This past weekend, April 1-3, David had a State Historical Commission Conference in Austin. He had to be there Friday and Saturday so work flew him there early Friday morning (Brieleigh and I drove him to the airport at 5 am). I worked half a day then Brieleigh and I drove to meet him. The drive down was not too bad. It is only 3 hours, and Brieleigh slept the first half. We made a stop for a drink and gas in Waco, then Brieleigh was up and awake. We got close to the Austin suburbs and Brieleigh lost it. She was screaming and could not catch her breath. We pulled over at the outlet mall in Roundrock and happened to find an outdoor playground. Brieleigh LOVED it and we stayed there 30-45 minutes to let her run out some energy. It is hard driving alone with a toddler because I could not entertain her or pass her things very well.
We were only going to stay one night, but we decided to stay two nights so that we did not have to rush back and beacause we needed a break from a slightly insane week. We wanted to stay downtown because Austin has such a lively downtown and that is where the meeting was, but the meeting hotel was booked and we could not really afford the rest. We stayed at a Comfort Suites by the airport which was fine and not too far away.
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| Brieleigh and I got to Austin while David was still in his meeting. We parked close to the capitol and walked around the outside. There were people outside ralleying for education money not to be cut. |
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| There are some winding sidewalks, beautiful old trees, statues, cannons, and flowers. It was quite pretty and a gorgeous day so we loved running around on the grounds. |
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| Brieleigh needed to see the world through my sunglasses. She knew she looked cool wearing them! |
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| She loved waving at the statues. There were alot of Texas Rangers around and one had a dog that Brieleigh loved- "Puppy!" I almost asked if Walker was on duty, but they looked busy. :) |
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| I have many happy memories at this capitol. My family toured it often when my sister Katie had tennis tournaments here. I remember a picture of my dad (when he was sick), CaL,Madeline, and I in front of this very fountain. I am now ready to find it. We wanted to wait until David was with us to tour the inside, but we ran out of time this trip but hope to soon. |
We have a membership to a nature preserve in McKinney (just north of us) called the Heard which also gets us into most children's museums fo free (as long as they are more than 90 miles away). So Saturday morning while David had meetings, Brieleigh and I plyed at the Austin Children's Museum.
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| Brieleigh had a BLAST and especially loved the baby and toddler only area. Here she is saying "cock a doooo". |
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| She loved "shopping" for produce and even tried eating the strawberry. |
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| They had a slide just her size. |
I parked in a parking garage and made the mistake of not bringing cash (only my card). To pay to get out they directed me to an ATM (but she spoke poor English so I made ALOT of stops and wrong turns before I found my bank's ATM) but held my license at ransom. Yikes! Cash is still the only option at some places these days.
We picked up David, got the girls some much needed lunch, then headed to the Zilker Park Botanical Gardens. The park was super busy but had alot of cool free stuff.
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| David and Brieleigh at the stream |
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| Lots of pretty plants and flowers |
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| I set this on the stroller and timer to take our picture. :) We saw a snake right after that just chilling. |
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| She knows she is beautiful... and a mess. I love this little smirk! |
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| Butterfly benches! |
After resting for a bit at the hotel, we went out for bat watching and dinner. The Congress Avenue bridge has bats that lives there from March to November. Not just bats, but 1000's of bats! They all fly out at dusk each night to eat bugs. We heard they eat a few tons on insects every night! I need one of those for my yard!
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| We waited awhile but enjoyed being together! |
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| This is Brieleigh's shy habit (or wringing her hands). She spotted some little people and a "puppy" and kept making her way towards them to make friends. |
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| Here are some of the people all lined up on the bridge. We were down below. We could not get any good bat pictures because it was too dark. The were tiny little creatures, but they poured out for a good 10+ minutes! |
Sunday, we went to church close to our hotel (Redeemer Pres), ate lunch, and dessert then reluctantly headed back to Dallas for another crazy week. We decided that if you have to live in a city then Austin would be pretty cool, but we would rather just visit the cities! Tune in for the next post on our Southern Living culinary tour! Yum-o!
