We spent this NYE over at our friends Brian and Angela’s. We watched motorcycle jumps, had pizza, drank Apple Martini’s, saw the ball drop and made fun of musicians that we had no idea who they were. It was sort of a last minute decision to head over and it was one of the best NYE’s we’ve had in a long time. Happy New Years everybody!

I absolutly LOVE having a house full of people so I can’t wait to do it again soon! And yes… that includes the drawing of the mustaches on our fingers and telling everyone that would listen to “Take It Easy!”. Good Times…

We go to Austin fairly regularly, but usually it is without Luke and involves music of some sort. This time around we wanted to see more of the city so we started by heading over to El Arroyo for a late lunch. I love this place. It’s down on the end of 5th in a somewhat out of the way location. The food is great and the queso is very very tasty although I think despite that great food, Luke’s favorite part was the lion statue out front. Figures.

From there we headed over to check in to our hotel and have a little relaxation and lots and lots of swimming! They have a great pool and Luke is really learning how to swim well without any help… although I do still make him wear his floaties when I toss him into the water… I mean he is still 4.

That evening we went back out on the town and swung by Waterloo Records and were barely able to get out of there without spending $100. Barely. We did however, catch Luke with a pair of headphones on listening to God knows what, but he seemed to really enjoy it based on his awesome dance moves. Feeling a bit hungry we opted for a little more traditional food and went to Threadgills for some burgers, shrimp and more of trying to keep Luke in his chair. We dropped Julie off with Diego and headed back to out hotel to get some sleep for another busy day.

We woke up nice and slow and got a little breakfast before heading to the captial to check out all the statues, memorials and beautiful grounds with Deigo and Julie. Spending a couple hours there was a bit much in the heat so we all piled into a car and went to see some old friends that recently moved over to Austin. They have a handsome 1 month old little boy, named Ethan, that was great to finally meet! All of us have know each other for about 8 years so it was nice to see them again and have a little lunch at Phil’s Hamburgers off Burnet.

It was a great trip spent with some of our best friends. Everytime we visit Austin we can’t quit talking about how we’d like to move there. But getting us to commit is the hard part!

We met up with Meg at our house and she followed us out my favorite backroad to I10. And despite the phone call to tell me her GPS was shouting at her with exclamation points… it’s a little bit faster and much prettier scenery. We got into New Braunfels and met up with the rest of our crew and headed out to Gruene Hall for some Reckless Kelly. It was a great show and we all kinda hung to the back so we could visit and catch up. Reckless just recently released a new album and they played several new songs.. all of which I thought were great. From there we took a brief side trip to Taco Cabana and headed back to Amber’s house to pile on air mattresses, spare beds and fold out couches for the night.

We woke up the next morning and headed out to the river around 11. We floated out of Whitewater which I had never done before. I just love the horseshoe and Whitewater made the float that much better by providing covered tubes and great dropoff and pickup spots. We all hooked up with Geoff and Carla, Kathy V, Suzy as well as Craig and his crew so we had about 15-20 people floating. There is just nothing better… hot sun.. cold water… cold beer and snacks. 4.5 Hours later we were out of the river heading back to get showered and changed for the evenings festivities.

The cool thing about Whitewater, where we floated out of, is that it’s also a very large and very beautiful music venue. It’s right on the river so the scenery is gorgeous.. even at night. Pat put on a great show and I was pleasantly surprised by one of my favorite songs being played. We hadn’t seen Pat in nearly 2 years and he didn’t disappoint. On the way back we all couldn’t quit talking about how great the show was!

Sunday morning found us all sleeping in and not getting in a hurry for anything. We lazily headed to Gruene around 11 where Suzy met us at Gruene River Grill for some tasty lunch. We also found out that Amber hates to have her area on the table have any sort of crumbs… so while she was in the bathroom Robb and I decided to make a little mess for her by crumbling up  a bunch of chips and spreading sugar everywhere. Yeah.. she wasn’t happy but it was one of the funniest things I’ve seen.

After lunch we walked over to Gruene Hall and caught the Ramblin Revival concert of Jason Eady, Owen Temple and Adam Carrol. They played for about 4 hours and it was great! These guys put on an awesome acoustic show , played very well together which was magnified by the environment of Gruene Hall on a sunny Sunday. Of course I do have a man crush on Eady but that’s besides the point.

It was such a great weekend and we got to meet a new friend, Carrie, that teaches with her husband down in Curacao.  I smell a trip to the islands soon! It was a much needed relaxing weekend where we could just put our troubles aside and enjoy the heart of what we enjoy about living in Texas. Thanks to our friends for being a part of it, to Amber for the hospitality and my mom for keeping Luke. For the first time in months we’re feeling refreshed and ready to get back to it!

In June we went out to Phoenix to my cousins wedding. It was a nice getaway for Christy and I as we don’t often get on a plane and go somewhere there isn’t music.

This is my kinda vacation.