Road Trip

Brian doesn't get to travel much (I'm thankful for that, but he wishes there were more), and when he does it's never to anywhere cool.  Sorry, but it's true. Kansas, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nebraska.....need I go on? No offense to these places, it's just not somewhere I would jump to go with him on.  And previously I have been a working mom so it couldn't happen anyway!  A couple of weeks ago he went to Austin and a friend asked why we didn't join him. After a few moments of dumb-foundedness (if that's a word) I had no idea why we didn't join him!  Thankfully, he got to go again and for a day longer so we POUNCED on it!

Thursday we loaded up and hit the road to Austin, Texas. Ok so maybe it's not exactly a thrill seeking city, but it was close and I had two kids to keep entertained=) I can only hope that one day I will get to follow him to Hawaii!
We got to Austin around 4ish and got checked into the Radisson which was right on the river. We had a nice few from our room.  Brian had to do some preparation for a 6:00 meeting that night so the kids and I played around and ordered a pizza to eat once he left.

Pretty cute little dinner dates I had there! And yes, Joaquin got to partake of the pizza as well.  After we ate, we then had to entertain ourselves in the room until bedtime. We read books, played with babies, made a tent with the pack and play, jumped on the bed, and thankfully found a movie on TV because at this point we had only passed an hour of time!  NJ begged nonstop for her popcorn so we finally got it out for the movie.  She now thinks hotel is synonymous with popcorn and pizza (we did the same when we went to Sea World).  

By the time Brian got home at 9:15, Joaquin was out and Natalie was holding strong!  Unfortunately she was sharing a bed with us so she wasn't going down until we were=/  A king-size bed seems so big until she is sleeping with us.

The next morning we were up and ready to go by 7:30.  Not exactly my idea of a vacation day, but we had to drop Brian off at the UT campus by 8:30.  That meant killing an hour and a half of time before the Children's Museum that we were going to would open.  Again, not perfect planning but that's the way it goes when you are tag-alongs for a business trip!  

I was a little nervous navigating my way through a new town (and huge campus) with two kids in tow.  One of those kids being Chatty Cathy. Why did you do that, mom? Where are we going now?  Why did you turn around?  Are we here yet?  Did you find it yet?

Oh good heavens!

We hadn't eaten breakfast since we were rushing around to get Brian where he needed to be on time so we went looking for a donut shop. Natalie wanted a cinnamon roll.  Well, I couldn't easily find a shop that was somewhat in the vicinity of where we were trying to go so we opted for a McDonalds.  She got cinnamelts and there was a playground. We all win.

That child ate her entire meal plus half a sausage biscuit of my meal!  And then got mad when I ate half of Joaquin's biscuit.  I have literally never seen her eat so much.  This McDonalds had a neat play area for toddlers so it was perfect to let them play and kill the time we needed to kill. Thankfully there were also 3 other kids there to interact with in the play area.  They had a blast!

Off to the Thinkery we went!

This is quite possibly the coolest Children's Museum I have been to. I was very impressed!  Even Joaquin was able to participate in a lot of areas and it was set up where I could let them play in different areas yet still see them both. This was huge for me as I'm often left holding JZ so NJ can do something.  Just when I thought we discovered an area that he would be excluded from, BAM!, they had a squared off area for toddlers to play.

Natalie is painting on the glass wall over there while Joaquin is securely playing in the cubical just below and loving it!

My favorite part of this day was having NO time schedule. We had ALL day, and I do mean ALL day as we couldn't pick Brian up until 5:30. I let them both go at their own pace and didn't have to rush them through any of the areas. We definitely got our money's worth!

This captures one of the water play areas.  It was so cool! The drums you see in front of Joaquin were being "played" by drops of water from high above. There was a hydraulophone (sp?) where the kids could play songs (a song book was provided) and that was my favorite!  There was also an outside water area with toys and scoops, but I failed to get a good picture of that.

This little playground outside was a blast for both kids. Joaquin enjoyed the freedom of climbing and crawling on the ropes and was, of course, quite brave.  I was very proud of Natalie who climbed up much higher than I thought she would! There was a sand play area as well, but the kids didn't spend anytime there.

They get plenty of that at home, I guess!

The second floor had a Farmer's Market (Natalie's favorite) along with a closed in area for babies and toddlers. It was the neatest area. It had soft pillows, balls, mirrors, tunnels and everything safe for little ones to roam freely. Joaquin really enjoyed this area. I liked it because he was gated in one area and I didn't have to obsess over watching him or moving him from place to place to get out of others' way. 

He couldn't quite figure out this bubble at the end of the tunnel and why he couldn't touch me=)

There was a light play room with a huge Lite Brite board! It was awesome and Natalie really liked it. Joaquin slept through that whole room!  It also had light painting and colored light shadows.  

We spent 4 hours at the Museum before we gave in. We decided to go back to the car and get snacks and play outside since the weather was nice.  

I could tell they were both fading quickly (as was I) so after our playtime at the park we headed back to the car.  Natalie was out like a light within seconds of being strapped in her seat.  Joaquin followed quickly behind her.  At this point we still had an hour and a half to kill before needing to pick Brian up. I wanted them to stay asleep so going back to the hotel wasn't an option or they would have been woken up after about 20 minutes.  So, after driving back through campus to make sure I knew where I would be picking him up, I drove to a Whataburger, grabbed a shake and parked in the parking lot with the car running.  

Lucky for me I picked up on someone's WiFi for free so it gave me something to do to pass the time!  45 minutes passed and all was going well.  That is until I closed the visor mirror and it made a loud POP!  Natalie immediately stirred and started crying followed quickly by JZ who started wailing. Crap.

We still needed to kill 30 minutes and now they were angry. I was rethinking my "don't go to the hotel" decision.  

They needed more milk so we drove to a gas station to get some where NJ continued to wail that her heel was hurting and she couldn't wear her shoes. Drama. I forced her to walk because I couldn't carry them both, pay for the milk and carry back to the car. I refreshed their cups of milk to which neither wanted any part of. Sheesh.

Off to campus we ventured to find a parking spot and I was doing my deep breathing methods to stay calm.  The Lord was good to me in giving us a parking spot just down from where we dropped Brian off that morning.  10 minutes to go.  I paid for an hour of parking thinking what a waste! Yeah you see where this is going........

I let Nat get out of her carseat to keep the whining to a minimum but decided to keep JZ locked and loaded so as not to anger him when we had to put him right back in when Brian showed up.  If only I had known.....

If only I had known he wouldn't come out until 6:20.  Yes, we sat in that stupid car for another hour folks.  In that hour they were relatively good, but Nat informed me she had to potty. Really potty.

Fantastic.

I have no idea where the nearest bathroom is, nor did I know if we even had time to make it there. I grabbed a pull-up (so glad I had tossed that little gem in) and told her to let loose=)

Brian gets in the car and says, "Yuck who is stinky?" Don't even test me, man. We've been in this car for 2 hours!

Aside from that part of our day we had a really wonderful time getting to travel with Brian on his trip.  I'm thankful we got to be with him and do something new.