We went for a wander

After bugging our darling daughter for more than a month, the week of her birthday she finally announced what she wanted to do: go to the local botanical gardens and get more jewelery making supplies.  Kept things simple, and her hair was already purple.
Husband had that Friday off so  we voyaged the a whole five minutes to the requested botanical gardens.  We stopped at the lovely little cafe at the gardens to have lunch before we went tromping around outside.  Daughter seemed quite pleased to sit outside, in perfect weather, and eat mushroom brie quiche with birds flitting around, chirping away.
Once we finished lunch we strolled into the gardens proper, applied much sunblock, admiring all sorts of local flora, fauna and art for the next three and a half hours. Which worked up an appetite for the orange creamiscle cupcakes and squashed frogs (cornflake/rice crispy treats dyed green with candy eyes) that were awaiting us at home.
The next day, we drove to Austin and had lunch in a favorite micro-brew.  Feeling quite full, we thought a bit of a walk was in order, so we ended up at Lady bird Johnson's Wildflower Center . A very pleasant place, but it was a warmer than the day before and the bugs were out in force.  We gave up after less than two hours of wandering. After consulting with the birthday girl (who was just as hot and worn out as the rest of us) we agreed to go home and eat more cupcakes.
At some point over those two days, we also let her do a run through a store, steadily putting beads and cord and wire and findings into her shopping basket.  There was also the stop at the costume shop and a comic book store to round out the trip nicely.
The most important part, daughter seemed very content with her birthday!