Bullock Texas State History Museum

No photos allowed in the museum, so unfortunately, this is my only one!

The Bullock Texas State History Museum is one of Austin's newest museum; entirely devoted to providing information about the formation of Texas as both a country and a state. 

This museum has three floors (focused on Land, Identity and Opportunity) with a variety of interesting displays about the native Indians, discovering oil, fight for independence and more.  My boys' favorite displays are the ones that include firearms. ;o)  There are many free movies to view throughout the museum, including one about the making of cowboy movies about Texas that we all enjoyed.

However, my favorite is the re-creation of a historic Texas 'dog run' home.  On a personal note, I have often found that the simple process of keeping my house clean and straight takes an overwhelmingly amount of time. And I wonder, how have so many people accomplished this simple feat for hundreds of years that now overwhelms me?? And every time I visit the museum, this display reminds me that our current homes are 3 and 4 times the size of homes from previous centuries.  And the number of possessions we own outnumber previous owners probably by 100!  Seriously, this museum provides perspective!

The museum also offers a couple of add-on options, including the Texas Spirit Museum and the IMAX theater.

The Texas Spirit Museum offers two shows: The Star of Destiny and Wild Texas Weather.  This theater is considered 4D, and incredibly entertaining.  The seats rumble along with the narration, lightening strikes and there is even a fine mist to go along with the show.  Over the years, we have seen both shows a couple of times and they are very fun and well worth the extra ticket price -  though I'd pick one per trip - two in a visit would be a bit much :o)   I would not recommend this theater for very young children (some loud sounds), but all others should find it a treat.

The IMAX generally offers an educational 3D movie to enjoy.  On our most recent visit, they had an absolutely wonderful movie about butterflies.  I believe we've also watched one on the underwater world in the past.  These movies are generally very well done, entertaining and educating, and I would recommend including them when purchasing tickets!

Tips and Tricks
* On the third Saturday of every month between 2pm and 6pm, the museum offers free admission to the exhibits (the movies are an additional cost), so if you are looking to save some $$$, check it out!
* Plan for around a 3 hour visit.  Of the many times we have visited, the exhibits take us probably an hour or two to go through - longer if you take the time to watch some of the video movies.  If you check out the IMAX and Texas Spirit Theater, add another hour.  
* There is no food or cafeteria available in the museum.  Directly across the street (north toward the Capitol) is a building that has picnic benches to enjoy if you pack a lunch.
* Parking is available in the lot below the museum for $7

Volunteer - at the Capital Area Food Bank

Summer is more than half way over, you've hit all of the regular places, and the kids are so bored they fight with each other just to make some entertainment. 

It's one hundred degrees outside and even the swimming pools seem too hot.

Now is the perfect time to teach your family the value of volunteering!  Let's face it, we all want to teach our kids the value of helping others. But during the year, this can be difficult, as schedules are so much tighter.  Summer is the perfect time to take advantage of excess time!  So make some time during this summer to help out with a local volunteer organization. 

We have helped out numerous times at the Capital Are Food Bank.  With a group of friends it can be a surprising amount of fun!  Slots are available in three hour increments. You can drop in on one of their open volunteer days or schedule ahead if you have a group.  Their calendar has a list of available times.  In the past, we have sorted bread and bakery product, canned goods and a variety of other tasks that help the Food Bank to collect and distribute food. 

At the end of our session, we told the boys that many other kids were home playing video games.  We were then going to explain that while sorting cans may not be as fun as video games, it helped a lot of people in need.  Instead, the boys all said that Yep, this was more fun than video games... Oh well, there goes that speech ;o)  Not only did they learn the value of volunteering, they learned that it can also be a lot of fun!

Tips and Thoughts
* All volunteers must be 8 years or older

* Volunteers must wear closed toe shoes

Austin Children's Museum

The Austin Children's Museum is a great way to spend a hot afternoon - out of the sun :o)  We have been going there since my boys were very young.  There are many sorts of interactive exhibits and lots of ways for curious minds to explore. 

