Monday, May 11, 2009

Our Weekend in Austin

We went to Austin, Texas this weekend to visit my Aunt and Uncle and we had so much fun.  Earlier this week I had been working on some quilt squares for a Relief Society project and Violet thought the bucket of fabric scraps were really cool, so this picture is a reminder to me as to why I don't sew!
Roger and Erin took us on a driving tour of Austin, the hills around Austin are beautiful and there are some gorgeous homes at the top of this hill.  Austin is a very beautiful city.
We went to Mt Bonnell, and walked up some steps to see a beautiful view, this sign gives some of the history of the area and how it was settled.  A small group of Mormon pioneers settled here but they were never very successful in the area (probably because they had been asked by Brigham Young to continue on to Utah and they said no).

The View from Mt. Bonnell.  This is the Little Colorado, it was so beautiful up there.  The river is dammed up in this area so people can boat and ski on it.  It was such a beautiful day I wanted to dive right in!

More of the river
One of the biggest Cacti I have seen in person.

The other side of the view.  

It's a pretty easy trek up the hill, If I can do it 6 months pregnant and Peter can do it with a toddler on his shoulders, just about anyone can make it there.  I'm really glad we did, the view was amazing.

The stairs up the hill.  I love the trees in Austin, they are so interesting and I loved this tunnel of trees.
We had dinner at this great restaurant called Hula Hut.  It was so yummy!  We had tons of leftovers, which we added to a delicious dinner of fajitas and salsa the next day.  After dinner we stopped at a park so the kids could play for a while.  Sam and Violet had so much fun and got along really well.

At the park they have a few pools that are fed by a natural spring, this one use to be open for swimming but they discovered an endangered creature that had taken up residence there and so they closed it to swimmers.

This is the big pool that is fed by a natural spring.  I wanted to go swimming so badly, it looks like a great pool.  A little chilly to play in.  It is a natural 68 degrees all the time.... brrr!  But it would be perfect to swim laps in.

After the park we went to a bridge in downtown Austin to watch the bats come out.  The bridge was packed with people and there was quite a crowd where we were  down by the water.  I couldn't get any good pictures of the bats, but it was so cool.  When they start taking off as a group it looks like a huge cloud of black smoke.  Definitely something I've never seen before, it was a lot of fun.
Sam watching the bats.

Roger has built a small pond with a water fall in their yard and some water lilies began to bloom while we were there.  They are so beautiful.

Violet and Sam posing for a picture.  I think this describes their personalities pretty well,  just a pair of really silly girls.  I have another shot that didn't turn out too well where they are both making really funny faces but it is so blurred.

Roger, Sam, Erin, Alex and Jack the fat cat.  Violet really loved to chase Jack around but I think he survived the weekend intact

I caught Ben up on the computer, it's his favorite place to be.  It was such a fun trip and I'm really glad that I got to see my cousins.  Ben and Alex were more than 10 years younger the last time I saw them and Alex didn't even know who I was.  Now that I am in Texas I hope we can see each other more often.

This picture is for my Mom.  She loves grapefruit too.  Mom, when you come to Texas we'll have some Texas grapefruits like this one, it was so red and Juicy I could have poured myself a cup of juice and I didn't even need sugar it was so sweet!  Oh and they sell these in bulk at the grocery store, all year round :)  are you jealous?

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