Trip to Austin Texas

Well more than a month late, but still important to document...
May 13 - May 20, 2014

We took a family vacation to Texas!  First time for all 3 of us to visit Texas.  And a good time - school just ended for the summer, not too hot, and just generally needing a trip to see friends and family and sleep in (haha ya right with that little boy!)

First airplane ride for Tyson!  (he did eventually sleep on plane 2 after tylenol, see below tired picture)

First up we flew to Austin, TX and stayed with Lexie and her household of Hogges - 5 kids, Rob and her. And they still had lots of room for us and lots of fun planned.  My bestie below.

Dinner @ Rudy's BAR-B-Q.  Really great BBQ! (even though they decided to put a worlds worst BBQ sign to be funny)

We visited the future Hogge home, coming August 2014.  So big and what a dream.  Seriously something to dream about for the next 20 years for this Clark fam.

We saw Rob's dental practice - very fun to see the end results.  And he even checked my retainer out, proudly wearing for 15 years!  This means, I need a new one :)

We also ate at Torchy's Taco's.  Good food.  Can you tell Texas is known for it's food?

And we packed it in that day - we also saw one of the famous bridges in Austin that is home to millions of bats!  All Spring/Summer at dusk they come out, section by section, of the bridge, and I guess hunt and go home in the morning.  It takes an hour for them all to fly out!  And watch out, if you're too close they will pee on you, yep it may have happened.

The next day we went to the Austin Park with a nice walk and gorgeous view.  I didn't know Texas was so green!  And so filled with trees!  I imagined walking/driving and seeing for miles but nope, it feels a little more East like with the trees and windy roads.

And had our first try at a food truck with Gourdy's Donuts!  They were the largest I've seen, and I ate mine all, no regrets.

Poor Tyson got sick - we weren't sure if he was car sick until later when I got it too.

By Friday Tyson was doing better, I was not doing so well but we still went boating on Austin Lake! How gorgeous.  It was too cold to get out of the boat, and plus I was slowly dying and we had baby Tyson with us so we didn't feel like doing the impossible.  David and Rob caught a fish that was floating around.  And Lexie and I saw Matt McConehey's home!  We also had dinner on the boat, picked it up curbside from a nice restaurant on the water.  Tyson clung to us most of the ride, but towards the end was more comfortable walking around the boat and watching the bigger kids.

 The girls

 The boys

Umm yeah they caught that, kinda floating...

Saturday morning was like death for me.  Apparently I had what Tyson had earlier now.  Although to top it off I also had mastitis!  So stomach sick and death from mastitis.  We were supposed to get up early and drive to our next destination, Dallas, but it didn't happen.  I was basically stuck in bed in teh "death room" while David and Lexie took care of me and Tyson.  Seriously not a fun way to spend time on vacation, but I was glad it was them so I wasn't too embarrassed.  Only problem was now we knew it was contagious.  Dang!  Sorry for everyone that got it after us :(  We didn't stay to take care of anyone, Sunday we did head out.

If we weren't out and about, we were home just chillin with the kiddos. Tyson was skeptical but really warmed up to Roxy and Raylee.

He learned A TON from Raylee - full crawl, got his first top tooth (and second right after), first throw up (not sure he learned that from her haha), and soon after we left could pull up to standing.  WOW!

 

And he was just smitten by Roxy, ya know, the older woman - that's how we roll in this family ;).  But she had the cutest way of saying his name and he'd just smile and follow her everywhere by the last day or so.

We had a BLAST.  Those Hogges are the best hosts.  Even with the sicknesses, for the most part, it was a smooth vacation!  I know why I wish I lived closer to them.  It would be too much fun if we were neighbors.  We'll just keep dreaming.