The main hall has a rotating exhibit that changes every couple of months.  You can go online to their web page to see which one is currently in house.  The rest of the museum is static. 

There is the building room, with blocks and bolts.  There is the creating room, that has many different recycled items the children can use to "invent" things.  The train room includes a small train that runs around the perimeter and the cafe area has a pretend playfood area, a milk factory, bat station and more. 

There is a large slide to go down and a crane that can be used to collect balls.

The most recent change was the downstairs back room.  It had been a rather boring room about the history of Austin music, but recently they have made it into a more kinetic room, with lots of interative exhibits.

This museum seems to focus mainly on younger children, with fewer displays and exhibits geared toward older children.  My boys still had a fun time going with a friend, but I would say the majority of exhibits are geared for the 9 and under crowd.

Tips and Thoughts

* At times, two for one tickets can be found online, so a quick query beforehand might save you a few dollars!

* Parking is never fun.  There is a parking garage on 2nd street that is very accessible to the museum, and probably the easiest place to park

* The museum does not offer a cafeteria or any food for purchase (though I did notice a vending machine that wasn't there before)  So plan on bringing a lunch or picking up something before or after your trip downtown.

* I have found that the early morning tends to bring the under 5 crowd.  If you have a slightly older child, you might do well to bring them after lunch.

Pinballz

Pinballz is an arcade in North Austin that claims to have over 200 games, mostly pinball, but also some video games.  These games range in age from those designed in the 1950's to current. 

Since Dave was in town this week, we decided to bring him along so he could enjoy some of the games of his youth!

All the boys played Galaga; Dave got a high schore on Tempest (his old favorite) and earned a free game on the new Pirates of the Caribbean pinball machine and the boys got to play the original Donkey Kong.  Not being a huge videogame fan, I just watched!

It was a fun hour and a half and a great way to beat the heat!

Tips and Thoughts
* Plan for about $15 per hour per person for the games. 

* There are infrequently deals on Morgan's pages, and sometime they have 'specials'.  On Way Back Wednesdays they pick 4 machines and revert them to 80s pricings ($0.25 per game).  If you pay in cash, you can get an extra $2 per every $20. So look around and plan ahead, and you might be able to save a little money!

* The arcade has a small cafe.  They also allow you to bring your own liquor, but there were rules to how much you could bring in.  I assume this is more of an issue with the 9pm crowd then my 2pm bunch ;o)

Jump Street Indoor Trampoline Park

With a projected temperature of 106 degrees today, we needed to stay inside!  With two children kept indoors for the last week due to allergies, I needed a place for them to run!  Jump Street in Cedar Park was the perfect solution!

Jump street is a trampoline park; very similar to an inflatable house, but for a much older crowd.  The average age of participants ranged from 7 years of age, up through 16, with some young adults and even parents joining in the fun!

Jump Street has a large room with 50 foot stretches of trampolines.  Jumpers can run, flip, twist, or cartwheel themselves down the long stretch.

But the highlight of the place, for my boys, was the dodgeball room.  There were two dodgeball rooms.  One for 13 and up, and one for all ages.  Each room had three trampolines with a half way divider. 

As with typical dodgeball, participants threw balls at the other half in an attempt to get them out.  Referees with whistles made sure the play stayed fair.  Dodgeball is always a favorite, but the trampolines made the game that much more fun!

In addition to the main trampoline room and the dodgeball rooms, Jump Street had some additional features, available through their $3 Fun Pass. 
Kids could swing on a rope from a platform into a pit full of small nerf squares.  There was also a small maze that they could navigate through.  The average time to get through seemed like 30 seconds, so it isn't very big, but they did enjoy it for a couple of go-throughs.

One of the boys' favorite was a large slide made out of some sort of astroturf that the kids could ride down in inner tubes.  Both boys went down the slide many, many times! 

And there was a small area with a mechanical bull.  Bull riders attempted to stay seated for the longest time (K hit 59 seconds) until they were thrown onto an inflatable mat.

