Austin

Last weekend we took a trip to Austin. It is a beautiful city. Tom had to go to a conference all day Monday so we drove up on Sunday and stayed in a hotel there. The kids and I love stuff like that! We were able to swim in the pool and eat some great Texan food! We went to a real Texas BBQ Sunday night. It was in the middle of nowhere outside of Austin. We had just had the time change so it felt like midnight to me but it was just before 8pm. We walked in and the place was packed. This was the day after Texas lost to Texas Tech and I could feel some tension there. Tom, of course, had an OSU shirt on and I was pretty sure the entire Texas football team was at this restaurant. It was a little scary! Tom found a Texas jersey to put on Charlie to protect us though, :). The food was delicious. We also checked out the outlets there. They are famous and have every store imaginable. Daddy spoiled his little girl with a beautiful Christmas outfit. Meg is dying to wear it, but were making her wait until we go home for Thanksgiving. Sunday night when we got back to the hotel, Daddy, Meg and Charlie were all wrestling on the bed like usual and of course someone got hurt. Meg fell on Charlie and her mouth collided with his head. The snap I heard was one of the scariest sounds I ever heard. I thought for sure it was Meg's jaw breaking. Luckily, however, it was the sound of her teeth crashing together. Both kids were screaming and then Tom found a little piece of porcelain on Meg's lip. Her teeth had snapped so hard together that the front part of her canine tooth broke off. Needless to say, after I calmed down and realized we weren't making a trip to the hospital that night, the tooth fairy paid us a visit while we were sleeping. As my dad says, "the price of porcelain is going up!" Even for half a tooth! Meg was so excited that the tooth fairy was coming that she forgot about the trauma and all was well.

The next day the kids and I were on our own and we did some exploring. We found a great park south of the city. It was enormous. There was a natural spring there that people swim in all year. You can see it behind Meg in the first picture. Meg also loved feeding the birds which were everywhere there. We played there for a long time and were all completely covered in dirt by the time we left. After picking up Tom that night we found a little Mexican restaurant to eat at before our trip home. Charlie was so exhausted from all of our excursions that he ended up screaming the entire meal and we had to take turns taking him outside. I had my first experience with a very rude person that night who was upset about Charlie's crying. An older lady cursed at us when we had first sat down and were trying to comfort Charlie. She later stomped out of the restaurant after we quickly took Charlie outside. I have never felt that feeling before and feel bad for those who have had more experiences like that. Why in the world would someone be so unsympathetic and mean?

Anyway, overall we had a great time and enjoyed seeing a new part of Texas.