Austin & Uncle Dave

Neither Jim nor I got around to writing about our trip to Austin last week, so here is the delayed update. Two weekends ago, Jim, Madeleine and I traveled south to Austin to visit Jim’s brother Dave for a long weekend. Madeleine is now quite the traveler as Texas was her 8th state to visit. Traveling was a breeze this time since we had a non-stop flight and Jim with us on the plane for a change. This was probably our last easy trip for awhile since the next time we fly we will have two little ones keeping us busy.

We arrived in Austin late Friday afternoon, and after a quick stop at the "Krewplex," Uncle Dave took us to Rudy’s BBQ for dinner. You order by the pound at Rudy's and they hand you your food in a soda crate, with wax paper to roll out on your picnic table (very convenient when dining with a toddler!). The bbq was great and Jim and Madeleine made a second trip to Rudy's Saturday morning to pick us up some breakfast tacos (or burritos if you're not a Rudy's regular). We know for sure Rudy’s is a favorite of Dave’s as he has quite the collection of Rudy's plastic cups in his kitchen cabinets.

We took a little hike on a nice trail within walking distance of Dave’s house on saturday afternoon. Dave showed us one of his fishing holes and Madeleine learned to say backpack on the hike. "Back-pack" is actually one of the words she now says clear as can be… unlike some of her others which require parental interpretation. Dave had an open house for us on Saturday night and we enjoyed visiting with Jim’s cousin Mike and family, Joe M. and family, and Charlie M. Madeleine had a great time but was definitely outnumbered by the boys! Later that night, I got introduced to something entirely new: The Ultimate Fighting Championship. Who knew there was a whole language describing the different “moves” in these fights?

When we travel, it is usually Jim who wants to check out local bike shops. But this time, I was the one who really wanted to visit Mellow Johnny's, Lance Armstrong's new shop. So Sunday morning we headed to downtown Austin. Mellow Johnny's had some great deals on 2008 bikes, but none in Jim’s size. I did leave with a t-shirt though. We hit the new Patagonia shop after that… way too many things there that I wanted to buy! The Patagonia store was always one of my favorite stops when I lived in Chicago. After shopping, we took a stroll around Town Lake. Madeleine didn’t know what to do then as there must have been a hundred dogs running around. She just kept repeating "dog, dog, dog". I bet she said it 100 times. Then she started saying "ball"... over and over and over. I finally figured out that she was pointing to the warning balls that they put on power lines over water. On the way back to Dave’s, we stopped by James M.'s and then Joe M.’s. That night, we enjoyed a tasty dinner cooked up by James and Charlie at brother John's new house.

Before heading back on Monday, Dave drove us around some pretty neat views of the different lakes in Austin and we took Madeleine to a city playground to burn off some energy.

It was a great trip and fun to visit Dave and all our St. Louis friends and family living in Austin. We also learned that Uncle Dave is one crazy driver!


Some pics from the weekend:

One of Uncle Dave's fishing holes:



Uncle Dave's fish, probably from above fishing hole:



"Come out fishy or I will beat you!"



"Party!"



"Hey Mom, there's a ball over there."



"I like slides!"



"This Uncle Dave's a pretty nice guy."