All in all, the kids ran, jumped and played for the full two hours!  We will be updating our Top 50 list to include Jumpstreet!

Tips and Thoughts
* Children under 7 can only participate in the "Earthquake room", which is a small trampoline room.  The play is less expensive, but a lot less fun.  However, if a young child is accompanied by an older sibling or parent (over 12), they may participate in the main rooms.  The under 7 crowd could participate in all of the fun pass areas, except for the mechanical bull.

* Children were allowed to go barefoot or wear socks, based on preference

* The place was fairly crowded.  But a large group cleared out around 3pm.  If time allows, I think the 3 - 5 pm slot might be the lightest attendance

* Tuesdays and Thursday are $10 for two hours, the perfect price for the perfect amount of time.  Other days have other specials, but Tuesday and Thursday were the cheapest

Texas Military Forces Museum

While I am all about peace ,love and happiness, my youngest son is going through a stage (let's hope it is a stage), where his interest is war. 

And the Texas Military Forces museum in Camp Mabry is perfect for anyone mesmerized by tanks, guns or battles!

The main exhibit hall contains a variety of tanks, helicopters, planes and more that were used by Texas forces throughout history.  Some of the tanks are still running and are used in reenactments today.

The back hall contains a number of battle scene dioramas, including the Alamo.  It also has various uniforms, canons and other military stuff. There is a jet cockpit the kids can climb into, military uniforms they can try on, and information regarding some of the more recent Texas military involvements.

There is currently a temporary exhibit running through July 15th that is worth checking out.  The artist has rolled up paper for every loss of life in the War on Terror.  It is an unusual and notable memorial for our brave soldiers.



And if that wasn't enough for a battle loving boy, on the grounds of Mabry are a collection of more tanks, helicopters and jets that you can walk through!

Tips and Thoughts

The museum is only open Wednesday through Saturday

To enter Camp Mabry, you need to show an id when entering.  It is very simple to get on base, just pull into the visitor lane, show the man your idea, get directions and move on!

The museum often has group tours with helpful guides providing more information

Main Event

Today we went with friends to Main Event.  Located in North Austin, this location has just about everything to keep children entertained.  And another benefit is that it is nice and cool inside!  Perfect for the when the temperatures sky rocket outside!

It has a glow in the dark mini-golf course, lit by black lights to make everything fluoresce.  There is also a laser tag game, a sort of high-tech tag played with gun shooting lasers.  There are many lanes for bowling, a 28 foot high large rock climbing area, pool tables and bowling.  The main area also has a large arcade area with high tech virtual rides, skee ball and more.

There is also a nice cafe on site that serves burgers, pizza and even a decent salad!

A summer fun pass for $15.95 per child includes all areas except for the arcade area and will keep kids busy for at least three hours.  Add in some money for the arcade and you have a full afternoon.

Texas Memorial Museum

Our first full week back in town for summer, and K is suffering from sever allergies :o(  So, with most of our outdoor places off the list, we are hitting some indoor places.

An old favorite of ours is the Texas Memorial Museum on the UT campus.  This free science museum was built in 1939.  And with its hushed halls, it sometimes still feels like that year still inside!

This location also happens to be on the list of Texas Nature Challange, so it was perfect! We printed the challenge before we left, and headed out!

There are four floors with different exhibits. The first floor contains dinosaur fossils and other historic science items, including the 5th largest meterorite to fall in Texas. 

The second floor and main entrance has a large pterosaur, a huge blue topaz and a well stocked museum store. 

The third floor has dioramas of all different sorts of Texas wildlife, including our favorite javalina!  The boys also enjoyed the "night life" section.

And the fourth floor has an exhibit of jar specimans and an interactive exhibit called "Explore Evolution". 

We followed the questions in the Nature Challenge to lead us through al lof the halls - and learned some new things along the way!

Tips and Thoughts

This is a very simple, old-school museum.  Most visitors will tour the entire museum in one to two hours.

While the museum is free, parking is not.  The closest parking is in the San Jacinto parking garage; for a minimal $6 you can park for 2 hours.  The LBJ library parking is further away, but free.

