Growing Up Weird

Kid cool activities for June: Ice cream olympics, acrobatics, mini-makers and more

It begins. Summertime, otherwise known as “Constant Air Conditioning Season,” is a challenge for parents. The school months keep your kids adequately occupied, leaving summertime as a comparatively wide-open, unstructured challenge. Summer camps can be a recreational relief, but not everyone heads to the YMCA. That said, summertime in Austin brings in unique opportunities for family fun. If you’re not heading to Schlitterbahn, Six Flags or summer camp, make time to hit up these fun Austin activities.

June 5, Ninth Annual Amy’s Ice Cream Trick Olympics

This one goes against the whole “don’t play with you food” thing. But, it’s for a great cause, and the results are extremely sweet. At the Amy’s Ice Cream 9th Annual Trick Olympics, scoops (Amy’s name for their servers) flip, toss and twirl ice cream in a fundraising effort for CASA of Travis County.

With juggling, aerobics, magic and other tasty tricks up their sleeve, scoops from across Texas compete in the Best Solo Trick, Best Team Trick and Trick Decathlon categories. Just be sure to supervise ice cream night at your house more closely from here on out.

June 7, Alamo Summer Kids Camp

You either loved or hated summer camp. Me, I despised outdoor camps. Forced to swim in lakes and build gimp friendship bracelets? If only the Alamo Drafhouse had their Summer Kids Camp back then, it would have eradicated five percent of my bad childhood memories. But, I digress.

Many Austin theater chains hold similar camps, but the Drafthouse pulls out classics like The Muppets Take Manhattan, The Land Before Time, filmed in Austin Spy Kids and, a favorite in my household, Madagascar(all hail the New York giants). Save on sunscreen and impede embarrassment by hitting the Drafthouse. Movies are free — and complementary air conditioning is served.

June 8, Round Rock Mini Maker Fair

Notice how used cereal boxes and scotch tape get more playtime than the majority of the kiddos plastic toys? The imagination makes more great things than Mattel. If you have a maker in your midst, then you’re probably aware of Make: Magazine, and their Maker Faires.

Maker Faires are gatherings of Do-It-Yourself-ers that make things and inspire creativity. Sponsored by TechShop, The Round Rock Mini Maker Faire is a small gathering of tinkerers with big ideas. Full of demos and interactive workshops, your small engineer is sure to get great ideas.

June 12, Children’s Day Art Park

My least memorable summer camp experience involved an arts and crafts class where the camp counselors ignored us campers in favor of listening to Eddie Murphy: Raw. You can be assured that a visit to the Children’s Day Art Park will involve more art than F-bombs.

Held several Wednesday mornings at Symphony Square Amphitheater, this musical camp features dancers, magicians, crafts and music ranging from the Biscuit Brothers to the Austin Symphony. This is a free (and popular) event, so plan on arriving early.

June 21, Sky Candy’s “The Circus” at Scottish Rite Theater

No wheel of death. No whip-bearing tiger trainers. This circus places the spotlight on aerial acrobatics. Seeing as this is a production of Austin’s aerial dance and performance company Sky Candy, you’ll spend plenty of time looking up at “The Circus”.

Set in 1890, the show follows a young girl who runs away to join the circus, and gets more than he bargains for. Weaving puppetry, live period music and theatrical magic, “The Circus” is bound to make you re-think what a circus can be, and maybe inspire your kids to take flight with Sky Candy.

June 22, Keep Austin Weird Festival and 5K

There’s a certain bliss to being 5-years-old and not caring that rain boots and shorts don’t match. Weirdness is something that should be celebrated throughout childhood, and if we’re lucky, adulthood. After all, the younger generation will decide if Austin maintains its “weirdness.” There’s no better starting point than the Keep Austin Weird Festival and 5K.

