Vacationing in Galveston, day 2

On our second day on the coast we drove over to Kemah to go to the boardwalk before we headed home. We actually got there before it opened, you would think with the heat and humidity that they would open earlier. While we waited we watched the boats for a little while.

Finally the rides opened and there was no holding Fiona back from getting on those rides. Her daddy rode with her since Im pregnant and couldn’t (whoops!). He was a good sport and folded himself into those tiny rides. Fiona’s favorite was the planes, she asked over and over to go on the planes.

Pilot Fiona

Baby and Pink of course came along for the adventure.

She also rode on the hot air balloon ride, I’m impressed that Mark managed to get himself into the balloon.

She also rode the train and the carouse. Finally we packed up a very worn out Fiona and headed home. It was a great vacation! Fiona still talks about it, and whenever she sees the photos she gets all excited and talks about collecting shells and riding on the planes.

Vacationing in Galveston

We decided to take a vacation while it was still just the 3 of us. One last vacation with just one child. So we packed up and headed to the coast. We arrived in Galveston in the mid afternoon and checked out the hotel pool before trekking out to find dinner.

The next morning we were up bright and early and headed to the beach.

We all went for a swim and had a great time playing in the fabulously warm gulf water. Fiona got some water in her eyes and needed cuddles from daddy to make her feel better.

After getting tired of getting salt water in her eyes Fiona decided to stick to the shore and busied herself with digging and building sand castles.

Her favorite activity by far was shell hunting. We brought home a small collection of her shells.

After a morning at the beach we wandered the Strand (the downtown shopping area of Glaveston) in search of lunch. We also found a chocolate shop. There were so many tasty options that Fiona couldn’t decided, but she enjoying looking! In the end we opted for my favorite; chocolate covered honey comb. Fiona loved it, the kid has good taste!

After a very busy morning we headed back to the hotel for nap and story time.

In the afternoon we went to Moody Aquariums and Fiona had a blast running around looking at penguins and sharks (which were her two favorite exhibits).

All that and we are still on day 1! Luckily we were only there for 2 days We had a lot of fun in Galveston and we look forward to going back and spending a little more time there.

Food trucks, wine tasting and BBQ

The first night the Toole’s arrived in Texas we introduced them to typical Austin dining; food trucks! We went to our favorite food truck park, it has a little something for everyone; the Vegan Yacht (tasty vegan food), Pig Vicious (a pork truck) a cheese steak truck, a southern comfort food truck, and a British food truck among others. I enjoyed the vegan fare, while everyone else sampled the other trucks. The bacon wrapped fried pickles from Pig Vicious were a hit.

While the Toole’s were in Texas we decided to head out to hill country and check out a vineyard and some BBQ (you can’t come to Texas and not eat BBQ).

We found a great little vineyard; Becker Vineyards. The wine was tasty and the grounds were beautiful.

After enjoying some adult beverages we explored the grounds, and Fiona pointed out the lavender fields to Aidan.

We worked up an appetite exploring hill country so we headed out to the Salt Lick, tasty, and famous BBQ.

While the adults partook in more adult beverages at the on site wine tasting room the kiddos wandered around and played. How cute are these two holding hands??

It was a lot of fun having the Toole’s visit, and we look forward to them coming out again!

Downtown Austin

Months ago friends of ours visited Austin (there will be photos of them in the next post), and we decided to play tourist for the day and in the morning we headed downtown to the Pecan Festival. There was a lot of booths and we wandered, shopped and enjoyed the day. Fiona had her first bite of alligator and seemed to like it. Before we left we checked out the petting zoo area.

Fiona had a lot of fun feeding the deer, goats and cows.

In the afternoon we went to the capitol building, it was my first time inside. Its an impressive building and fabulously air conditioned. After we cooled off, we wandered around So Co for awhile and then found a nice cool place for dinner.

We were mostly killing time for the bats to come out. It was still early in the season so there weren’t as many bats as there are now, but there was still thousands of bats. We all laid back and watched the bats wake up and fly out from the South Congress bridge on their way out to hunt

The kids loved the bats (and truth be told the grown-ups thought they were pretty cool too). It was a fun day to experience downtown Austin and to explore.

Next up will be wine tasting and BBQ with the Toole’s.

Baking her daddy a cake

Opps, its been a month since I’ve posted. I’ve been really busy finishing up non work related projects the last month and haven’t had a chance to update my blog. I have done some photo editing, so hopefully I will be sharing some photos over the next few days. Because suddenly I find my self in the hospital on bed rest as I inch toward the end of another pregnancy (hence the lots of no work related projects, things like organizing closets and getting baby stuff prepared).

The day that I ended up in the hospital was my husbands birthday. Our daughter decided he needed a cake. We were playing when she announced “Don’t worry daddy, I make you a cake”. So that’s what we did, we headed downstairs and I helped her bake her daddy a birthday cake. I prepared the ingredients and she added them, and helped mix.She was very proud of herself and thought it was alot of fun.

The cake went into the oven and she sat on the floor watching the cake bake. She ran and got her daddy to show him that his cake was baking.

Once the cake cooled (I even put it in the fridge to speed the process up), it was time to frost and decorate. I frosted and let Fiona go crazy with the decorations (I only helped when she poured all the sprinkles in one spot and I shook the cake a bit to even out the sprinkles).

There might have been some taste testing involved in the decorating of the cake… or a lot of taste testing.

She was really proud of her cake, and when she was done she ran to the bottom of the stairs and yelled up to her daddy that his cake was ready. She dragged him to the kitchen talking nonstop about the cake. You can see from the look on her daddy’s face that he loved his cake, and the little baker who made it for him.

We lit a candle and sang him happy birthday, and then Fiona asked if she could eat some cake, well her words were “Cake on my tongue? In my mouth?” She thought her cake tasted just as good as it looked!

Happy birthday Mark!