Saturday in Huntsville

 

We started our morning with a little 3 mile run from the apartment to campus and beyond to the small town main street of Huntsville. It was such a pretty day and we ran past the most potent and beautiful white flowers on a tree—I suspected they were magnolias and it turned out I was right. Then I just had thoughts of that great movie Steel Magnolias in my head throughout our run. How cute is my Bean all happy and eager to join us? Joseph was going to take a pic so I hurried and turned around so he could capture my way better side in it :)

Then it was off to the institute closing social—a BBQ and pool party at a member's house who lives on about 500 acres! We got there early to get things going and then Nanny sent all of us out with Brother Harris in his pick-up truck to get a tour of his huge ranch.

Brother Henry Harris on the left and an institute student who was early and joined us out exploring. These guys stood in the truck bed while Neil and I rode in the cab.

We saw this huge eland right away. Bro. Harris told us it basically thinks it's a cow these days as he hangs out with them all day.

We also saw a few ponds and the huge reservoir they built on the property, a handful of horses including a pretty two-week old colt. On the far end of the property we saw Henry's herd of antelope. They were so swift and spry and really pretty to watch as they sailed through the brush. Pretty cool set-up for all those animals with so much space to spread out and roam. Our institute friend pointed out some dewberry bushes as we drove so we stopped to gather them up and have a little sample—basically tasted like blackberries.

Back at the house and pool we found that a bunch of kids and a set of missionaries had arrived for the social. The missionaries seemed to be pretty good at showing up at anything that involved Ruth Ann's food :) but they really love the LeBarons and have worked with a lot of their students and new coverts this year. I was happy to see such a great turnout! I can't even compare this little institute to my experiences at ASU while in grad school because it's a completely different dynamic. ASU institute was filled to the brim with undergrads all day every day—hundreds of LDS kids at a super huge university while Sam Houston is a small college with a very limited number of LDS students...lots of missionary work to be done there :)

The pool was ice cold as it wasn't heated and Hunstville had one of their coldest winters ever this past year. It was a gorgeous 85 degree day so of course my kiddos popped right in, shivering and all, and played and played. Two other students joined them in the water and were such good sports to play frisbee and keep away and even brave the slide with them. Oh and Joseph got suckered in for a bit too!

In the afternoon we returned to the apartment and packed ourselves up to head out for more excursions and eventually to our hotel for the next few nights nearer to Houston in an area called the Woodlands.

First stop was the enormous Sam Houston statue just a few miles down the highway:

The kids aren't even as big as his face (but Joseph is :)

Our next stop was Sam Houston State park on a huge lake where tons of people were camping for the weekend. It's a place you can spy alligators when the day is calm and quiet so we were kind of (kind of) sad that we didn't see any :)

On the highway heading south again we saw a Nike store and thought we'd pop in just in case they had the newest, coolest, brightest socks Bentley has had his eye on. They didn't, unfortunately, but we discovered that it wasn't just a Nike Outlet store but a Nike clearance store! It was kind of a jack-pot find and we all got some great finds (including my favorite Nike dri-fit v-necks for $7.99! They are usually $25.00 so that was a great steal).

A few miles from Nike we found a "Texas classic" and ate at Texas Roadhouse (yeah, super cliche but we love this place!)

We made our way to the Woodlands, checked in to our rooms and took the kids swimming yet again. How had we not worn those kiddos out yet?! Double shoulder ride adventures in the pool (love hotel pools because there aren't any lifeguards to keep you from trying crazy things!)

Ruth Ann was spent after her busy day cooking and prepping for everyone at the social and then entertaining us with all our outings so she went to bed right after we got there, right around 6:30 pm. We invited Neil over to watch our redbox with us (The Book Thief) while the kids played with their new Lego sets (early birthday gifts from Nanny and Grandpa). Another great day in Texas!

PS—I love how flexible senior missionaries can be with their schedules! We loved doing all the institute activities they had planned but also loved letting them be our tour guides in their free time and showing us so much of their city and Houston in general.