If you were hoping to combine this trip with the LBJ exhibits as well, note that  the library is under major renovation and only a few exhibits are open

If you are participating in the Taxes Nature Challenge, the museum does not have a copy of the questions, so download and print ahead of time.  You receive your completion sticker in the museum store.

Day Trip to Brenham: Bluebell Creameries

We have wanted to check out the ice cream tour at Bluebell Creameries for a long time.  But it is hard to justify a two hour trip for a forty-five minute tour.  This year, D really wanted to go, so I looked around the area to see what else we could find to do, and wham, found the Washington-on-the-Brazos State Park twenty minutes away.  Perfect!

With that in mind, we decided to make a day trip to Brenham.  I intended to get a much earlier start (I alway intend this), but we didn't get out the door until around 9:30am.  Combine that with my poor navigational skills and complete disregard for the google map that I printed, GPS system and smart phone with navigation in the car... we arrived just at noon.

I admit, I had no idea what we were in for.  I feared that they would be on lunch break at noon, and we might have to wait until they returned for our tour.

Not at all.  The factory was packed and the tour process very formalized.  After paying the admission fee, we received our token for the 12:10 tour.  During the summer months, tours seem to leave around every twenty minutes, and include up to 40 people.  Ours was full.

The tour takes about 45 minutes and finishes with a scoop of ice cream of your choice.  And it was really fascinating, from the bare facts (milk from 60,000 cows every day!), to the automation (the only non-automated task is placing the icecream gallons in boxes for shipping).  We decided that we really needed to get a home version of the ice cream sandwich machine, churning out 120 sandwiches per minute!

Combined with our trip to Washinton-on-the-Brazos State Park, we really enjoyed our day trip to Brenham!

Day Trip to Brenham: Washington-on-the-Brazos

Having not grown up in Texas, my local history is somewhat lacking.  I must admit, I didn't even know the significance of this place when we arrived. The Washington on the Brazos state park is devoted to informing visitors about the signing of the Texas Declaration of Independence.  And it does a wonderful job.

On site, there are a number of attractions, some are free, some are not.  We purchased the multi-site pass which allowed us to view all, and it was well worth it. 

There is a visitors center, with a large walk-through display of Texas history.  The boys and I probably found this section the least interesting. 

A short walk from the building is a replica of the original building where the Declaration of Independence was signed.  Walking on the wood floors, even the boys fell hushed, as you could almost feel the time past.

Because all we had eaten since breakfast was a scoop of ice cream (see Bluebell creameries post), we first hit the picnic area for some lunch. 

The picnic area is beautiful, with large trees, lots of picnic tables, restrooms and a small playground area. 

Within a short walking distance, you can see the previous location of Robinson's ferry on the Brazos and the location of the old town of Washington, originally capital of Texas.

We then viewed the Star of Republic Museum, which was very helpful, interesting and informative. 

The museum starts with a twenty minute film explaining the significance of this location to the revolution. 

There is then a very nice museum to walk through with a discovery center with activities for children of all ages and lot of interactive displays.  It definitely kept the interest of all ages. 

We would have stayed longer, but the day was getting late, and we still hadn't made it to the Barrington Living History farm.

Barrington Living History farm is a reproduction of a Texas cotton farm in the 1850's, complete with the home of Anson Jones, last president o the Republic of Texas. 

The home was, unfortunately, closed the week we visited due to roofing repairs.  But the barn and slave quarters were still open. 

The park provides an 'interpreter' to guide visitors through the farm.  Our guide met us in the hundred degree heat and entertained us for at least forty five minutes. 

If I was amazed at how many people packed the halls of Bluebell Creameries, I was somewhat dismayed at how few people there were in the park.  Our interpreter said we were her only visitors of the day!

Our interpreter was very informative, friendly and kid-friendly.  She let the kids feel the weight of an oxen yoke. 

The boys got to pick cotton from the fields, lift a thirty pound bag of cotton and check out the pig pens, baby turkeys and chickens.

