A Taste of Austin

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Tuesday, we woke up to a great day in Austin with our tour guide, Morgan Sullivan. The kids have been looking forward to their time with Morgan for months, and we were excited about it too. Ever since Morgan moved to Austin, we've been hearing about how great it is, so this was her chance to show us. Ford seemed a little more like himself today, which was great since he turned into my needy child over the past week and a half. We met up at Zilker Park and played on the playground, which is super fun but super crowded. I think there was a whole school of big kids there. We had to rescue Ford one time from almost being pounced on. We rode the Zilker Zephyr around the park and got to see tons of turtles swimming around and a crazy guy playing the harmonica and guitar. There were many times driving through Austin that I thought, "that's weird", so now I understand about Keep Austin Weird. We went to a new Burger restaurant called Hopdoddy's that was so good, especially after suffering through too many McDonald's burgers. Adele was able to join us for lunch as well since the school she works at was nearby. Mary Kate was in heaven eating her delicious cheeseburger...her favorite thing to eat. I was in heaven with my medio litro Mexican Coke...my favorite thing to drink. Next, Morgan took the kids to pick out some new cowboy boots. Ford went straight for some brown ones with bright blue tops, which I wasn't crazy about, but I wanted him to have fun picking out whatever he wanted. Luckily, he ended up with some brown with red tops, which were a little more tame. Mary Kate picked out all pink again and a cute cowgirl hat. Thanks for their treat, Morgan! After naptime, we took a tour of THE OTHER UT. Somehow, Joel snuck onto the field to see where Coach Taylor coached his TMU team (FNL fans know what I'm talking about). Morgan bought obscenities for my children, also known as University of Texas paraphernalia. Then, we headed to dinner, which took 5x as long thanks to Obama traffic. We ate dinner at Chuy's Tex Mex, but had quite the drama waiting for our table. Mary Kate's fingers got smashed in the door...really smashed. She was hysterical...way worse than when she had to get stitches. It took her a good while to calm down...then, she'd look at it again and start screaming again. She kept saying, "I just don't know who smashed my fingers." We finally had to tell her that finger smashers hang out by the door, so you've got to watch out for them. By the time the food came, she was pretty calm. Dinner was great after that. ALL DAY long, the kids kept begging for cupcakes because Morgan mentioned it to them months ago on the phone. So, they finally got the cupcake after dinner. Morgan, thanks for such an awesome day in Austin. We had so much fun! Mary Kate had a slumber party with Morgan that night and Joel and I got to stay up talking to Jay and Adele some more. The next morning, we met up with Morgan for a great breakfast, got Mary Kate, and headed to Mississippi. It was a great trip, except for eating at McDonald's AGAIN. We were a little nervous about all the flooding, but we didn't have any trouble making it to Nana and Grandaddy's.