We didn’t really do a whole lot in the early part of March, not until the kids’ spring break. Even spring break was a little quieter. Earlier in the year, I had mapped out a southwest national park run, but with all the upheaval in government agencies, including the National Park Service, we decided to forgo the trip for now.

Instead, we tried to give the kids a fun weekend at the start of spring break. After Sean unintentionally worked late on that Friday right, we drove up to Grapevine, TX, near Dallas and settled into a hotel.

Before we left, we had planned a fairly simple weekend. We’d visit the Sea Life Aquarium and Meow Wolf, and then we’d move to the Great Wolf Lodge for the last part of our stay. What I don’t think either of us entirely realized, at least at first, is that both the Sea Life Aquarium and Meow Wolf were part of the sprawling Grapevine Mills mall.

The Sea Life Aquarium was pleasant. Their claim to fame is that they have Texas’ only 360-degree ocean tunnel, but my two favorite things were 1 – all the very visible and healthy looking seahorses they have there and 2 – this crazy creature called a shovelnose guitarfish. There were sharks and rays and moon jellies and even the odd snake. The kids could collect little pressed stamps from stations throughout the aquarium, so they were a little motivated by that. We also saw a turtle rescue area and watched a poor sea turtle who had lost both limbs on one side of its body, mostly likely from a predator.

We left the mall after this and headed to Harvest Hall to find lunch. Since it is a large food hall full of lots of options, we could pick and choose what we wanted to eat. Ian had pizza, Maya had sushi, and the ‘rents had lobster rolls. I think Ian found his pizza to be sort of “mid,” but the rest of us made out pretty well on the lunch front.

We had some time to kill, so we wandered the mall a little till our Meow Wolf entry time. We had been to the original Meow Wolf out in Santa Fe years ago with the kids, and found it to be an incredible and immersive experience, so we were excited to see what they had cooked up in the Grapevine Meow Wolf.

I think I understand how they want the places to be conceptually linked, and surely some of the art was different, but by and large, to me, it felt a bit like a retread in a new location. I enjoyed it well enough, and certainly the kids experienced it differently than they would have back in 2019. However, it left me unmotivated to visit any of the other locations, and by now, there are several.

After some downtime at the hotel, we headed out to The Library for dinner. Weirdly, this was just a bar and grill type restaurant inside a nearby Residence Inn, but the food and cocktails were well-prepared, and honestly, I enjoyed my dinner. Dessert was even better though. We headed over to JudyPie for, you know, pie. We all enjoyed our dessert, but Maya’s was the funniest. She ordered a slice of the Memphis Mafia, which included chocolate ganache, peanut butter, banana, peanuts, Reese’s pieces, chocolate, caramel, whipped cream, and bacon. And she loved it.

The next morning, after a leisurely start and a hotel breakfast, we checked out and immediately went over to the Great Wolf Lodge. We were able to check in and get our entry situated even before our actual room was ready, which was nice. The big draw at this place is the giant indoor water park.

Sean and the kids immediately changed clothes and started sliding. I took my opportunity to sit on my butt and relax for a while. Around 2, we stopped for lunch. Since our room wasn’t ready yet, we just ordered quick food “poolside” instead. The process was a little frustrating and the handful of tables that we could have eaten at in the area were all “taken” by people who were clearly off playing in the water, not getting ready to eat, so that was a little frustrating. So, when we got a text that said our room was available, we took our swimsuited selves and our food up to the room to eat there instead.

After a late lunch and a little rest, we all went down to play in the water a few more hours, me included this time. I know I say this a lot, but I love it that the kids are older and we don’t have to follow around behind them constantly to make sure they don’t kill themselves. I rode a few big water slides with them (lots of fun) and puttered along the lazy river, which Maya un-lazied, as she does, and relaxed in the wave pool for a bit. All in all, it was nice enough.

We had a late dinner reservation at the onsite restaurant Fireside. It was … fine. We all had fun, even if the food was mediocre. We spent a chill evening in the room, staying up way too late, puttering in the hot tub, watching cartoons.

In the morning, Sean ran out to get vacation doughnuts at a place called Peace, Love, and Little Doughnuts. The doughnuts were good and because they were tiny, we could try several without filling up. There was a little more playing in the water after breakfast, and then we loaded up and headed toward home, hitting a Velvet Taco on the way for lunch. All in all, it was a nice enough mini-vacation, since we hadn’t planned a proper spring break.

