SXSW, Rodeo Austin and Easter

Spring break is over and the children are back at school :)

During the week off school I took the girls to see Zootopia at the cinema, a great little film especially because the protagonist is a strong female character wanting to get out into the world and make a difference, I like the girls watching films like that! Interestingly the same film is called Zootropolis in the UK...

Another day I took them to the library because I saw an English author was doing a reading and as it turns out the author used to live 20 minutes from me back in the UK!

On the final day of spring break I was very much looking forward to taking the children downtown with some friends of ours to experience SXSW, a 10 day film, music and interactive festival. We started off at South Congress Avenue, stopping to watch some bands along the way and then headed to the Austin Convention Centre to experience the interactive side to SXSW...

Game developers being interviewed for twitch TV

I had a wobble this week because I missed a big family get together in England for my nephews 21st birthday, the same week also included my best friends birthday and my dads birthday, I can only describe the feeling as the temporary emotional equivalent of walking on broken glass but of course life goes on...Happy Birthday Ollie, Trudi and Dad!

This week at school was the girls annual kite day event, a very sweet 45 minutes and still undeniably in my opinion of all the school activities where the turnout of dads outweigh the mums...

We currently have my British in-laws over for a 10 day visit, they have been to Austin before during Christmas 2014 so this time it'll be a different experience for them with the warmer weather.

It is always great to see relatives and friends but the arrival of a new stash of English chocolate, sweets, crisps and biscuits is always enjoyable too ;) plus a surprise gift from the in-laws were these fantastic coffee/tea coasters from Camden market in London, just brilliant!

So far we have taken the in-laws to Rodeo Austin (their wide eyed, open mouthed silence was hysterical), an afternoon on our friends boat (no wake boarding this time too cold), a trip downtown on the duck land and lake tour (the bus/boat got stuck coming out the water, a tense few minutes!) AND...

The in-laws were chuffed to bits to have this hire car for the week...

On Sunday we enjoyed the always fun Easter egg hunt, unfortunately I couldn't find the girls easter baskets from last year so we had to make do with their halloween baskets with a cardboard cut out chick stuck on...I can tell you now this years 'easter baskets' would not win any awards on Pinterest thats for sure!

What Happened to Winter?

The clocks went forward this weekend and I realised we basically had, had no winter here in Austin this year not that I'm complaining for a second but growing up in England to experience only occasional cooler days through January then suddenly we are in spring is an unusual but pleasant experience!

This weekend was also our two year anniversary of moving to America. The first year seemed to go very slowly, every day was a struggle or frustrating in some way mixed with some new and exciting experiences too of course, I found our second year to be steadier, flowed smoother and less challenging, you may be interested to read my post from around the same time last year.

Now entering into our third year I feel almost part of the furniture! People still comment on our accents, when driving somewhere new I still occasionally miss the exit due to uncertainty of which lane to choose and I still miss english chocolate but otherwise I am doing great and don't feel so different to everyone else or like an outsider like I once did.

Austin is preparing for a busy year, with SXSW on from 11th-20th March, SXSW is a ten day music, film and interactive festival and for the first time in its 30 year history includes the president and first lady announced as SXSW keynote speakers.

On 23rd March the PGA tour world golf championships will begin in Austin, we have been watching the grounds get ready for the event when we cross over the bridge.

The children have just begun their spring break (one week off school), they have been working really hard and are very tired so this week will be a mix of chilling with some fun activities and days out. In the summer we will be doing our annual visit to England for a longer period of time so we decided to stay put for this break. Plus we have some UK visitors arriving soon...

On a final note this month I had another article of mine originally published in Global Living Magazine, www.globallivingmagazine.com entitled "Raising British Children in America", you can view it for FREE in the Global Living app and print-on-demand here.