Bill earned his First Degree Red Belt in the Austin Society of Karate
Suzie participates in a Dance Associates dance/gymnastics recital
Michael plays T-Ball for the Phillies (more on that later...)
The end of school comes with a flurry of graduations, field days, end-of-the-year parties and other goodies. Each child dutifully marched across the stage at Buda Primary (or Elementary) and received his or her certificate of completion. The Brownies had a REAL MAGICIAN come to their end of the year party, and then two weeks later all went to Seguin to learn about horse safety, ride a horse, and have a hay-ride and cookout.
The end of May found Michael and Bill going to a week-long basketball camp at Hays High School.
Then Memorial Day, Brian brought us a 4 week old kitten that had been dumped on his office steps. "Katie" weighed less than a pound and was pretty pitiful looking, but she was quickly taken under Suzie's wing and added to the list of Gryta livestock.
The first week of June found all four Gryta kids, plus Mom, at Oak Hill Methodist Church for a week-long Girl Scout day camp. Much fun was had all around, despite the hot weather and the conspiracy of the major appliances in our house to thwart us.
(The heat-pump went out in our house Monday night, so by Tuesday night tempers and temperatures were climbing. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the air conditioning, our van inconsiderately blew a water pump somewhere between Bastrop and home--about a 45 mile tow. Guess it's that pump thing. Then Saturday, our new kitten Katie had a hypoglycemic "fading kitten" spell, and Mom had to rush her to the vet. For the next few days, we syringe-fed her until she got strong enough to start eating on her own. More about that later, too.)Once all the major and minor appliances finished their short, but expensive, rebellion, things settled down. Brian and Kathy spent a nice anniversary weekend in New Braunfels at the restored Faust hotel, followed by a fun day at Schlitterbahn. Whatever good you've heard about the place, it's true. It was a blast.
Michael was selected for the Hays Red All-Star T-ball team, so weekends in May and June were spent going to T-ball double elimination tournaments. He played a solid left-center field and hit several legitimate extra base hits. The team didn't advance beyond the district level, but by the end of June, the kids and parents both were about ready for the season to be over anyway, what with twice a week practices and all the tournaments being on the north side of town (45 minutes one-way)--DON'T THEY HAVE ANY BALL FIELDS SOUTH OF THE COLORADO RIVER????!!!!
There is now a battle raging between Kathy and Katie-the-kitten. The vet has proclaimed Katie strong enough now to switch to cruchy food, but Katie-the-kitten thinks that canned food smells and tastes much better. Because of her tendency to get hypoglycemic, Kathy is afraid to just let her go hungry until she eats the crunchies, so right now the kitty is getting a mixture. Kathy thinks that eventually she will be able to reduce the amount of canned food to zero, while Katie thinks the opposite will happen. Stay tuned for this epic battle of wills (and won'ts).
On another battle front, now that the backyard is enclosed and the dogs are loose in it, they've figured out that they can jump through the screens onto the back porch. So far boards and bob-wahr(that's barbed wire for all our Northern friends) haven't deterred them, but Brian is not yet willing to concede defeat. We'll try putting the bob-wahr closer together and see if they still figure a way in.
In Mid-June Suzie and Michael attended the Son-Castle Faire (vacation Bible school) and had a good time. Meanwhile, Bill went to Lockhart for Boy Scout Day Camp the latter half of that week. He shot archery and air guns, learned Indian lore and got a Mohawk, to boot.
Two weeks later, Bill spent two nights and three days camping in Dripping Springs with the rest of his Webelos den. According to him, he wished the camp went for a whole week, but the adults campin out, too, said they were more than ready for hot showers and cold drinks after two hot nights.
The Gryta family began what we hope may become a yearly tradition, having a family picnic at our Bastrop property for 4th of July weekend. Work on the covered deck is complete now leaving us with a nice large shady area for meals overlooking the pond. The kids had fun playing horseshoes, fishing, catching little frogs, shooting at empty cans with their new bow (under very close supervision) and generally running around. The grown-ups were joined by Kathy's parents and our good friend Steve (Bill's godfather). Hopefully, next year Kathy's brother John and Brian's brother Bob can also be with us.
Everybody have a great rest of the summer, and I'll make another update after our summer vacation marathon to Buffalo and points east.