A Boy and his Cat

Our little animal-lover. Poor cat never saw it coming.

Luke's Luscious Locks 5

Brought to you via trampoline and the deliciously dry Idahoan air. 

Why Idaho is the Best

Especially as a location for grandma's house.

Heavy machinery!

Beautiful weather!

Grilling and s'mores!

Swimming!

Rivers and the floating thereon!

Biking!

Cousins!

Bakisball with uncles!

Beautiful lighting!

(Not pictured: shooting! baseball! running around outside in a diaper!)

Stupid Bats

Two days ago the three of us drove up to Austin for a night in our capital city. Kenny, of course, had to work, so Luke and I decided to tag along and see what we could see of Texas' hippest city. 

And while Luke and I did have fun, and I can see the enjoyment I would have had had circumstances been different, the experience was a bit underwhelming and overall fairly stressful. Darn you, northwestern US, you ruin everything by comparison. 

Things I liked: 

1) the weather. Very mild, by Houston standards. Yes, hot, but not nearly as humid and with some nice breezes to keep it all manageable. 

2) How walkable it was. Again, compared to Houston. It is a bit more spread out than our other walkable faves (Seattle, Salt Lake, New Orleans), but had we not had a car (or had had somewhere to leave it) I think we may have actually enjoyed ourselves a little bit more. Also, although we did not venture out onto public transportation, there seemed to be plenty of normal people riding it (unlike Houston, where it's mostly crazies--and Ken, when he didn't want to drive during his clerkship).

3) The food. I didn't get to try as much as I wanted, pulling a grouchy, impatient toddler along, but what I did try was delicious (like the giant jalapeno and bacon covered donuts at Gordough's, pictured), and whet my appetite for another trip when we have more time to stand in a five-hour line for barbecue or hunt down all of the taco food trucks. 

4) Luke's new boots and cowboy hat: purchased at the famous Allen's Boots, Lukey loves them and I got the motherly satisfaction of seeing people stare and smile and make little "cute" comments as he was clomping along. Also, they slowed him down considerably, meaning he couldn't run away into the street as he normally tends to do. 

5) The capitol building: well worth a visit, and full of stereotypical Texan pride that I thought was hilarious. 

Now for the let-downs. There were several parts of the trip that should have been awesome but due to circumstances mostly out of my control fell flat. The first sight-seeing we tried to do was to see the bats fly out from underneath Congress Bridge at dusk on Tuesday night. So we took Luke (who had decided to skip his nap that day and was already past his bedtime) down to the bridge and stood around for an hour--and nothing happened. No bats. Apparently they just don't show every once in a while, and we happened to catch them on one of their shy nights. 

Us at the beginning of the hour. Did I mention that the bridge is also a busy street, so I had to hold Luke the entire time?

Which brings me to the second problem of the day: an uber-tired toddler. And I mean way, way past rational sanity. Walking around Soco (Southern Congress--the proudly weird part of Austin) and all of its antique stores filled with such enticing-looking untouchables was absolute torture for poor little Luke. We spent an average of about seventy seconds in each one (we only tried two) before Luke had to be carried thrashing and screaming outside. In my perfect plan for the day, I had hoped that he would fall asleep in the car on the way to the capitol building and transfer to the stroller like the good sleeper I pretend he is and allow me to wander the capitol building in relative ease and peace. Instead, he grew only sleepy enough to grant him a second wind just as we joined a free tour, and I spent the better part of an hour keeping him from shrieking and running underneath the partitions in the Senate Chambers. And it only got worse from there. 

Luke rolling around (on purpose!) on the floor of the Senate Chambers. How many parents can say their children have done that?

The next I hate to even mention, it being a terrible event irrespective of our sightseeing trip. The one thing I had planned that I knew Luke would enjoy was swimming at Barton Springs, a natural spring that's supposed to be pleasantly cool and a lot of fun. As we pulled up, firetrucks and ambulances pulled in, and we were informed that a child had drowned and they were looking for his body. I haven't seen anything about it on the internet or in the news, so hopefully the outcome was happier than expected, but it certainly cast a pall over the afternoon. Our prayers go out to his parents and family. 

If all of that wasn't enough, I realized as we were leaving that I had had my shirt on inside out the entire day. Stupid bats. 

Luke dressed himself yesterday.

Looking sharp and ready for anything.