Austin: An Adventure in New Things

Last weekend I went down for Austin, TX for a long weekend.

I met up with my cousin Beth at the Austin airport, where her brother Andy picked us up. Andy is married to Laura and they have two absolutely adorable little kids, Matthew who is four, and Katie who is two. This was my first time meeting Katie since I haven't been down to Austin in three years and since we are never in Nebraska at the same time.

Thursday we just hung out at Andy and Laura's house. Beth is excellent about posting on Facebook, so she posted quite a few pictures, which makes it easy for me to include pictures from our trip! Including the one of Matthew and I working on a Spongebob puzzle. Matthew is hilarious. I would try to build the outside first, but every time I did that we would mess it up and tell me that we weren't working on that puzzle. Lol!

Maggie, our other cousin who we were in town to see came over for a little bit too. We ate breakfast tacos for dinner and just caught up.

Friday Maggie, Beth and I were all starving so we headed to Magnolia Cafe for breakfast. It was super delicious, but the best part was that we saw Adrian Grenier there! (He is Vince from Entourage) I was definitely totally star struck. Beth and Maggie wouldn't let me take a picture though! LAME.

After breakfast we headed over towards Maggie's place. She moved down to Austin in April. She lives right off of the river in an old but really cool house.

View from Maggie's porch of the river. Thank you iOS 6 for the panorama shot!

We went paddle boarding for a little bit over at Town Lake, which was a totally new experience for me and so much fun! I was a little shaky at first, but once I got the hang of it, it was awesome. And you had good incentive to not want to fall since there were a lot of plants in the water.

That afternoon we helped get the house ready for the party that night before heading out to Chuy's for dinner with Laura, Matthew and Katie. Katie was definitely not shy about seeing me the second time and ran right up and gave me a hug. Totally melted my heart.

Then it was time for the party! It was definitely the most epic party I have ever been to. Although who would expect anything less from Austin? There was a live band, which was awesome. It was pouring rain, but we borrowed a bunch of tarps from the truck company across the street so we could cover the yard for more room for more people. And thank goodness because there were SO many people and it was hot inside with all the dancing! To make the party even better, one of the roommates works with Cruzan rum and provided a bunch of rum and another friend had brought in like 10 cases of Indio beer (which apparently was only just introduced to the U.S. this summer, with Austin being one of 8 markets). There was also a photo booth! The list of awesome things just kept going. Epic times for sure.

Maggie had to work the next morning, so Beth and I hung out with Laura and the kids (Andy had to work unexpectedly) and went to swim lessons and lunch. Katie eats absolutely anything, and tried pho for the first time at lunch:

After lunch we hung out at Andy and Laura's and had some downtime. It was raining all day, so it made for good napping weather. Then we geared up to watch some of the Nebraska - Wisconsin game at a watch part before Maggie, Beth and I went out for the evening.

We went to Contigo for dinner and I tried a lot of new and interesting foods. Some beet appetizer, country pate, rabbit and dumplings, and an ox tongue slider. I technically ordered a hamburger (which was AMAZING with aged white cheddar!), but I tried everything else too.

Then we were off to the Sondre Lerche concert at Stubbs. It was initially supposed to start at like 9. Then there ended up being an outdoor show too and so we had to wait for that to end. It was such a cool venue. It was smaller, with and upstairs and a downstairs. We stood upstairs where you could look down on the stage. The opening band, Wild Cub, was awesome! Definitely my style of music. I will be looking into their album, which just came out on iTunes.

Beth has been a huge fan of Sondre Lerche for a while (I had never heard of him before). He is from Norway and he was really good!

After a great concert we had to do like the Austinians do and go to the food trucks!

The next morning we had brunch at Maggie's restaurant (delicious of course!) and then hung out at Andy and Laura's until Beth made dinner before I headed to the airport. She made us amazing chicken fettuccine alfredo with zucchini and tomatoes. Plus she made a Nebraska cake to celebrate their victory over Wisconsin (and just for fun!)

After dinner I headed to the airport and was off back to Denver. I had such a fantastic trip! It was so nice to see everyone. I hadn't seen Maggie since last Thanksgiving and Andy and Laura for three years! Austin is always such a fun place. But I did miss Dylan a lot (and my puppies!).

Austin made me realize a couple things too:
1) That I really am old at heart. All the activities were a blast, but I definitely prefer to be in bed by 11 on the weekends, lol.
2) That I do not like hipsters, lol. Mostly just guys with tight pants and the vintage boot shoes. (Seriously look up hipster boot shoes and it comes up). Definitely a no go.

Thanks again for a great trip Maggie, Beth, Andy, Laura, Matthew and Katie!