Summer // Part I
After stuffing multiple cross-country trips into the Summer of 2016, we decided to take it a little easier, and explore closer to home this Summer.
However, taking it easy doesn't seem to jive with our family philosophy. As a result, this will be post one of a four part Summer series, with an additional post dedicated to our fabulous week plus adventures up in the Hill Country.
So without further ado, let me show you what made this Summer so totally AWESOME!!!
Last Day of School
The end of the year is always such a hectic time that its hard to sit back and enjoy being in these moments. I'm so happy were able to capture them all, so I can look back and relive them over again - especially now that things are
somewhat
settled back into a routine.
Isla finished her 1st grade year at TWE while Holden completed his third year in the ECAP program. Both kids had celebrations in their classrooms to honor their achievements.
I'm so proud of these two and how much they've grown this past year. The differences that we've seen in both of them have been astonishing. From reading, to behavior to the development of social skills - they have learned so much.
Now it's time to do some Summer learning! These kids are gonna learn how to fish, pitch a tent, tie their shoelaces (fingers crossed) and catch some critters!
So lets kick it off with...
Memorial Day Weekend
Jordan and I had planned a quick day/night trip to Austin. Earlier in the year, we had bought tickets to a popular podcast that Jordan listens to called "How Did This Get Made?" The gist of the show is to highlight truly
bad
movies, and discuss (in a comedic form) how they got made.
We booked our sitter for the trip and Jordan and I headed out to Austin.
We stayed on South Congress at the Hotel San Jose. Its a cute boutique hotel surrounded by a lot of restaurants and good outdoor bars.
We headed out to ride bikes in the park - stopping for food and drinks along the way.
That evening we headed to a seafood restaurant down the street for dinner before the show.
After the show we headed over to famous Sixth Street in Austin. We listened to some live music, walked around and found a fun bar to play games at.
It was the perfect getaway, and such a nice way to kickoff our Summer.
The next day we headed back to Katy and over to our friend Kathy's for a pool party.
Emerson Comes to Texas ---> Kelly and Jordan Go to the Hill Country
Shortly after school released for the Summer, we had an exciting group of guests come to visit. Jordan's parents had planned a trip to come up to visit with one of our nephews, Emerson. Isla was excited, and had been talking about their trip for months.
I love watching my kids play with their cousins. Its just one of those things that takes me back to when we got to go visit ours in Tennessee. We had so much fun together! I hope these kids will remember these times the same.
Jordan's parents and Aunt Alice graciously offered to watch
all
the kids for a long weekend, so we had a vacation to plan. Although we've been up to the Hill Country a lot, we've never been up just the two of us, and theres been so many things that we've wanted to try without the kids. This was also the easiest option and would allow us the most time since we weren't traveling very far.
We headed up on a Thursday morning bound for Fredricksburg with a quick stop in Gruene, Texas.
Gruene is a tiny town on the banks of the Guadalupe River. Known for it's iconic dance hall and water tower the historic city attracts tourists and locals alike. Living in Texas for seven years now, this is a place that pops up on our Facebook news feed in friends photos all the time. It's a place we've always wanted to see, and was luckily right on the way to Fredricksburg.
We arrived a little before lunch so we decided to check out some of the quaint shops around the town.
After looking around, we decided to head over to the Gristmill for lunch.
Our last stop before heading to Fredricksburg was Gruene Hall to share a beer in Texas' oldest dance hall. You can learn more about this amazing place and it's history
.
The place was
oozing
with history... I also loved the image of these guys with the cowboy hats on their lunch break. This place is literally what I think of when I think Texas.
As we were leaving we passed by "The Bacon Brothers" (Kevin Bacon and his brother are in a band) tour bus unloading for their show that night. Alas, we already had accommodations in Fredricksburg and so on our way we went.
Fredricksburg is a small German town in the Hill Country. It's also the gateway to the Texas wine trail, a stretch of highway on 290 that is Texas' answer to Napa Valley.
Theres a lot of wine tasting rooms, and no shortage of German beer gardens. We spent the afternoon
Jordan found us an awesome bed and breakfast right on the main drag. It was AMAZING!
If you're planning on heading to Fredricksburg, I highly recommend the
We headed out to dinner that night at popular local restaurant Hondo's. It's apparently usually packed, but was fairly calm on a Thursday night.
Most of the bars in Fredricksburg close early, but of course Jordan and I found one that stayed open late... AND had shuffleboard.
The next morning we woke up and had breakfast in Fredricksburg before heading out to hike Enchanted Rock.
This is another one of those "hill country must-do's." Made up of pink granite, Enchanted Rock is about a 15 minute drive from Fredricksburg.
it was a really steep incline ;)
The views were beautiful not only from the top but the whole way up.
After our hike we headed over to Luckenbach Texas and found this cute little outpost on the way. Unfortunately it wasn't open, but it made for some pretty cool pictures nonetheless.
Most will recognize this tiny town called Luckenbach from the popular Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson song, but I didn't realize just how tiny this place was until we pulled up. Theres basically a parking lot for the town.
This place is a MUST SEE regardless, but lucky for us we stumbled upon the Thomas Michael Riley music festival. He's a local guy who's really popular with the regulars. We ended up spending the majority of the afternoon there and would have probably spent the night if we had brought a tent!!
On the way into Luckenbach we kept seeing these signs about "Uptown" and the fast armadillo. We decided we had to stop. You'll have to watch the video to see just what that fast armadillo was all about! We had planned on heading straight to our lake house after Luckenbach, but decided last minute to make a stop at a winery we had heard good things about. I'm so glad we did. It turned out to be really good wine and a nice cap off to our day.
The next day was spent on a pontoon on the lake and dinner and music at a local restaurant.
We had a wonderful trip and are so thankful to Jordan's parents for watching the kids for us. We can't wait to explore some more.
Summer School
Every year Holden goes to Summer school for two sessions. One in June and one in July. Each session is M-F for two weeks from 8:30-12. This year his sessions directly coincided with Isla's swim team practices. Because of this we decided it would be better for him to take the bus. He has riden the bus before for field trips, and
loved
it so we were excited, if not a
little
nervous for him to try.
Understandably he was tired and not super excited to go on his first day, but he enjoyed riding the bus, and was a model student for the rest of the Summer. I was probably much more nervous than he was. I couldn't wait to hug my little guy when he got off that bus.
So that's Part I. Stay tuned for Part II coming
very
soon!