A recent enquiry from a close friend back in England who enjoys reading my blog said she wondered what our day to day life is also like....well Mon-Fri is pretty much the same routine as life in England but with more sun, new food to try, new people to meet and new places to visit...
This weekend for lunch we found The Oasis on Lake Travis, in 1979 the owner decided to buy a 500 acre plot of land which contained only a ranch house on it, along the shoreline of Lake Travis. He envisioned a wonderfully successful and unique restaurant perched on top and its still a lovely place to visit today.
After a rainy start to the week we met with another mum for lunch and play date at a kid- friendly place named Hat Creek Burgers, it has a fairly plain menu but did serve an ok salad but more importantly is has an enclosed playground, so by the time lunch was devoured the children all ran around for ages to burn off some energy!
Next on my list for entertaining children in the never ending summer holidays was to see a free kids movie at the The Moviehouse & Eatery, here you can eat dinner whilst watching the latest film plus it has a licensed bar. This would be perfect if I was with another adult one evening and not two small children at 10am in the morning!
Even though the outside temperature is still high it's been raining every day this week so we tried a new indoor play area called Kidz N Play, they don't serve hot food but the staff ordered in Dominos pizzas for us...four hours later I left with two very tired children!
On a final note for this post I will just mention the hubby and children are pestering me to get a puppy...
We have been living in Austin now for three months yet it feels much, much longer in a positive way just because so much has changed for us all. We are sad to have already missed many celebrations in the form of birthday parties, births and a wedding however we love keeping up with everyone's news just as much as I hope people enjoy seeing how we are getting on out here...
The school holidays are now in full swing and for the first time since arriving here we visited a McDonalds of course it had a large flat screen TV plus interactive computer games for the children, this is not the norm in British McDonald restaurants!
We had a quiet start to the week by joining the local library and on my tour around the librarian informed me the library will go through a refurb later this year to include a drive-through drop off point for returning books also not the norm for British libraries!
We went to the cinema and saw How to Train a Dragon 2, not much to report here the foyer could do with a refurb but it is local and cheap costing £8 in total for three of us to see a new release.
A fun day out last week was to the Thinkery, after slowly evolving since 1983 the Thinkery is now an established children's museum focusing on “STEAM” learning – science, technology, engineering, art, and math – as well as healthy living. The girls were completely enthralled, captivated and entertained for hours, we'll be going back there soon.
We have also had Fathers Day and the World Cup begin cue one very happy excitable British hubby, he watched the first England game in downtown Austin at an Irish pub called Fado....apparently the atmosphere wouldn't be the same watching the game at home.
We have now experienced our second set of visitors to join us out here and what a breath of fresh air it was....just being around familiarity was the medicine I needed to overcome any lingering homesickness.
The day they arrived it was raining so hard we were having second thoughts about it being safe for us both to drive to the airport to collect them all however after a few hours of torrential rain the clouds finally dispersed and the sun come out....we are told this is fairly normal for extreme weather changes in Austin obviously the heavy rain was rare for this time of year though.
Our eldest is still at school for a few days so one morning I take our visitors children into morning assembly, the classroom and to meet the teacher, already they are fascinated by the different accents, children not wearing uniform and E's new friends.
As we still feel new to Austin we spend the next few days taking our visitors to tried and tested haunts we already love such as Maudies Tex-Mex, South Congress Avenue, Steiner Ranch Steakhouse, Zilker Park and of course many hours just by our pool.
Saturday night adults only we headed to downtown Austin along sixth street and then on to a fancier bar called W Hotel and Bar plenty of margaritas later we hop onto numerous pedicab's which was hilarious fun and arrive at Rio Nightclub where we stayed drinking and dancing until home-time.
After a much needed lazy Sunday when Monday arrived we gather up all five children and head down to Deep Eddy Pool the pool is popular with adult swimmers for its lap swimming and with children for its large wading pool. The pool is fed with clear, cold water from a hand-dug 35-foot well and in summer months, the pool sponsors Splash Party Movie Nights showing family films on an inflatable movie screen.
The next day we try another popular resort in Austin named Barton Springs Pool it is also a man-made recreational pool located on the grounds of Zilker Park, very similar to Deep Eddy but water fed by the main spring plus its far bigger than Deep Eddy Pool and looks more like a lake than a lido.
We have been living in Austin now for 12 weeks, just as I was getting used to a new routine it has all changed again as the children are both off school for three months. Watch this space!
