4th of July in Austin

When we found out we were being transferred back to Australia 9 months early, we made the slightly insane decision to cram 9 months of trips, shopping and visits into 9 weeks. Oh yes, we did. Now we didn't actually celebrate Thanksgiving early or anything crazy like that, but we did Carpe Diem and did some travel.

Rich had an awesome 4-day weekend for 4th of July (man we loved those 9-day fortnight work schedules) so we decided what better way to celebrate our Nation's birthday than be visiting the State Capitol. So we were off to Austin.

First stop was the Capitol building. And yes, its true, everything IS bigger in Texas, including the Capitol building. It is the largest State Capitol building of all 50 States, and is actually bigger than the Capitol building in D.C. They don't mess around in Texas! It was really gorgeous. Not just the building, but the grounds as well. The kids had fun climbing around on the old cannons that are on display around the building and it was just a really beautiful place.

The main Rotunda had this huge emblem on the floor, and right as we came into the Rotunda area the tourist groups moved on and we had the whole room to ourselves. So we made the kids sit down for some photos.

We spent the morning of the 4th of July with an old CA colleague of Rich's who actually lives in Austin. We met for breakfast in the more eclectic part of town (then again, a lot of downtown Austin is pretty eclectic) and then they took us to the main park, Zilker Park. The kids had a great time playing on the playgrounds, and we even took the train ride that runs through the park.

We were told that "Hill Country" was something we needed to see if we were in Austin, so after lunch we took a drive. What an amazing beautiful place. We were in the mood for BBQ and had also been told that we couldn't pass up Salt Lick BBQ if we were in the area, so we thought we'd "beat the crowd" and go early. We still had to wait, and the kids had a great time just hanging around in the shade of the trees, sipping homemade lemonade and chilling out. The food was great and we had a good time.

The above photo is the kids fooling around by the vineyards of the restaurant just before we loaded them in the car to drive back home.

We knew we wouldn't make it down to Zilker Park for the fireworks, so instead we went to a University that was only 2 miles from our hotel and sat on a hillside with about 200 other people and watched the fireworks from a distance. The kids were troopers, as they were tired by the time it feel dark at 8:45, but they knew it meant a lot to Mommy to see the fireworks, so they didn't complain too much.

When we woke up on the 5th we were all a bit anxious to get back home. I think Rich and I knew that there was so much on our to-do list for the move that we just wanted to get started. I had seen photos of the huge Texas Star outside the State History Museum, so my one birthday wish was to get my photo in front of it. So we stopped by for some photos, went into the gift shop and bought a few Texas souveniers and were soon on our way.