300 Pictures

If I told you that we went on a trip and I took 300 pictures, you'd probably assume we'd been gone for at least a week. Nope! In this case we were gone for less than 48 hours. I know, I have a problem. If you're my parents you'll love this post and my bazillion pictures of Luke, if you're not my parents - I apologize :)

Anyway, we decided kind of last minute to head to Austin for a couple of days to hang out as a family before summer is over (YUCK!) and so on Tuesday morning we headed out. We stopped in Waco and while Dave was ordering lunch Luke and I checked out some jewelry:These pictures are of Luke chilling in his stroller, the cute place where we ate lunch and Luke eating pretty much all he would eat for lunch - a blueberry yogurt cup:
This is my new favorite picture! Luke is such a character and loves to do silly things to make us laugh :) After lunch it was another couple of hours in the car in which time we read a bunch of books, ate cookies and played with toys. After we arrived at Barton Creek it was time to stretch out and take a bottle:

I think it's safe to say that Luke's favorite part about the hotel room was the curtains:

After his bottle and some time playing with the curtains, we headed down to the pool:

They had this GIANT chess game out by the pool and Luke got a kick out of moving the pieces around. I'm sure it won't be long before his Uncle Mark is teaching him how to play!

We cleaned up after the pool and headed to dinner at a little burger place. I was SO excited becuase Luke took a real interest in coloring! I L.O.V.E. to color (which I realize is extremely mature of me!) and I can't wait for the days that we get to sit at the table together and color! After dinner we headed over to South Congress to take a boat tour and watch the bats. Luke was super tired, hot (it was 103 degrees!) and fidgety and the LAST thing he wanted to do was be on a boat for an hour. We were "those" parents with the whiney kid, but he managed to make it without a meltdown:

I'd heard a lot about the crazy bats that come out from under the bridge at sunset, but really didn't know what to expect. We ended up sitting out on the water in absolute awe as 1.5 million bats flew over our heads and down the lake. The lines in the pictures below ARE bats:

This was our first trip to a hotel with Luke and I was a little bit nervous about how he'd sleep, but he did great! On our way from the bat tour to the hotel he fell asleep in the car and once we got back to the room we let him take a bottle and lie in bed with us for a while, then we put him in his crib in the little hall area so he couldn't see us. He kind of wimpered a couple of times in the night, but he was definitley a trooper.

On Wednesday morning Luke got up, took a bath, played with the curtains again and wathed a little PBS (naked, duh!)

We checked out of the hotel and headed to breakfast (he konked out in the less than 10 minutes from our hotel to Chick-Fil-A - ha!)

After breakfast and a Starbucks run, we headed to the Austin Children't Museum. I can't tell you how much I wish we had something like this in North Dallas. (Or do we and I just don't know about it?!?!?!) It wasn't a huge museum but there was SO much for him to do and he was on the go for the entire two hours that we were there. We weren't able to get any really great pictures of him because he was constantly moving!
The picture below on the left is a view of part of the first floor of the museum...

More playing...

My little builder:

Kids were supposed to play with these trucks inside their little enclosed area, well not Luke! He had to take out every single one, put them on the floor and then put them back again: After the museum we headed home. We were in the car all of 3 minutes before both boys were sound asleep! :) We stopped for lunch in Waco where Luke (obviously well-rested) flipped through a book, stuffed as much food into his mouth as humanly possible and made bunches of silly faces:

When we left Waco, Dave sat in the back to help keep Luke entertained and so both he and Luke were forced to endure my control of the radio. I got to sing along with some old school Garth Brooks, Jason Mraz and Stevie Wonder :) After a quick bathroom break outside of Dallas, Dave took over driving and I snapped a bunch of pictures of Luke in the backseat - he was making a big game out of touching his paci to his toes and then putting it in his mouth (gross!).

Anyway, we arrived home safely around 4:30 and all slept really well in our own beds Wednesday night :) It was a fast whirlwind of a trip, but was an absolute great time. We're looking forward to many more family vacations :)