On November 20, we headed to Texas! Brian was in New Orleans at a work conference (we won't discuss our three days without him; it wasn't so pretty), so I flew with the two kids all by myself. He met us in Austin that night. I had been worrying about the flight sans Brian for months, so I decided to make quiet books for the flight. I finally finished them Wednesday night around midnight, and then stayed up until almost three getting everything else ready. I said lots and lots of prayers that things would go smoothly and that I wouldn't be able to tell how little sleep I had gotten the night before. I do NOT do well on little sleep. Prayer works. We had a great flight without any trouble and without any tears. And, the flights were empty enough that Rachel could sit in her own seat, which was a HUGE blessing. And she charmed everyone on the plane, including a very helpful flight attendant.
We arrived in Austin around 6 pm and Ben picked us up from the airport. When we made it to their new house in Austin, Jenny had dinner and ginormous Texas sugar cookies waiting for us. It was awesome!
Brian's flight from New Orleans got delayed an hour, and they lost his bag, but eventually Brian made it to the other Saville's and we began our marvelous time in Texas!
Day 1: The Thinkery in Downtown Austin--It was awesome and we all got in free thanks to the passport program with other museums that we are members of!
Tyler made and obstacle course:
Day 2: We got a sitter and went on a double date! We went to see the new Hunger Games movie, got dinner, tried falafal:
Guessed the movie quote at the ice cream shop:
And then went home, put kids in bed, and did we play games that night? I don't remember. But it was a blast!
Day 3: Church:
And enjoying the AMAZING weather:
Rachel couldn't get enough of the slide:
Day 4: A lazy morning
And then we headed to Pfluggerville to see Adam, Sarah, Eliza, and their new arrival James. We ordered tacos from Torchy's Tacos (I wish they had one here!). We decided this is the only way a democrat would be so welcome at their table ;)
And I got to hold a new baby! Two weeks old:
And it was wonderful seeing our good friends again.
Day 5: We went out for a little morning walk and discovered a tree house!
And then we had lunch and went on a duck tour of Austin. It was awesome!
When we remember, we try to go see the capitol buildings in the state capitols we visit. It was nice that we got to drive right by this one:
It was fun to drive into the lake. It was amazing!
After the tour, we went to this park to ride the train.
We tried to grab dinner at a Food Truck court, but apparently not many trucks are open for business on Tuesdays. We had some good old Texas BBQ instead. Did I mention how good the food was in Austin? We ate out a TON because Austin is famous for all their good eats. We went home and had a dance party for Tucker's birthday. The kids loved it!
Day 6: Since Tucker's birthday ended up being so crazy, we celebrated some more on Wednesday:
Brian and I ran some errands for Thanksgiving dinner, we had ice cream cake, and I took Ben and Jenny's family pictures, and then we enjoyed some more warm weather. Rachel is obsessed with the moon:
And the kids finished up their place setting for Thanksgiving's dinner:
We made preparations for the big feast. Here's Jenny making her Grandma's famous jello salad.
Brian got to help, but they fired me because I wasn't careful enough with the jello squares.
Brian and I made our peanut butter pie--and broke the hand mixer. Yeah, we're awesome guests.
Day 7: Thanksgiving! Jenny is a holiday master. She had so many fun crafty things for the kids to do. I thought I was pretty good with things like that, but Jenny blew me out of the water! Here's the pumpkin turkey:
And the gum drop-pineapple turkey:
After the turkey's were all done, we went for a walk to show Ben and Brian the tree house we had discovered.
And played in the little park area:
Then we went back to the house and played some more outside:
And we made the rest of Thanksgiving dinner. We picked up the turkey from a BBQ place, so it was pretty low key. Finally, it was time to eat:
That evening, we headed to Marble Falls to see their walking light tour. It was amazing!
And we saw Santa:
It was a later night, and Rachel fell asleep on the way home. Apparently so did all the boys in Ben's car--well, except for Ben. He was driving.
Day 8: We packed up first thing so it was out of the way. We had a couple of helpers:
We squeezed in as much sunshine as we could:
Rachel loved Ben and Jenny's backyard. She learned how to say Buckle because of this swing right here.
We grabbed more Torchy's Tacos on the way to the airport, and then all too soon, we said our goodbyes to Ben and Jenny. We had a fantastic time and wished that they were closer. The first leg of the flight was basically empty. We took up two rows.
Our flight left Austin at 8 p.m. Michael colored for a little bit and the decided to curl up and go to sleep. We thought Rachel would fall right asleep too. Nope. We wrestled with her for half that first flight before she finally conked out. But once she did, she was out. We had a stop in Vegas, but the flight from Vegas to Salt Lake was completely booked, so Rachel had to sit on my lap. But she was so out that it was no problem moving her to my lap and making the short flight from Vegas to Salt Lake. We landed just before midnight, so by the time we got our bags and Ethan drove us home, it was about 1 a.m. Rachel went back down and slept until almost 11 the next morning.
And we were so happy to come back to our house all decorated for Christmas. And we have a new friend to remind us about our Austin Thanksgiving for all the years to come:
Thanks, Ben and Jenny for a wonderful Thanksgiving!
