After two Christmases away from home, for this past holiday we flew back to celebrate in England and it was definitely the right decision. I feel the culture and excitement surrounding Christmas is far more predominant in England than what we have experienced in Austin and even New York, click here for my previous Christmas posts:
Christmas 2015 and
Christmas 2014.
We celebrated New Years Eve back in Austin, we decided with the girls back at school on the 3rd of January it would have been cutting it fine to leave England on the 2nd or worse the 1st of January with a hangover! 🎉
I've also been really enjoying the winter in Austin this year and the reason for this is because its been colder than the previous two years...I know very strange especially for me who loves the heat to the point I've never been skiing because of the cold. The heat in the summer here is so relentless that to be able to wear Ugg boots, wellies, coats and gloves for more than a few days is a welcome change!
Even though I participate in
Dry January and I think this may be my sixth year so far, I had been invited to two birthday celebrations this month so I took those two days off and enjoyed some drinkies with the girls. One birthday was a Sunday brunch which went on into the night as these things tend to do 😁😆 and the second was a lovely friend of mine who was turning 40. She organised for a group of us to travel by limo to some local wineries, this was so much fun and definitely something I would recommend to visitors of Austin...
Wine Tours
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| Happy Birthday Angela: The Sunday brunch which went on into the night! |
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| Happy Birthday Shannon: Winery tour |
Another new thing which we have experienced recently is the city draining the lake, the main reasons are to give lakeside property owners an opportunity to repair and maintain docks and to curb the growth of nuisance aquatic vegetation, heres a news link for further info:
Draining Lake Austin
We didn't really think much of the drainage to be honest but to our Austinite neighbours this meant opportunities for lots of new walks, bonfires and easy fishing as the water doesn't completely drain away...
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| Photos courtesy of my neighbour #canttakethecredit |
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| Notice my daughter and I are the only ones wearing wellies #britsabroad #notafanofmud |
Well thats January in a nut shell, I'm still volunteering at school, decorating the new house, organising our summer trip to Disneyworld in May, house hunting in the UK and not doing as much photography as I would like, but the good news is I have only 3 days left of Dry January😀😂🍷🍷
