Austin Trip

The day after Halloween I took off one my only solo trip of the decade year to Austin, baby! I discovered in the last year or so that I really like going to concerts. I had only been to one non-school concert in my teenage years to see a pre-Fergie Black-Eyed Peas who opened for Lit who opened for No Doubt. It was a huge amphitheater in St. Louis and I was with some friends and a guy who I couldn't decided if I liked or liked. It was a lack luster experience, also because we were way in the back and had no one sitting around us. Kinda took away from the atmosphere of it all.

Anyway, I've been to Lindsey Stirling and Imagine Dragons concerts now and I LOVEDLOVEDLOVED them. One of my other favorite groups is Paramore but they weren't coming anywhere near Phoenix any time soon. However, they were in Austin the first of November. And then plane tickets were a good price. The universe was practically begging me to go. So once the Seveys said if the universe was okay with it they were okay with it (and I completely strong-armed Nicole into agreeing to go to the concert with me), everything was all set.

First thing, flying alone is booooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring. Wow. So boring. Unless I have a black hole in my brain, this trip was my first flying by myself since Hazel was born. So at least 6 years or so. And it was weird. I did get to go through the TSA pre-check thing for the first time, though I still had to take my awesome boots off due to the large amount of bling on them but oh well. (By the way, if I find out later that the whole thing is a way to just track our DNA or something all X-Files style...oooo....I'm gonna be mad. Back to reality...)

 The concert was the first night so we just hung out and I think I fell asleep on the couch for a while and then we were off! Getting there was no big deal, though I wasn't driving so you might want to direct any questions about the drive to Nicole. Then we ended up on this tram to get to the main concert area. Turns out the concert was at a raceway so there was a lot of empty area and bleachers and then the concert was just kinda in the middle of stuff. It was weird but fun. I can't really speak for Nicole here but I LOVED this concert. Paramore was really fun live and I really like their songs. I was a super-duper nerd and screamed along with all of the songs I knew at the top of my lungs. I think Nicole enjoyed it though she did mention it probably would've been more fun if she knew some of the songs better. As I expected, most of my pictures came out really blurry but I've decided that good or bad, pictures means memories so I'm gonna take them anyway.

 On the tram

 I'm still really bad at selfies but I made Nicole look good! 

Clip from Decode

Clip from Still Into You

 The next morning we dropped Noah off at his friends house and went to go see Ender's Game. Again, LOVED it. And really glad Alex insisted we see it in IMAX. I would really suggest reading the book before you see the movie (okay, I'd suggest reading the book regardless of what you do with the movie - it's awesome) but I thought they did a good job of following the main story and not changing unnecessary things. And Harrison Ford was the perfect guy to play Col. Graff. Just perfect. 

Yes, I was that dork who made everyone take pictures in front of the movie poster afterwards. :)

After retrieving Noah, we were off to Rudy's for oh so much BBQ goodness. I love that place. We spent the rest of the day just relaxing and playing board games. Alex kept beating me by just one point. Sigh.

The next day we had some fun at church. I got to go to nursery with Nicole for her last day (she got released and given another calling that day). It was kinda funny because I went in with her and started helping with the crying kids (yes, I was missing my own munchkins pretty bad at that point) and then she got called out to talk to a member of the bishopric. So when the rest of the nursery people came in, no Nicole and just this weird lady with pink hair holding two crying kids who didn't belong to her. Sometimes confusing people is fun. :)

More games that night plus trying to stomach of YouTube music awards long enough to see Lindsey Stirling perform and if she won the award she was nominated for. We managed to see her win (hooray!!) but we had to go look at her performance later. Wow, that was a weird....thing YouTube was doing. But it was fun that she won because I love her stuff especially the song she won for (the cover of Radioactive with Pentatonix).
We got to have a nice relaxing morning with a little shopping (including presents for my kids - I'm such a softie these days) and then lunch at Taco Loco. Super yum. Then a nice quick flight back and a nice long drive home from the airport (my flight landed at 5pm - whoops) and it was back to life as usual.
Overall, completely awesome trip. Loved every second of it. I loved having time with the Seveys and especially loved getting to focus on Noah a bit. Usually when we're together I have my own kids so they are a bit distracting (to say the least) so it was a fun change of pace to be able to just play what Noah wanted to play and (try) to have conversations with him. The kid is hilarious. Love him to pieces.

So thank you, the Seveys and the city of Austin, for a wonderful time.

He fell asleep on the couch on Nicole's lap one day and she didn't want the light to bother him but knew he'd wake up if she moved him...so he got his own mini-fort. :)