The 5K features crazy fun stops (many involving alcohol, so be wary parents) and Austin craft vendors, local food and family friendly activities will let you wash in the weird. Of course there’s live music, and big-time headliners like Erin McCariey, The Whigs and Shiny Toy Guns won’t disappoint.

Children are our future, so let's show them as much as possible about this town.

Children’s Day Art Park on June 12.

Photo Courtesy of The Austin Symphony

Children’s Day Art Park on June 12.

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Genie Is Out of The Bottle

Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick starts quest to ban all forms of THC

The THC limit in medical cannabis products is also increasing.

Photo courtesy of TOCC

A ban on THC would not be popular.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is launching a quixotic quest to ban legal THC: According to a release, Patrick is pushing legislation that would ban all forms of consumable Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) from being sold in Texas.

He's promoting Senate Bill 3, which would be carried by Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, and would ban all forms of THC.

Patrick is unhappy with House Bill 1325, introduced by Rep. Tracy King, D-Uvalde, to bolster agriculture in Texas. It was passed by the Texas Legislature in 2019.

Part of that bill allowed for the commercialization of hemp, which included un-removable non-intoxicating trace amounts of Delta 9 THC.

“Dangerously, retailers exploited the agriculture law to sell life-threatening, unregulated forms of THC to the public and made them easily accessible," Patrick says in his release. "These stores not only sold to adults, but they targeted Texas children and exposed them to dangerous levels of THC."

"Since 2023, thousands of stores selling hazardous THC products have popped up in communities across the state, and many sell products, including beverages, that have three to four times the THC content which might be found in marijuana purchased from a drug dealer," he says.

It seems like the genie is out of the bottle: According to the Baker Institute, hemp in Texas is booming: From 2020 to 2023, sales of hemp-derived cannabinoids increased by 1283 percent, reaching a value of $2.78 billion last year.

And efforts to reel it back in are basically doomed, they say.

"While prohibition may seem like the simplest response, it is almost certain to fail — both in eliminating widespread access to hemp-derived cannabinoids and in protecting the public," they say.

"As of April 2024, Texas had over 7,000 registered hemp dispensaries," they note. "More than 50,000 Texans are estimated to be employed through the hemp sector. A state ban would ruin this industry, but it would not reduce consumer demand for hemp-derived cannabinoids. Instead, consumers would turn to the illicit hemp market that would inevitably form in the wake of state prohibition. Products sold today in state-registered shops would still be available through underground supply networks that would reap billions in tax-free profits."

They say that "a broad ban, even a poorly enforced one, would harm consumers more than the state’s current system."

Meanwhile voters are supporting marijuana decriminalization efforts such as the one recently approved by the city of Dallas, as well as Austin, Denton, Elgin, Killeen, and San Marcos.

Catina Voellinger, Executive Director of Ground Game Texas, a Texas group that has been advocating for decriminalization of marijuana, says in a statement that the legislation would turn back the clock to a more repressive time.

“Instead of banning THC, lawmakers should focus on legalizing marijuana statewide, which would allow for cannabis to be safely regulated, and would prevent countless residents from being harmed by unnecessary arrests and prosecutions for possessing something that is already legal in 24 states," Voellinger says. "We’ve seen repeatedly that this is what Texans want – our marijuana decriminalization ballot initiatives in Dallas, Lockhart, and Bastrop won overwhelmingly this November.”

Daryoush Austin Zamhariri, Executive Director of Texas Cannabis Collective, a group working to change cannabis laws, calls Patrick's endorsement of legislation that would ban all consumable THC products in Texas "tremendously out of step with the overwhelming majority of Texans."

"Poll after poll has shown the citizens of Texas support legalizing cannabis and ending the failed policy of cannabis prohibition," Zamhariri says. "These attitudes have manifested in several campaigns to progressively decriminalize marijuana possession in cities across the state with bipartisan super majority votes through local ballot initiatives. We oppose SB 3 and look forward to working with our coalition partners at the 89th Legislature to bring common sense cannabis reform to the entirety of Texas.”

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