Texas!!!!

As I posted before we recently spent 9 days in Austin (Round Rock),Texas visiting my sister and her great family! The drive out there was long but fueled by our excitement to get there. I loved seeing new places and landscapes along the way, while much of what we saw was really flat the closer we got to Austin the more beautiful it became! The kids did amazingly well considering and there were only a few times that the phrase "If you don't quit it right now so help me I will pull this car over right now and........" you fill in the blank :)! There were a plethora of bathroom stops and caffeine consumption but we made it there safe and sound Thursday night.

Driving into there neighborhood I called Alyssa to get their exact address and she sent the kids out to stand in the yard to help us find it, well we had actually driven past it so the kids were running down the sidewalk screaming!! It was all our girls could do to keep from jumping out the windows to see their cousins. We turned around and parked in front of the house and the car was barely stopped when Lexi and Grace opened the door and leaped to the side walk, watching them all embrace was almost more than I could take but I managed to keep the emotions in check. After a million hugs we all made it into the house for a tour and then since my nieces and nephew had school the next morning we put the kids to bed and us adults stayed up to talk!

Highlights

I will spare you all from the day to day run downs and just share some of the highlights of the trip.

One afternoon we had lunch with Carli and Amy at their school followed by a tour of the campus. The facility was AMAZING! The lunch room had the "Kids Cafe" where they all went through a buffet of food and selected the items they wanted to eat. There was even a salad bar and a condiments island and after they ate they could return to the cafe for an ice cream treat! Now for those that are not familiar with Las Vegas schools our lunch rooms don't really provide the same luxuries, OK so not even close but back to the story.

After lunch we were taken by our tour guides Amy and Carli to see their class rooms, it was at this point that I knew I liked this here place called Round Rock, Texas! Each classroom has 4 Apple computers and the K and 1st grades have bathrooms in the class, there weren't 42 students to one teacher and the windows everywhere made it feel so much happier. The older children are separated from the younger ones with their own multi leveled wing of the school and then when my sister mentioned that there are just over 500 students in the school I nearly fell over!! They have empty classrooms so there will be plenty of room to grow as people move into the area! C'mon Clark County it's time to give up your money and split the district for the sake of our kids!! OK let me compose myself whew, breathe in breathe out, wax on wax off! Anyway you get the gist of it, an AMAZING school!!

Next highlight will be shorter, sorry got carried away

The Food!!
Rudy's (twice)
Jimmy John's
Chuy's
Some Asian place
Cru's
Custard place
Shaved Ice place (twice)
#2 Doughnut Place (OH MY GOSH!)
And a few home cooked meals!! Diet? What Diet?


Outings!
IKEA
Children's Museum
Park with a Train Ride
Target
Great Shopping center (like The District, only better)
Block Party with their neighbors

Many of the afternoons were spent hanging out playing their Wii and playing in the HUGE backyard and driveway. They all rode bikes, scooters and skateboards, we played Red Rover, Red Rover, Duck Duck Goose, Red Light, Green Light, Tag, T-Ball! It was a blast!! Jimmy and Chet became quite the duo on "Rock Band", their inner Rockers came out with a vengeance, they played the drums and guitar like nobodies business!!

It truly was a great way to spend our vacation! Jimmy did spend time looking for work, turning in his resume and interviewing. We don't know if we will get to move there but we sure did fall in love with Texas!!

The drive home was hard to get excited about after the week we had, but we managed to pack up and pile in to head home on Friday the 23rd. We made it all the way to Tucson, AZ and spent the night there, had breakfast at Cracker Barrel with our friends the Bush's (No not George and Laura) Mesa and Mark and then made the rest of the trip home! So now it is back to real life but boy was it fun to escape for a little while!!

The Hotel in these pictures was in El Paso,TX and in the room there was a sign that said "Please Dispose of Syringes at the Front Office", WHAT?! We almost packed up and got back on the road but it was 1 AM and the kids were tired!!


I decided to take my Nieces and Nephew out for a little photo shoot around the corner from their house! They were so much fun and great little models!!