A Long Family Weekend

Our weekend is still going strong over here as my father in law is here until Tuesday and my husband has work off, woohoo!  We’ve been having a great time and I wanted to share a few highlights.

Hanging out with Grandpa

The biggest highlight was definitely seeing James having so much fun with his Grandpa.  I wish they lived closer, but we are enjoying this time he’s here to the max.

My father in law flew in from Milwaukee Thursday night and got here just in time to see James eating dinner…always a show.  James hadn’t seen him since he was four weeks old, but warmed up to him right away and has been having a blast playing with him.

Town Lake Trail

Friday we went for a nice walk along the Colorado River on the Town Lake trail here in Austin (we don’t have a lot of lakes in Texas and have an odd habit of calling wide sections of rivers “lakes”..I don’t even know).  This trail gets really crowded, so it was nice to be there on a Friday with fewer people.

They may be a little hard to spot in the picture, but we saw a couple of Austin’s wild parakeets while we were out.  Some imported wild parakeets escaped from an RV park here in the 70’s and started a whole population.  We only saw two this time, but sometimes you see a whole big flock.

An Outside Run

On Saturday, my husband and his dad hung out at home while James napped and I escaped for a run around the neighborhood.  It was glorious.  I can’t remember the last time I went for a run outside.  I don’t mind the treadmill, but it is definitely not the same freeing feeling as running outside.  I listened to Counting Crows, one of my favorite bands in middle school / high school for most of the run and then Chromeo for the last mile or so when I needed an energy boost.  I love how music can take you back to other times of your life so clearly.

I ran somewhere between 4-5 miles, but I’m not exactly sure how far.  I used to always run with a gps watch, but I lost the charger when we moved last summer and I haven’t bothered to get a new one.  I kind of like just running how fast / far I feel like without thinking about the numbers.

Reading Outside

Sunday morning was too beautiful to stay inside and I spent James’s first nap time reading a book outside with a cup of coffee – pretty much the best.  If I could spend every morning doing this and every evening sitting out there with a glass of wine, I think I’d be pretty happy.

A Greenbelt Hike

The weather on Sunday was literally perfect.  It was a little cool in the morning and then just sunny with no humidity and not a cloud in the sky by the afternoon.  We wanted to walk on Austin’s Greenbelt, a rocky trail that goes all throughout the city, but even our BOB Revolution jogging stroller isn’t really cut out for it.

We decided to try the k’tan wrap with James front facing and he liked it about a million times better than facing backward.  He was giddy for the first half of the walk and never really seemed to mind being in there.  I’m excited about this because it’s so much more convenient to bring the wrap places than to load the heavy stroller into the car every time.  I may look for a more structured front facing carrier (we have an Ergo, but it’s sadly on rear facing).  Does anyone have a recommendation?

We walked on the trail for probably about an hour, stopping to look at the water and watching people (and dogs!) swimming and rock climbing.

We then took James home for another nap before all going to get some bbq.  It was a pretty perfect day.

What was the best part of your weekend?