🎨 Eight Illuminated Gnomes Are About to Take Over City Place

🏛️ Shenandoah's New Budget Comes With a Tax Rate Increase

🚑 The Woodlands' ER Just Joined a List of 126 Nationwide

🎭 The Woodlands Arts Council Opens Its Microgrant Window

💪 This Spring Gym Bets You're Wrong About What CrossFit Feels Like

🌤️ Partly Cloudy · 95°F / 77°F

Warm and humid, with skies staying mostly bright through the day.

Source: Vaisala Xweather

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Eight larger-than-life gnome sculptures are moving into City Place this fall, each with its own name, personality and outfit, as part of a new outdoor exhibit called Roaming Gnomes. The free installation opens September 26 and runs through November 8, spread across the plazas and walkways of the mixed-use development in Spring. Visitors can explore daily from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., discovering each character scattered through the property rather than gathered in one spot.

The gnomes come from Amigo & Amigo, a Sydney-based design studio led by Simone Chua that has built similar installations at more than 50 festivals worldwide, including the Napa Lighted Art Festival in California and the World of Winter Festival in Grand Rapids, Michigan. By day, the sculptures create playful surprises around the property; after sunset, they light up and become glowing landmarks that change how the space looks and feels.

The installation arrives through City Place's ongoing partnership with Weingarten Art Group, which has run the property's outdoor art program since 2024. Weingarten Art Group principal Lea Weingarten called it the program's first large-scale inflatable installation, describing the gnomes as "as approachable as they are unexpected."

Why it matters: it's the kind of free, family-friendly outing that turns an ordinary trip to City Place into an adventure worth driving for.

Source: Hello Woodlands · Woodlands Online

Shenandoah adopted its fiscal year 2026-27 budget this week, with total expenses set at about $23.5 million, nearly 10% smaller than last year because of a roughly 70% cut to the capital projects fund. City documents project general fund revenue near $13.2 million, most of it (about 71%) from sales tax, leaving a small surplus of roughly $74,000.

The property tax rate is actually going up, even though the city adopted what's called the "no-new-revenue" rate of $0.1849 per $100 of valuation. Normally that rate would mean a lower bill as home values rise. Finance Director Lisa Wasner said a new state law, House Bill 9, increased tax exemptions for businesses, so the city needs a higher rate this year just to bring in the same revenue as last year. The median Shenandoah home, valued at $437,666, will see its annual tax bill rise to about $809, up from around $773 last year.

Council members also voted to lower the city's required cash reserve from 180 days of expenses to 120 days, or about $4.5 million, freeing money for one-time projects rather than ongoing costs. Council member Charlie Bradt raised concerns about how freely the city taps its reserves, saying, "We tend to use available cash, in my opinion, a little too freely around here to approve the budget sometimes."

Why it matters: a state law meant to help businesses is quietly nudging up what Shenandoah homeowners pay, even in a year the city's own budget is shrinking.

Source: Community Impact

Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Medical Center's Emergency Department has been named a 2026 Lantern Award recipient by the Emergency Nurses Association, one of 126 emergency departments nationwide to earn the recognition this year. The award honors leadership, innovation and evidence-based improvements that lead to better patient care and staff well-being.

Denise Martin, RN, the hospital's trauma program director and emergency services director, said the recognition reflects the whole team's daily commitment to clinical excellence. "We strive to plant a seed of hope to all who enter our doors," she said. ED clinical manager Lisa Do, RN, pointed to specific work behind the award, including the department's "ED Flower Journey" initiative, which focuses on communication and family engagement at the bedside, along with efforts to speed up antibiotic administration and strengthen safety outcomes.

The department will be recognized in ENA publications, on the association's website, and at its Emergency Nursing 2026 conference in Phoenix from September 28 to October 1. ENA President Dustin Bass, RN, said the award "isn't an award for an individual or an entire hospital, it's a recognition earned by an emergency department and the team that powers it every day."

Why it matters: it's a national marker that the emergency care Woodlands families rely on in a crisis is held to some of the highest standards in the country.

Source: Woodlands Online

The Woodlands Arts Council opened its Microgrant Program application window on September 7, with submissions due by October 5. The program is open to organizations and individuals across The Woodlands and Montgomery County, and covers two tracks: the Dr. David Gottlieb Education Microgrant for literary, performing and visual arts educators, and a Performing Arts Microgrant run with the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion aimed at expanding access to the performing arts.

Past microgrants show what the funding actually does. Conroe High School's Theatre Department used one to buy four Canon Rebel T7 cameras, along with extra batteries, memory cards and card readers, keeping its annual student film project alive after new restrictions limited cell phone use in class. Theatre II students used the equipment to learn camera operation, lighting and cinematography hands-on.

A separate grant helped the nonprofit Reading Is Revolutionary bring author and illustrator Angela Dominguez to Hailey Elementary, partnering with Macmillan Publishers to give every student a book: bilingual picture books for younger grades and Dominguez's Texas Bluebonnet Award-nominated graphic novel for older students.

Why it matters: a few thousand dollars in grant money is the difference between a school theater program going quiet and a classroom of kids handling real film equipment.

Source: Hello Woodlands

TTR CrossFit, located on Richards Road in Spring, is working to change what people expect from a CrossFit gym. Valeria Duque, who helps lead the community there, says the biggest misconception people carry through the door is that the sport is only for elite athletes. "What really CrossFit is about is welcoming every single person that just is looking for a healthier way of living," she says.

The gym runs two tracks side by side: standard CrossFit, scaled so beginner, intermediate and advanced athletes can do the same workout at their own level, and HYROX, a newer competition-focused fitness race format that's drawn a serious following. HYROX classes run Monday through Friday, and around 30 TTR athletes are currently training for an upcoming Dallas competition, with an in-house HYROX simulation event on September 19 to help them prepare, medals and T-shirts included.

Duque says the real hurdle for new members usually isn't fitness, it's commitment, and most people who show up bracing for one hard workout end up surprised by how welcoming the community actually is. That extends past the workouts themselves: a Sunday running group meets at 8 a.m. at Northshore Park, and a monthly Bible study called Faith and Fitness adds a spiritual dimension on the first Saturday of each month.

Why it matters: it's proof that a serious training program and a genuinely welcoming one aren't mutually exclusive, especially for anyone who's talked themselves out of trying CrossFit before it even started.

🗓️ Patriot Day of Remembrance | The Woodlands Central Fire Station, 9951 Grogan's Mill Road | 7:30–8:30 AM | Free

🗓️ Free Fare Fridays | The Woodlands Express (to Houston) | All day | Free

🗓️ Zach Johnson Live | The Red Brick Tavern, Conroe | Evening | No cover

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Spring's boom ended because of a decision made somewhere else. In the early 1920s the railroad moved its base of operations down to Houston, and the town that had grown up around the switchyard emptied out with it. What we now call Old Town Spring sat quiet for decades before the shops brought it back.

"That man can strut sitting down." Translation: he thinks a great deal of himself, and he does not need to be standing up to show you.

Somebody is having the single best day of their life right now, and you probably pulled up next to them at a light.

You cannot run through a campground. You can only ran, because it is past tents.