Possum Kingdom Easter 2021

 We had a great time camping at Possum Kingdom State park this Easter weekend. On our way there, Will told us the story of Bill, Jenny and Grandma, Grandpa's outing to Possum Kingdom in the 70es. Jackson summarized the keywords as 30 mile/hour wind and smooshed fry chicken. Later he commented that our trip had one thing in common with Grandparents' trip -- the wind! 

Our campsite was one of the primitive sites. It was the last one left for the park but we liked the location nevertheless. We had to hike 300 yards from the car to our site (8) and liked the remoteness of the place. However, it was windy both days we were there. We recommend site 1,2,10 for more protection from the wind and more private. 

We were located steps away from one of the only two hiking trails in the park. Climbing the hills in the backyard made up big part of kids' entertainment. We tried fishing but the water near the campgrounds is very shallow and not a good fishing place. People got lots of fish near the dock but it's a hike for us.

We rented a pontoon boat to check out Hell's Gate on Sunday morning. It was nice to be on the water and check out the famous site. Water is clear and deep; houses are big and fancy. Without water activities, we concluded 3 hours on a boat was the limit for our two kids. 

I brought my camera and remote to the trip so we got a couple of nice family portraits. 

We enjoyed this family camping trip and Norah rated this trip infinity thumbs up!

Eating breakfast

Under the starry night

Climbing in the backyard

View from the hilltop - our tent and state park and beyond

Our family portrait -- Love backlit photos!

Our kids

Captain Jack 

Captain Norah 

Hell's Gate

Mandatory S'more

Will paddling against 25 mile/hour wind

Backyard dining

 

Eating dinner at our homemade table

Practicing portrait shooting 

Golden hour 

Bouldering and fossil digging -- 2021 spring break

 Like last spring break, we decided to stay at home. Sunday morning, we said good bye to all the neighbor friends on Forest Trail. Both kids loved JCC's camp, yet I still looked for some ways to have a slightly different spring break. 

I saw my friend Stephanie's photos with her family at Mineral Wells and knew Jackson and Norah would love it too. After some reading, I found there is a fossil park nearby. We decided to make it a long trip with the state park and fossil park on our last day of spring break. 

They loved climbing the big boulders along the trail

Lake Mineral Wells State Park has an outdoor rock-climbing area that we just discovered researching this trip. Our two kids did lots of climbing and we finished at the Penitentiary Hollow. I heard somebody spoke French and turned around -- It's JB rock-climbing! It's his first time here and our first. What a coincidence! 

This park also has a well maintained bike trail system, a small section of sandy beach and a boat rental place. We checked out the camping area and planned to come back some day. 

Starting our fossil dig

From Pennsylvania Period

Fossil park is about 20 minutes west of the state park. We brought our garden tools and a bucket. But there is so much abundance of the fossil, no tools are needed. And the fossils are so small, they fit in a small ziploc bag and no bucket is needed either. We all had a blast picking out these tiny fossils everywhere on the valley floor. This park used to be where city pulls the dirt fill from and it was turned into a public park after they realized how many fossils were here. 

Jackson and Norah had so much fun digging. I told them about the diamond park in Arkansas. Now Jackson is very interested in going to the diamond park. 

It's a fun day ending our 2021 spring break. 

Leven food stand

 Saturday Jackson and Norah had their first business venture to sell eggs and bread. 

Jackson invited his friend Coleson to join. Total three of them sold 2 bread, 7 eggs and broke 2 eggs. They each earned $6 after I took out the cost of material. 

Jackson and Coleson are natural in sales. They stopped walkers and waved the signs to traffic. They also did a good job marketing the product. 

Sled-gineering

 A month or so ago when Dallas was frigid and snowy, we were super excited to go sledding in our own neighborhood.  We had been storing a plastic sled for years for just such an occasion.  When an 1/8" of snow/ice covered the streets, we headed over to a neighbor's house and started sledding.  

Sledding commences, Sunday Feb. 14th 2021

All went well for a several hours until at the end of the day, our sled cracked into pieces!  What could we do.  Well, first I tried a epoxy and fiberglass repair, but I forgot to rough-up the plastic first (and didn't have plastic epoxy at home).  That repair didn't last long.  So what now?  A trash can lid?

That wasn't very comfortable...let's build our own sleds!  I searched the internet and found a pretty simple design.  This was our first prototype, which we named "The Belly Flop".  The next day, the kids designed their own sleds.  

Norah went for a toboggan style, she named "The Super Sledder".

Jackson went for an agile design, which he proudly named "The Pink Diaper" since it was made out of an old pink pull-ups box.

The Super Sledder (Norah), The Belly Flop (Will) and The Pink Diaper (Jackson)

Norah made a cardboard "oar"

The sleds worked really well on our neighbor's driveway and enabled days of sledding fun (who could have imagined we'd have nearly a week of sledding days in a row!).  The sleds didn't work so well on the longer, gentler slopes around the neighborhood though.

Friday Feb. 19, 2021 the snow melts

 

Connecting dots

 Jackson and Norah are going to JCC camp this week. Both of them love the camp experience. 

After they came home the first day,

Mommy: How many kids are in your pod?

Jackson: 13.

Norah: I don't know.

Jackson: I think its 10 because I counted when her class was lined up for pickup. 

In the night, camp coordinator sent each parent a message updating us about Norah's dance camp. I checked the recipient list and counted 10 parents. I also saw a familiar name belongs to Will's high school friend Rae. 

Will reached out and turned out both Rae's kids go to Norah's dance camp. We exchanged that information with the kids. 

A few hours later,

Mommy: Oh, I found out how many kids are on Norah's camp. I counted 10 parents on the email so there are 10 kids.

Jackson (immediately): No, 11.

Mommy: 😳 ... Yes, you are right.

He is good at connecting dots!

How many things are wrong in this picture? :-)

Temporary insulation during Snowvid

 As the temperatures remained frigid and the power went out, we started looking for ways to temporarily improve the insulation of the house.  In the end, I think the power returned often enough that these didn't make much difference, but we were preparing for the power to be out for days.

First, however, a few notes on things we could have done but didn't think of until later.

1. Block the dryer vent, preferably from the outside.  It's basically a hole for cold air into the house.
2. Block the stove exhaust vent, also preferably from the outside. 
3. Block the fireplace opening (when not in use)

Scrap foam filled the stairwell windows.  These have easy access and we removed them when they were in the sun for free solar heating.

Our temperature gun indicated that we were losing a lot of heat through our solid wood front door (it measured about 25 degrees F colder than our walls).  We covered the door with cardboard and sealed the gaps with gaffer tape.  We experimented with aluminum foil to enhance the insulation, but our temperature gun seems to misread temperatures on shiny surfaces, so the results were inconclusive. We also filled the adjacent windows with random scraps.

Temporary curtains, tape and towels on our French doors

This wall next to the fireplace is always cold in the winter and warm in the summer.  Some kind of draft runs through it, but I'm not sure how or why.  I suspect the fireplace is somehow responsible.  We stuffed the shelves with pillows and raised the surface temperature facing the room about 10 degrees F.

I originally cut these sheets of foam a couple years ago to try to warm-up our bathroom in the winter.  It didn't help much then, but I pulled them out for this situation.  Someday, we should get curtains here :-)