Spring Break

Chris had the week off for Spring Break along with the kiddos. I kind of wanted to go camping, but there was rain in the forecast the whole week. We decided we'd take some day trips instead. Kaylee had the privilege of bringing Gus the Gator home for the week, so he joined us on our adventures.

As always, SXSW was happening during Spring Break. In the past we've attended some of the family shows but decided not to this year. Counting Crows was playing a free show that Friday, but we thought it might not be kid friendly. We did attend a part of SXSW called Screenburn. It was a big video game conference. They had maps that told us which booths were good for kids and which booths we should steer clear of. Landon is now obsessed with a website called Gamestar Mechanic where you can design your own video games.

At one of the booths you could draw a character, take a picture of it and upload it to their site. Then your character could battle other characters. They wouldn't let Kaylee's character battle because it was too strong and was going to crash their site, hahaha! Landon's character was cute.  It wasn't very strong, but he chose to battle with another character that wasn't too strong either. They ended up tying.

Ainsley and Chris enjoyed lounging on a giant bean bag while Landon and Kaylee played in a Lego pit. Gus got into some trouble. And, what would a trip to Austin be without visiting our favorite candy shop?

While looking for some sort of naturey thing to do, I came across a website that boasted gas saving getaways in the Austin area. We decided to try out one of the featured parks. There was a Geocaching series that we were going to attempt to complete on our hike, but things went downhill from the beginning. Poor Chris was reaching for the first find of the day and came up covered in ant bites. Fire ants are the absolute worst! We ended up scrapping the Geocaching idea after we discovered a few seemed to be missing, but we still enjoyed our hike. The kids had fun checking out a bird watching kit from the nature center and using binoculars to search for birds and other critters. We had planned to hike down to the Colorado River, but as we got closer the trail became incredibly muddy (it had been raining the day before). We ended up turning around much to our kiddo's disappointment, but turning around ended up being a good thing because by the time we made it back to the car they were all dragging their feet.

 
On the way home we had to stop by this random giant squirrel and take a picture.

The weather here has been pretty nice lately. I can tell the tremendous heat is just around the corner, but being outside is enjoyable right now. It's made me want to get out of the house and garden. I had heard of a garden center in Austin that sounded like a fun place to visit, so we decided to check it out towards the end of the week. They had tons of plants for purchase, tons of sample gardens, swings for the kids to play on, chickens, donkeys, a rock labyrinth, and a butterfly garden.   

Once we were finished playing at the garden center, we went to Zilker Park to play some more. We ended our day at one of our favorite restaurants (Hula Hut) where Gus got eaten by a Tiki, but not for real, haha. Spring Break was over way too fast. I am so ready for summer break!