Grand Finale

I decided to round out my 21 days of freedom from the airline with a quick trip to Austin, TX. I was very lucky last summer because Jenny, one of my best friends, whom I have known since freshman advising in the summer of 1994, and her family relocated to Austin from Alabama. Now instead of an hour and a half flight and a one hour car drive, they are now just 31 minutes by plane.

I left on Sunday afternoon and stayed thru today, Tuesday. We always have fun and most of the time the visit revolves around eating. I always joke that it is a good thing that Jon, her husband, did not get a job in Dallas or we would all be in elastic pants! We had some birthday cake leftover for Jenny's thirty-something birthday the week before. I have given up chocolate for Lent, but the cake was cinnamon, so my lucky day, huh? We spent the rather warm afternoon washing the family car and hanging out outside.

We had Papa Murphy's that first night. You pick up your pizza and then take it home and bake it. After a heavy gorging, Matthew, their little boy (he calls me Uncle Ron, how adorable) went to sleep, and we watched the DVR'd episode of SNL, the first new one since the Writer's strike ended! Very funny, including the parody commercial "Annuale" (http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/#mea=221774). I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants.

I slept like a log that night thanks to some lingering jet lag and some OTC sleeping pills.

My days in Austin are pretty much always the same:

1. wake up at precisely 8:30am

2. eat breakfast

3. play with Matthew for a while

4. take a shower

5. we go somewhere for lunch

6. we all go home and Matthew and I take a nap.

7. we play some more

8. Jon comes home from work

9. we eat dinner

10. we play some more
11. Matthew goes to sleep

12. we watch TV

13. we all go to sleep.

It may be routine, but it is enjoyable. I enjoy the nap part the most since I am not used to a very active three year old with a lot of energy.

For lunch on Monday we went to Red Lobster. It's kind of been our tradition for a while because Jon doesn't eat seafood, or as he says, anything that comes from the water, so my visits are an excuse for Jenny and I to go eat some ocean dwelling creatures.

The highlight of lunch was when the hostess took a lobster out of the tank for Matthew. He was all about the lobster until she actually took it out of the tank, and then he turned a little chicken, and would not go near it, as evident in the photo.

After the Monday nap, we went to a local park and played. I got to swing, and attempted some creative shots with the camera.

For dinner that night we had "Mustgo" as in everything must go! Leftovers and some homemade fried rice that Jenny made. After Matthew went to bed we devoured some more cake and watched Dirty Jobs, the show where Mike Rowe is always doing something that involves mud, poop, or both.

Today, Tuesday was the last day of the visit. For lunch we met Jon at Cannoli Joe's, this sort of all you can eat Italian restaurant. I ate a bunch, but had to tone it down for dessert since most of the options included chocolate.

The flight home was uneventful and now I have the next 6 days off to enjoy the end of my vacation.