United States

Sand dunes are an extremely important aspect of Texas beaches. They provide a barrier against storms and strong surf and they are home to a diverse collection of flora and fauna. Sand dunes are very sensitive. They can be threatened by coastal development, trampling by beach goers, and natural processes. If we allow sand dunes to be…

From the Forest to the Farm to the Beach. This was a busy week. We finished packing up our house and we are now safe and sound in Texas. We spent our last evening in Virginia driving to my family/friend’s hops farm in Maryland. Organarchy is the largest hops farm in the state, and they are…

Autumn has been full of changes. For the first time I was able to watch the trees change from green, giant beasts to frail, fragile beings with specks of yellow and orange and red. I feel so lucky to have experienced this season for the first time. It was one of the things I looked…

I almost didn’t write about this because I didn’t want to relive this failure of an outing. NOTE TO SELF: Maymont is not for kids. At least not my kids. At least not this time of year. (There is a Children’s Farm open other times of the year that might be nice… but not right…

Damian had his six-month checkup on tuesday! He is 27 inches long and weighs a little over 19lbs. Crazy! He is regularly pulling himself up on things. He’s also getting better at transitioning from the sitting to crawling position and then back again, but he’s still not crawling in a traditional way. He was sick…

Eva’s really diggin this whole Halloween thing. It’s the first year she really knows what’s going on. She keeps asking to paint pumpkins, so we let her twice this week. I can’t wait to take her trick-or-treating!!! Damian’s latest favorite thing to do is to take out the toys from his mini toy box one-by-one…

Lately Eva has realized how annoying it is to ask, “Why?” after “Why?” after “Why?” She doesn’t it ask because she genuinely wants to know, she asks because she knows it drives me crazy. I’ll indulge her with the first couple of “Why’s” (or until I run out of creative answers), but she usually wins.…

One of the popular things to do in NoVA is to visit one of the many “pick-your-own” farms. There are farms with berries, apples, peaches, potatoes, pumpkins, and when the time is right… Christmas trees! I can’t wait for those. But right now, apples and peaches are starting to ripen for picking. Last weekend we…

Yesterday morning I was thinking about what to do with Eva on her day off from pre-school. Since she is obsessed with flowers, the idea popped in my head that I should take her to a Botanical Garden. I quickly Googled it and saw that the closest ones were an hour in either direction-in either…