Sean and I worked through spring break week and the kids mostly puttered. Ian had a small job. He went twice a day to a neighbor’s house and took care of his friend Olive’s guinea pig, while they were on vacation. The family left good notes, and Ian was able to take really good care of Cookie the guinea pig for the week.

Instead of her usual Thursday piano lesson from Ben, we turned the tables and Ben took an oboe lesson from Maya! He rented an oboe and was a very diligent student. Maya, for her part, was a good instructor, even with her lack of teaching experience. They got to the point of working through a few scales together! It seemed like a really positive experience for both of them.

At the end of the week, we had a visit from Grammy and Grandpa! They arrived on Friday afternoon, after working their way through very crummy I-35 traffic. We mostly just ate dinner and hung out that first night. Hank discovered he had a deep fondness for Grandpa’s beard.

On Saturday, we took another little mini-vacation to the wilds of Johnson City and Stonewall, TX. We started our morning at the Exotic Resort Zoo in Johnson City. It’s one of those places where you can buy buckets of food and drive through the park to feed the animals. What I liked about this one is that you could choose to board an open-air tractor kind of thing and be driven around instead. Everyone can participate this way, and you aren’t left with food crud in your car.

The camels were amazing, the zebras were vibrant, and the buffalo had giant tongues that they were all too happy to stick way out in search of more food. There was an excellent variety of animals to see, and I wish like crazy I could remember half of them.

We ended the visit by hanging out in the petting zoo part of the operation feeding the goats what was left of our food. It seemed like mostly the goats were full though because they did a lot of leaning against humans, clearly looking for a good scratching. There were several baby goats too, much to my delight.

After this, we headed into town to find a late lunch. We thought we were going to a pizza place, but it wound up being closed, so we went to a trailer called Cast Iron Punk that was in the same area. We ordered breakfast for lunch and sat outside at the covered picnic tables and had a pleasant meal. Grammy and Grandpa really lucked out on the weather that weekend – we couldn’t have asked for better.

Knowing Grandpa is a history buff, we ended our day in Stonewall visiting the LBJ parks. We started in the Lyndon B. Johnson State Park, taking in the exhibits in the headquarters and visiting the Sauer-Beckmann Farm, complete with rangers in period appropriate garb. It was kind of interesting to see how people made do without modern conveniences, and like I said, it was a nice day to be outside.

We moved next to the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historic Park, which was mostly about taking a driving tour of the ranch grounds. Of note was the final resting place of LBJ and Ladybird Johnson. A beautiful stand of live oaks shades the grounds where they’re buried – it’s a pretty site. As it says on the website, LBJ was born, lived, died, and was buried on that ranch. A thing that I learned during that visit is that apparently he spent a goodly amount of his time as president on that ranch as well. Apparently he was the first president to have set up a functioning White House away from Washington, DC. They even had an airstrip built, though it wasn’t large enough to accommodate the 707 jet that was Air Force One at the time. Unfortunately, the Texas White House is undergoing rehabilitation and was closed when we went.

After a very short visit, filled with Uno games and puzzles, Grammy and Grandpa left for the long drive back to Missouri. I like to think we packed in at least a little bit of fun while they were here though.

The rest of the month was pretty quiet. The kids went back to school. We worked. Maya is part of an after school gardening club that works on the school gardens a couple afternoons a week. The science teacher who supervises the club has been growing oyster mushrooms in her classroom and we were delighted when she sent a big bag of them home with Maya one day after gardening club! We cooked them with butter, shallots, and herbs from the garden. 75% of the Woodses loved them; thankfully, Maya was part of that 75%.

We ended the month first with attending an outdoor movie set up by the Murchison Band folks. We gathered our lawn chairs and sat out in a field and watch The Wild Robot on an inflatable screen. The kids had candy and shave ice and we all enjoyed the beautiful weather.

Then, a couple days later, Ian went to a Cub Scout event at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. They learned how to walk with canes and how to sign their names. They learned how to play a ball game by ear and by feel. They saw a demonstration of some of the tools and aids a person with limited or no sight might use to get through life. It was a pretty neat experience. One of the parents works at the school, and I feel very fortunate that the kids were able to experience that.

Even without a “real” spring break, I think we managed to have some fun and interesting experiences, And honestly, it gave us a little breathing room to plan summer vacation and to work on the garage and the yard and even to just relax a little bit. Sometimes maybe one needs the breathing room more than the trip to the desert.