So for the first time since Cailee was born, JJ and I took a vacation just the two of us. There have been times that JJ was away or that I was away – but we have never both left the kids for more than one night. On some fronts, it was scary, how can you possibly prepare anyone else to take care of your kids the same way you do; on the other hand it was exciting, we looked forward to our time away for a long time. Well, we had a blast and the kids survived (in fact, I think they had a lot of fun without us :)).

While both JJ and I had been to Austin before, the circumstances were vastly different (I for work, he for college-age partying). We enjoyed exploring Austin – we stuck pretty close to downtown Austin, finding good eats, and taking nice walks and enjoying good scenery. We found Mello Johnnies (Lance’s bike shop) and Austin Speed Shop (Jesse James shop), sixth street (which JJ swears doesn’t have quite the same luster it had when we partied 12 + years ago), and we hunted down the Real World Austin house, now a steakhouse (yes, totally my idea). Our hotel was right next to the University of Texas so we walked through the campus several mornings (well, it was on the way to Starbucks). The only thing we had a hard time finding it turns out was a toy store (we had promised a toy for good behavior and Cailee had already requested walkie talkies). Our first stop turned out to be a very odd toy store – certainly not aimed at toddler, our second stop was a consignment toy store – lucky for us (and Cailee) we eventually stumbled upon a ToysRUs. Unfortunately, I fear we have set a precedent now with the kiddos – probably not the best habit to have started.

Of course our vacations never turn out to actually be relaxing, but we had a great time and covered a lot of ground in a short period of time. The only thing I regret is that its over.

Our little car for the weekend. They tried to convince us to upgrade – but it turns out the little car was great – it was easy to park and used very little gas.

Oh and by the way, we saw the MotoGP race! (of course, that was really why we were here, to celebrate JJ’s birthday with his biggest passion in life). Austin rolled out the red carpet for the race, it was all over the airport, restaurants, and billboards.