Sisters, Shopping Sprees, and Saltgrass

Jason, Norah, and I took our first family roadtrip last weekend. Truth be told, it was the first time Jason and I have left town in over a year and a half! (I know, I know, we really should get out more) My little sis, Amanda, moved to Austin back in August, so this was our first trip to see her in her new environment.

We left for Austin (followed by my brother, Johnny, in his truck) Friday around 7pm. Amanda and Trae were both working at Carino's until late, so we let ourselves into Amanda's apartment, where I was totally impressed with how clean, cute, and well-decorated her place was. Amanda had made a big posterboard that said "Welcome Jonathan, Angela, Jason, and Norah!" and hung it on the door to her apartment. It was so huge, we could read it from the ground--and her apartment is on the third floor!

When Amanda and Trae got off from work, they came and met us at Amanda's apartment. We hugged and visited, and the old people with the baby (that would be Jason and me) decided we needed to go to bed! Jonathan and Trae headed over to Trae's apartment (on the other side of the same complex) and stayed up til who know's when watching "Tombstone".

The next morning, Amanda, Norah and I went shopping at the new outlet mall in Round Rock. The guys headed over to Wells Branch park to play a half round of disc golf. (Jason lost one of his beloved discs on top of a nearby building--but he assures me, the line was PERFECT--it would have been a great shot, otherwise)

Meanwhile, at the outlet mall, Amanda and I were having a blast finding all kinds of great deals. (I, by the way, highly recommend this shopping locale--it was huge, and had a ton of stores that I loved) Amanda's big purchase of the day--a t-shirt for her mini chiahuahua, Bob Marley, that said, "Only Child". I walked away with several bags of loot, too. (None of which included any puppy-wear)

Norah was a trooper, she stayed in her stroller from 11am until about 4pm without a complaint. Amanda and I laughed because at one point, I took her out to my car to change her diaper, and while I was cleaning Norah up, she found a little birdhouse Christmas ornament that a friend of ours had made. She played with it happily throughout the diaper change, and I failed to notice that she stowed it along when we put her back into the stroller. She held on to that little birdhouse like it was her prized possession all day long--even when she fell asleep! (I'll bet it'll be her favorite thing on our Christmas tree this year!) If you look closely at the photo, you can see it clutched between the tiny fingers of her left hand.

After our long day of shopping (and the guys' adventures with disc golf and the batting cages), we were famished, so we decided to try a new (to us) restaurant for dinner. When Gramps and Grandad used to live in Lago Vista, Jason and I watched a cool steakhouse called "Saltgrass" being built, but we never ate there. We decided to give it a whirl before we headed back home. Much to our dismay, there was a 45 minute wait, which we quickly determined was due to the fact that it was Round Rock's Homecoming weekend (judging by all the high school kids in formal wear), as well as being a UT home game night. I'd like to say the food was worth the wait, but in actuality, it was really just ok...and the prices were outrageous. The portions were big though, and we had a really cool waiter who taught us how to say, "Please don't eat me!" in Japanese. (And we had WAY too much fun taking digital pictures...we were probably more immature than the aforementioned Homecoming highschoolers...but we had fun!)

After dinner, Jason and I headed back to Bryan for a good night's sleep so we'd be fresh and ready to teach the 2-year-olds Sunday morning (Jason was my co-teacher this week since my regular co-teachers were all out of town...and I must say he did a fantastic job--he learned the kids' names a lot quicker than I ever did!)

One other highlight of the weekend I just can't help but mention is how proud I was of Norah. She was a good girl all weekend long, and even slept in her pack-and-play all night! (It was her first time away from her own bed)

Thanks, AA & Trae for a fantastic family weekend, and thank you so much, sweetheart for your very generous gift of spending money for a super-fun shopping spree!