Austin Trip - Day 6

Day 6 was the last day of our trip! Who knows what I'm going to post about now that I won't have our vacation to talk about...haha.

Anyway, the last day of our trip we slept in a little and then had breakfast delivered to our room which was really nice! After that we checked out of our hotel and drove around downtown Austin for a bit before heading to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. The center was a lot of fun. We saw a tons of cool birds, butterflies, caterpillars, turtles and fish, and the flowers there were absolutely beautiful! I had so much fun just being outside in the nice weather enjoying nature. It was also fun to see all the different plants and flowers that are native to Texas.  After we left the wildflower center, we headed to the airport. We spent the afternoon traveling and got home late that night.

Photos from the last day of our trip:

One of the many pretty flowers we saw... (my fave!)

and another...

If you look really close you can see a cardinal on the bench!

Another pretty flower (John's favorite)

A huge caterpillar!

A huge but pretty dragonfly

John standing next to a cool tree

The funniest name for a plant we've ever seen!

At the Wildflower Center!

And another pretty flower

Lilypads...there was even a frog on one of them. I've only
seen that in the movies!

One of the turtles and some fish in one of the ponds

A pretty cool looking plant...called the Texas Olive Tree. Can
you tell why? Haha.

All in all, it was one of the best weeks EVER! John and I have so much fun traveling together, and I'm so glad we decided to take a vacation for our anniversary and just spend some quality time together. Now....time to start thinking about what we'll do next year to top this year's anniversary....haha. ;-)

Austin Trip - Day 5

We're back from St. George!! We had a great weekend with friends and family, and I have never been so full in my life...it's going to be a couple of days before I'm hungry again because of all the good food we ate! Now, back to our Austin trip...

Day 5 of our trip is when we drove down to stay in downtown Austin for our anniversary. We started the day out by going to Round Rock Donuts, which is a donut shop that has been featured on the Food Network and Travel Channel for it's "Texas-sized" donuts. They are huge!! We didn't get one of those, but we did order some normal-sized and had them for breakfast with our sister-in-law and nieces before heading downtown on our own.

Once we got to Austin, we checked into our hotel and relaxed for a while, which was really nice after such a busy (but fun!) week. After that we went to dinner at a restaurant near our hotel called The Roaring Fork. It was AMAZING! I had grilled shrimp over cheese grits, and John had bacon wrapped pork tenderloin with corn. Yum!

After dinner, we went to the University of Texas campus and walked around, then took a tour of the tower there. It was so beautiful to see the whole city from the top of the tower. After our tour, we went to the bridge on Congress Avenue and watched thousands of bats emerge from under it. It's SO worth seeing! I have never seen anything like it before.

After that, we went back to our hotel, relaxed in the roof top pool & hot tub to watch the city down below (there was a biker rally going on...so there was a lot to watch!), and then we ordered room service because that's something John and I have never really done before. It was such a great day, and the perfect anniversary!

Here are the photos:

John thought he looked really good this day
so he made me take a picture so I could
show everyone how good looking he is. Haha.

So then I made him take a picture of me too...haha.

The "Texas-sized" donuts at Round Rock Donuts

John and me with our nieces at Round Rock Donuts for breakfast

Our hotel!

John and I on our way to downtown Austin!

Downtown Austin

Our hotel room

John opening his anniversary present from me

Me with my anniversary gifts from John

The amazing chocolates we received when we got to the
 hotel. I was in heaven!

The view of our hotel from the inside

All dressed up before going out for our anniversary!

My delicious dinner at The Roaring Fork

John at dinner

John standing in front of the tower at University of Texas

The view of downtown from the top of the tower

The Longhorns stadium! Hook 'em horns!

John at the top of the tower

Go Longhorns!

One of the clocks on the tower

Congress Avenue Bridge

The bats emerging!

 

The view of downtown from the rooftop pool

The rooftop pool at our hotel!

The final day of our trip coming soon!!!

Austin Trip - Day 4

Day 4 of our trip was nice and relaxing. We spent the morning lounging outside on John's brother's patio, and then the rest of the afternoon at the pool.

That evening, we visited several of John's aunts and uncles at his Aunt Golda's house. I have only met his aunts and uncles at our wedding, so it was really nice to have dinner with them and get to know them a little better. We had some amazing southern home cookin', like brisket, zucchini casserole, buttermilk pie, etc. We also played a fun game called "Pegs & Jokers," and just hung out and talked. Another cool thing about John's aunt's property is that it is the same property his grandparents used to own, and is where his dad was raised. It was really nice to get to see all of that family history on the Madison side.

Here's the photos from Day 4:

Relaxing outside in the morning

John enjoying the morning in his brother's backyard

John at the pool!

John playing with his nephews in the pool

Relaxing by the pool

Me relaxing at the pool with Merill and J. Paul

All dressed up to go to Aunt Golda's house!

Merill "borrowed" the camera to take some
pics of herself...this is one of many! Haha

Aunt Golda's property (formerly John's grandparents')

John playing catch with Henry at Golda's house

The fam playing Pegs & Jokers

My sister-in-law Ashley and I playing the piano at Golda's

I know I'm going to disappoint all of my loyal readers....but you'll have to wait until after the weekend to see the rest of our Austin trip! We're headed to St. George for the weekend, so until then....sit tight for Day 5! :)