen better than Houston. There's TONS to do. Lots of restaurants. The area we live in is awesome in a small town, trying to keep it that way, kind of way. I went to WalMart the other day and the worst dressed/behaved kids in there were mine and that's only because they actually spoke words. It's an old-fashioned/old-family kinda town. But it's also really close to an area with all the stores I need, including a great mall. The ward seems to be pretty good and the people are really nice. They are a little older than the ward we came from, but there's 3 CTR-4 classes, which is the twins' age, so that's pretty awesome. And Drew, who swore he wouldn't go to nursery without "my Gretchen" (his beloved nursery leader), is even tolerating it quite well. The one thing that will take me a long time to get used to about this ward is that it is really spaced out. Where our last ward consisted of mostly one huge development, this ward has about 20 small communities that people live in. They don't spend their summers all together at one pool, they don't all meet together at the clubhouse to go running, they don't have playgroup once a week. They kinda do their own thing for the most part. Basically, it's not Stepford Fall Creek. But maybe, just maybe, that's okay. I mean, I have a husband now, who needs friends? The HEB (that's about a 30 second drive from here, which has got to count for something) isn't anything to write home about. I mean, the food is the same and HEB is the gold standard no matter the conditions. BUT, they don't have car carts and they only give the kids ONE Buddy Buck each. Boo. There's little to no traffic where we live and Greg works approximately 7 minutes away. He loves his job and he's been home for dinner. Every. Single. Night. And when he's home, he's home. Not glued to his phone, answering emails. Words cannot describe how amazing that is. And he really likes his job. Cherry on the top. I still kinda feel like we're on vacation. I know there will be "late nights" in the future, but "late" means 8pm, and "nights" is only plural cause there might be two. I'll take that. Especially since he's raking in the dough. Just kidding on that one. We're still trying to figure out where we want to buy a home. Do we want a hill-top hill country view, or a big spacious lot, or community-style living with great amenities and close neighbors? Feel free to cast your vote.
We think we can be really happy here. Let's be honest, they had me at the food.