We really enjoyed our visit and learned a lot about Texas history. 

Combined with our trip to Bluebell creameries, this was a perfect day trip from Austin!

Blazer Tag

When the temperature is 108 degrees, even we have to start looking for entertainment indoors!

One of my boys' favorite indoor entertainment places in Blazer Tag - a game of hide and seek with lasers. 

Every player is given a "laser" gun and a jacket to wear.  The jacket has a collection of lights that blink if they have been hit.  The players run around the indoor arena trying to shoot the other players more often then they are shot. 

Depending on the number of participants, the players are divided into teams or free-for-all.

It is actually a lot of fun... even for adults ;o) 

The games are fifteen minutes, plus a five minute briefing.  If the kids want to play two games, they space them forty minutes apart, so there is about twenty minutes of wandering around time in between games. 

Outside of the playing arena there is an assortment of arcade games that can be played by purchasing tokens.

Blazer Tag recommends players be at least seven years old to play, but as long as your child can hold the pack, they let him play.  My youngest played his first game when he was five!

Tips and Thoughts
The age of the kids differs; in the late morning to early afternoon, most of the kids are younger.  But I think in the evenings, the players tend to get a bit older and more competitive.  

This can get expensive, as two games plus $5 in tokens costs $22 and only keeps the kids entertained for about two hours. 

But there are frequently two for one coupons available in local newspapers, coupon packs or online sites such as Valpak.com.  (Though I couldn't find any for August - the last coupon I could find expired July 31st). 

There are also frequently "special" days where games only cost $5. 

This is also a great place for birthday parties - with special package deals. Just be forewarned, if you select the pizza party, they don't serve the pizza until after both games are played.  So plan your event with that in mind so you don't have hungry kids.

The establishment also hosts lock-ins overnight. I assume these are for much older kids than mine, but they do seem like they would be fun for the older kid crowd.

Longhorn Caverns

A great way to beat the heat during the dog days of summer is to go underground!  Longhorn Caverns State Park is a little over an hour away from Austin in Marble Falls. 

Longhorn Caverns is one of the few caves made from a rushing underground river.  Most caves in the area are made from dripping water from above. 

The result is that this cave has some different formations than those found in other caverns in the area: domed holes from whirlpools, architecture that is more flowing and fewer stalagmites.

The cave also has a very colorful history, having been used as a tavern, chapel, Indian burial ground, weapons locker and bomb shelter!

We have been twice this year, and both times found the tour guide friendly, entertaining and informative.  Strangely enough, with different tour guides, the tour differed enough that we didn't feel like we were repeating the experience.

We took the Daily tour - an entertaining hour-and-a-half, three-quarter mile underground hike out and back. 

However, the caverns offer some speciality tours that I would love to return and take. For children over 11, it has the Wild Cave Tour which goes into less accessible places and requires helmet, knee pads and flashlight.  There is also an evening paranormal tour once a month.  Supposedly the cavern is haunted, and the evening tours occur at night and sound pretty fun and spooky!

After we left, we headed back through Marble Falls and stopped at Bluebonnet Cafe for lunch.  This was our first time eating there, and it was a treat.  We enjoyed the Hot Roast Beef sandwich, but the highlight was the huge selection of pies!

Tips and Thoughts

The tours seem to run every hour.  You can call ahead and make reservations, or you can just show up. 

We arrived at 11:30 and were assigned to the noon tour.  With a little extra time to spend, we explored the observation tower on the premises.  There is also an interactive museum next door that details the works of the CCC.  We did not make it into the museum, as the kids were totally enarmored with the magnets in the gift shop!

The tour fee is $12.99 for adults and $7.99 for children.  In addition to the tour, the tour leaders do accept tips, so bring a few spare dollars to thank your tour guide when you leave.

No food or drink is allowed in the cavern, but you may bring in a water bottle.

If you are looking to make a whole day of it, Inks Lake is just a mile or so down the road, and a fun place to spend the rest of the afternoon!