Austin, Texas

We loved Austin. It’s such a vibrant city. One of the things that Clayton and I both agree that we don’t like about Akron is how dated and old school it is. Austin was a breath of fresh air with it’s cool culture, new businesses popping up everywhere, and overall forward thinking vibe.  



We stayed with our friends the Clements. We met Kennedy and Wyatt when Wyatt was interning with Goodyear a couple of summers ago. We were instant friends and spent most days that summer together. We’ve kept in touch, and when we found out Clayton was going to be attending a 1.5 day conference for work in Austin, we called them up and planned a whole week with them. It was awesome.

On one of the days we toured the state capital building. It’s a few feet taller than the U.S. capital building in D.C. You know what they say, everything’s bigger in Texas!


We also made it a priority to try as many of Austin’s most well known restaurants as we could. It. Was. Amazing. The BBQ and Tex-mex were to die for.


My favorite part was the bat bridge. Austin is home to one of the largest bat populations in the world. A ton of them live under one bridge downtown, and every night at dusk they all fly out in a giant swarm! The picture below is the best I could get of them (unfortunately), those teeny tiny specks are all the bats. I love bats, they’re so cool. 



We had a blast hanging out with friends. We loved their ward. I even met a twin mom in the mothers room when I was nursing one of the girls. Of course it was an instant bond (twin mama’s unite!). 


We spent a lot of time out and about, which was hard for Ruby and Cora. I still haven’t figured out how to be out of the house without having two mega cranky babies once nap time hits. They also had a really hard time sleeping in a new place. We tried several sleeping arrangements, and finally figured out that one slept best in the bathroom and one could co sleep with me. Clayton slept on the couch. Poor Clayton.
 When we got home they both slept so well, I think they were relieved to be back. Cora has been sleeping through the night, and Ruby only wakes up once! It’s wonderful. 


I think Ruby and Cora want to be Texans :) I’d move to Austin in a heartbeat. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First Day of Kindergarten

Image
Cora and Ruby were so excited for school to start today. They woke up extra early thing morning and came into my room with their uniforms already on. We made German pancakes for breakfast, during which Cora spilled some syrup on her shirt and had to change it, and rode bikes outside to burn off some extra energy.  I just dropped them off at the school! The high school football team was waiting outside the elementary school (the high school, middle school, and elementary school are all on the same campus and share a parking lot) and formed a human tunnel for the kids to run through while they shouted “welcome to school!” It was cute. Ruby and Cora both ran through went straight to class without a single tear or complaint. In fact they didn’t even turn around to wave goodbye 😢. Now it’s just Darcy and me at home all afternoon. 
Read more

To Kathy

Image
Last Tuesday we were having a Johnson family conference call when Scott told us that Kathy's health was really going downhill and that he thinks we need to be there soon. We booked flights that night and flew to Utah the next morning. We were picked up from the airport and drove straight to the hospital where Kathy had been for several weeks. We had been getting updates about her from the family ever since she was diagnosed with brain cancer last October, but there was always a disconnect since we live so far away. We were never there to watch the progression of her sickness, and we think the family may have been downplaying how severe her symptoms and complications were. When we came to her hospital room she was in a coma and was having a lot of difficulty breathing. She had contracted pneumonia and had been in a comatose state since Monday. The doctor's had her on the strongest antibiotics they had, but it was going to take 2-5 days for them to kick in. In the mean time ...
Read more

Reconstructed ACL

Image
When's the best time to get surgery? January! Because then you hit your deductible, and your health insurance will pay for the rest of the year of physical therapy appointments! Yay! Clayton tore his ACL playing basketball a couple months ago. After an MRI and a few visits with a specialist, he was told that he would need knee surgery. He was surprisingly cheery about it. The nurses at Cleveland Clinic really liked him, they said they wished that every patient was like him. After he was sanitized and hooked up, the nurse led me to the back to see him before the operation. As we were walking she asked me if Clayton is usually a chatty guy. I said yes, and she said that she thinks he's a little nervous because he is talking everyone's ear off. haha. Sure enough, I go sit down next to him, and he's cracking jokes and babbling about nothing the whole time. In fact, that hyper chattiness didn't die down until 3 days post op. Percocet reaction? Everything...
Read more