The Four Blevins : Spring Break Mini Vacation

I waited too long to book anything for Spring Break, so we decided to do a mini vacation and see some sights within driving distance from home. I chose Austin because there's lots to do. (I had no idea that the giant music festival was here this week... Super.). We left Granbury, but not before this happened-

Hudson left his bike out in the driveway RIGHT in front of the garage door. I had backed my car in the day before to unload groceries so I was facing out. I opened the door and the bike was so close to the front of my car, that I couldn't see it. If I was parked the other way, it would've shown up in my back-up camera... no harm though- Brian pulled it right out. I was quite perturbed for a bit- Brian told me that he asked Hudson to move it a couple of times already. Ugh.
We arrived at our hotel last night about 11:00. I think everybody slept pretty hard. Here are the boys this morning about 8:30.

A funny story from this morning... after the boys got out of bed, we were getting ready to go and they were playing. I tried to explain hotel etiquette and that we need to be considerate of others if they were still sleeping, etc. They were throwing their stuffed bears around and after repeatedly asking them to stop, I took the bears away. After a few minutes, Hudson asked "When can we have our animals back?" Still perturbed, I told him that I didn't know. He said "But a mother always knows!" I couldn't help but laugh - where the heck did he hear that?

We got in the car for our short drive into Austin. (I chose a hotel a few minutes out of Austin for 2 reasons - 1. downtown was unbelievably pricey and 2. Brian hates "the big city"and by big city, I mean any city that has any sort of traffic or multitudes of people. Come to find out, the SXSW music festival was in Austin this week, so there was even more people than usual and a good explanation for why downtown was SO expensive). Anyway, we got there about 10:00, so it wasn't bad at all yet. Our first activity of the day - a duck boat tour! As we boarded our amphibious vehicle for our duck boat tour, our driver and guide, Captain Jim, gave each of us a duck call type thing in the shape of a duck bill.

We drove around Austin for about 20 minutes and then headed towards the lake. Reed had figured out that we were going in the water, but I think Hudson had no idea. We drove off into the water, made a fun splash and both boys had huge smiles. We tootled around on the lake for about 20 minutes. It was a little cooler out on the water - I'm glad we brought jackets!

The tour was pretty interesting and informative. Lots of info about Austin and Texas history. A fun little tidbit - Captain Jim was talking about the handful of celebrities that live in or near Austin. His wife is a teacher and she actually had Matthew McConaughey's son in her class and had a parent/teacher conference with him. :)
After the duck boat tour, we were all pretty hungry. We stopped at a pizzeria... a pretty fancy pizzeria. The boys and I shared a 4 cheese pizza. It was ricotta, mozzarella and I can't remember the other two. I thought it was good, but they both said it tasted funny and didn't eat much.What can I say? They have cheap taste. After our lunch, we headed to the capital building. Here I am with the boys - Hudson was still clutching his duck bill pretty tightly.

We only stayed in the capital about 30-45 minutes. We probably should have taken a tour, but we decided to do a self-guided one instead. I think Hudson would've given out on us for sure if we'd have stayed any longer. Here the boys are on our way out, sitting on a cannon...

We started the walk back to the car and you could tell that it was way more crowded than it had been that morning. There were a LOT more people and we were fairly close to the Convention Center and all the SXSW stuff. I had planned on us going on an evening boat cruise to see the bats fly out from under the bridge, but after seeing how many people there were at 2:30, who knows what 8:00 would have been like. We decided to forgo the bat thing and figure out something else to do for the evening. Brian made a few comments about how he was fine that we were leaving the city, he dislikes one way streets with a passion and he didn't care if we came back to Austin. Ever. He cracks me up.
We decided to come back to the room and rest. I tried to sleep (Reed and I took a Dramamine for the duck boat tour and it made me pretty tired), but both boys were just too loud. I told them to throw on their swimsuits and that we would try out the hotel pool. It was and outdoor pool and by the time we got out there, it was all in the shade and a little chilly. They headed for the hot tub and it wasn't even warm. I let the play around for about 20 minutes. Hudson's little chin was shivering a mile a minute, so we came back up to the room to shower and change for dinner.

We ate at Pei Wei (yummy!!!) and the went over to Austin's Park. They have all sorts of things - mini golf, go-karts, climbing walls, bumper boats, an arcade, etc. We decided to do the mini golf. Reed was pretty good at it. Me? Well, I remember being MUCH better. Brian of course was pretty good and Hudson... oh dear. That child is a spaz. Brian was very patient (as always) and showed him how to hold the putter, how to swing, etc. Here he is showing the boys how it's done. :)