A-Tex!

Well, this past weekend, we felt we were overdue for our day/weekend trip to Austin, TX, my husband's hometown and the town we lived in for a year, and the town Jackson was born in!  Needless to say, Austin has lots of great memories for us and we always love visiting except that we always have a stronger desire to move back down there after one of these trips!!

We made this trip just a day trip.  I wanted to stop by IKEA on our way into town and after I grabbed a few things I "needed" we made our way to the Hula Hut- our VERY favorite restaurant in the entire world!  If you haven't been, you need to go!  It's a blend of Mexican, Polynesian food, which is SO yummy!  They especially need your patronage right now because most of their outside dining area (which is about half of their seating) was damaged in a fire caused by errant fireworks on New Year's Eve!  They are still open, though, so by all means, go!  I recommend the Huli Huli pupu platter (but only if you are really hungry or have lots of people to feed, or have huge appetites like us Blackwells or the Hawaiian fajitas...soooo yummy.

After getting our fill on deliciousness, we ran a couple more errands and then headed to Zilker Park.  For those of you who have never heard of it, it's kind of like Central Park in NYC, but not as big.  The cool thing about it for us, is that my husband has lots of memories playing there and fishing there when he was little.  It's so fun to take our kiddos there now!  And because pictures are always better at getting such a point across, here are some from our busy Saturday!

This old firetruck is the only thing that remains from the original playground when my husband was little.

The play area has big xylophones that the kids love playing music on.

The Zilker Zephyr!  A train ride must be had everytime you go. 

We had to wait 15 minutes before the train took off, so Jackson had fun chasing pigeons.

checking out the vantage point from a few different seats.

The Little Bitty taking his turn to check it out.

Despite the face, he really was enjoying it.

Pointing to a puppy he sees on the running trail that runs next to a portion of the track.

A view of downtown Austin.  So pretty.  It's changed so much in the last 5 years.  Lots of big skyscraper buildings added to the mix.

An open portion of Zilker park.  Lots of people were playing frisbee and taking their dogs out.

Barton Springs.  SO cool.  A natural pool sourced exclusively by natural springs.  The water is so clear and fresh!  Yes, it was early January and people are swimming--it was 80 degrees in Austin that day.  Just the next day, it was 40 degrees cooler. That's weather in TX...

More of the Springs swimming area.

Ending the day with a red snowcone.

The Little Bitty even got some too!