Spring Break is over now and I’m exhausted (but content)! Adele and Emma came up from San Antonio on Wednesday morning and stayed with us until yesterday. It was so much fun and I definitely got to get to know/experience more of Austin! Wednesday we had breakfast at Pacha and then went shopping on South Congress. We spent a couple of hours popping in and out of shops before meeting Kevin for lunch at Threadgill’s (Casey was getting ready for work early and couldn’t come). After lunch, we went to Half Price Books and I bought a cookbook to make healthy food for Brady that I’ve had my eye on (The Sneaky Chef) and Five Little Ladybugs (Brady is obsessed right now). Next, we went to Toy Joy (a local, eclectic toy store) for Emma to look around at before heading up to the outlet mall in Round Rock. PJs for babies go from 12 months to 18 months with nothing in between. It seems Brady has outgrown her 12 month P’s and J’s already so I hit the Carter’s outlet while we were there to stock up for summer. Since she won’t sleep with a blanket, I still buy footie pajamas which is actually increasingly difficult to find. Since these new ones already seem to be a little snug, I’m thinking it might be time to transition to the easier-to find, non-footie variety. We headed back to the house and relaxed for awhile, before we headed to Kerbey Lane (sans Casey) for some dinner and then caught up on some TiVo.
Thursday, Adele had a meeting at the Omni Hotel for an upcoming conference so we headed over there so she could have a meeting and lunch. Since we were already downtown, we went to the Children’s Museum for a little while and let Brady and Emma have some fun exploring! Then we headed to Whole Foods where we got some gelato and sorbet, before Adele planned a crazy feast for dinner! She made a super tasty salad with Fuji apples, balsamic vinegar, candied bourbon walnuts, and greens; parmesan risotto, asparagus with lemon and butter, and grilled, dry aged steak! So good and who would have thought gourmet food could come out of my kitchen! After dinner we played Chrononuats (I think) a crazy time machine historical card game and then a game of Scrabble before heading to bed.
Yesterday we went to the Austin Zoo. We had a lot of fun but it was a little disappointing. Not exactly the zoo experience I was hoping for. It ended up being more of a preserve/sanctuary than a traditional zoo. The animals I was hoping for Brady to see like elephants and giraffes weren’t there. But I think she still had a lot of fun pointing out the lions, and tigers and bears (oh my!) and especially feeding the llamas! Adele got a cute pic of her in action so hopefully I can post that sometime. Until then I need to upload the pics I took here and hopefully there’ll be something I was fast enough to capture. After the zoo, we went downtown again and had lunch at Leaf (a Cosi-type, create your own salad place) before heading back to the house. We had just enough time to pack up the car with all their stuff and get Casey before heading down to Uchi for dinner. Brady’s schedule was a little thrown from all of the goings on and lack of naps so she was a little restless but overall did really well for her first time with sushi and we even got her to eat some small fish eggs! Hopefully this is the first step towards her eating sushi!
We all took it easy relaxing this morning and after getting ready. Nicole came up to visit from San Antonio this afternoon and we hung out around the house just playing with Brady before we went headed to Chuy’s for dinner. We got there at 5:15 and expected to get right in but had to wait almost an hour before getting seated. In our rush to get out the door, I was totally unprepared – no sippy cup and no snacks. I managed t keep her mostly content with an olive and some milk before her quesadilla arrived. That didn’t keep her happy for very long before getting fussy again and Casey ended up taking her to the car while Nicole and I finished up. Once we got back, Nicole headed back to San Antonio and we started Brady’s bedtime/bath night routine before watching a little more TiVo and hopefully going to bed soon!
I’ve learned from staying so busy, that I’m absolutely awful at keeping up with the outside world when in public with Brady and being social and driving. There’s barely enough time for me to read my email, let alone respond or keep up with Facebook.