Trip to Austin

We’ve decided not to take an actual vacation this year, choosing instead to do a couple of day trips. This summer, we went to the Coast for a day at the beach, and yesterday, we went to Austin.

We had planned to leave at about 7:30 in the morning and stop for breakfast on the road. It’s only about an hour away, so that would get us to the capitol around 9 or 10. Well, the best laid plans…

One of the kids (Justin, most likely) had left the lights on inside the van and run the battery down. Bryan was able to jump start it and then went driving around for about half an hour just to make sure that there wasn’t something wrong with the actual battery. There wasn’t, so we got underway by about 8:30. Fortunately, we were going by ourselves so we weren’t inconveniencing anyone else.

The kids ate a snack before we left, and we had a great breakfast in Austin. An interesting side note about Austin: I used to love going to Austin when Bryan and I were dating and first married. There are neat shops and restaurants and parks. But we really haven’t been back since having kids. Austin is certainly NOT a city designed for big families. All of the restaurants are tiny and our family just about overwhelmed the one we stopped at. And, while in San Antonio we generally get a very positive reaction to our crew, we got several very contemptuous looks from people. I guess “Yes we can” doesn’t apply to raising God’s most precious little people. Anyway…

We had a great time seeing the Capitol building. The kids were very impressed by the grandness of it all. Evan leaned out between the bars to look down into the rotunda and nearly gave me a heart attack. You’ll see in the picture that Megan stayed at a much more sensible distance. (She did eventually take a quick peek over the edge.) There was even an orchestra performing!

We also went to the visitor’s center where they got to watch a little video about the building and dress up like cowboys. That was, of course, the highlight of Justin’s day.

When we got back home, we all chilled out for a few minutes and then Bryan lit a fire. (We had a high of 40 yesterday, so it was quite nippy.) I made a gallon of applesauce (froze half) and latkes for the first night of Chanukah and we capped off the day with some S’mores, roasting the marshmallows over the fire. All in all, it was a great day and we really enjoyed it. Now, we’ve got a couple of weeks off of school, and everyone’s looking forward to the break (especially Mommy!). I’ve got a couple of projects planned- I’ll let you know how it goes.