Austin!

We found out a few weeks ago that Jared would need to go to Austin for work and since it was somewhere I've been wanting to go, we decided to tag along. We left on a Thursday morning and made it to Fort Worth by lunch time. We stopped at In-N-Out Burger. Paxton LOVED it. He ate his whole meal in maybe 3 minutes which is a record for him. Then he spent the rest of the meal eating off of everyone else's plate. 

We made it to Austin right in time for rush hour so we hit Zilker Park to burn off some energy. The boys had a blast on the playground and throwing rocks into the river. 

As it started getting dark, we started getting hungry so we went to Terry Black's Barbeque for dinner. Paxton decided he wanted to take a picture in front of the sign. 

It was a buffet-style restaurant which is always a hit for us. The boys ate their weight in macaroni and cheese and pickles and Porter loved the turkey. 

When we got to our hotel room, the boys still had a ton of energy and Jared had to get some work done, so we went down to the pool. It was an indoor/outdoor pool with a glass divider between the two, so the pool was freezing! Even Paxton who can swim for hours in water straight from the hose couldn't handle it! We ended up wrapping up in towels and putting our feet in the hot tub. It was their first time to feel the hot tub and they loved it. They really wanted to get in, but settled for dipping their feet and hands in. 

We headed back to the room for warm showers and snuggling up with a movie. Hotel Transylvania is their absolute favorite right now so that's what they watched. 

The next morning, we went to Voodoo Donuts for breakfast. Paxton picked an apple fritter covered in frosting that was approximately the size of his torso. 

After breakfast, Jared had more work to do to get ready for his presentation, so the boys and I went to Mt. Playmore. 

After playing, we stopped and grabbed lunch and headed back to the hotel room for naps. 

That night, we went to Trader Joe's to shop and both boys got to push their own little cart. For dinner, we went to a burger place and then two little boys needed some ice cream. 

We had heard Amy's was a place we couldn't miss and I'm so glad we didn't! It was our favorite part of the trip. We had the best ice cream ever. 

The next morning, we ate breakfast at the fancy buffet at the hotel and then hit the road. We stopped at Buccee's for some snacks and Paxton picked out a gigantic "rainbow" lollipop. 

Porter picked yogurt-covered raisins but decided he would rather eat my sandwich instead. 

We made it to Dallas around 3 and thought we would have plenty of time for a snack at Rainforest Cafe and make it home for the OU game. Well...apparently 3:00 on Saturday is not a slow time at Rainforest Cafe. We had to wait for 45 minutes and then it took forever to get our food. The boys had a blast and loved looking at all the animals. They were a little wary of the thunderstorm, but by then end they even thought that was cool. 

Jared had to watch the first hour of the OU game in the car, but it was worth it! That's somewhere I've always wanted to take the boys and they totally loved it. 

Since we were home on Sunday, we decided to put up the Christmas lights. Our neighbors had put theirs up the weekend before and Paxton had been begging for ours to go up.