Seven Months

This past weekend the family loaded up the car and headed down to Austin for our first weekend road trip. I had to do an event at the Longhorns game doing some promotion stuff and since it was company paid, we figured why not make it a family trip. The original plan was to drive down Friday morning and go through a drive-in petting zoo near San Marcos but the rain and my absolute hatred in being in a car longer than I need to be pushed up our departure to Thursday evening. The Wifey found a 25 dollar hotel in Austin through Priceline so we could drive down and have more time on Friday to do stuff. Despite the Wifey's beliefs that I told her I "just love driving" we have an agreement that she drives down and I will drive home. I sat in the backseat with the Baby and we were off. The Baby did really well for her first extended road outing. She slept for a good portion of the trip and when she was awake, she enlightened us with her rendition of Hamlet. We got into Austin a little after 10pm and since none of us had eaten dinner, we went out to Kerbey Lane for some food. We walked in thinking we were the trashy parents hauling their infant for dinner at 10pm but we saw two other babies who were younger than the Baby already inside the restaurant. Crazy Austin and it's hippies.

Friday morning we went out to Juan in a Million for some breakfast tacos and with the high chance of precipitation, we altered our plan of going to the petting zoo and opted to go outlet mall shopping. When we were through with that portion of the trip we checked in to the company paid hotel at the very nice Casulo Hotel. It's located in South Austin and relatively close to downtown and since I booked this hotel a couple of months ago, I had a pretty good rate but even then, this hotel's regular rates are pretty good, $130/night for a home game weekend. I really suggest checking out the pics, the rooms were a decent sized but everything was really well designed and it felt like a fancy hotel. But then again, the Wifey and I think Holiday Inn Express is pretty nice too so I guess it's all personal preference. But the Casulo has a huge shower with the rainfall showerhead and a regular one and an oversized bathtub. But it also had a window that looked into the bedroom. It was actually pretty creepy, especially if you are sharing the room with someone who you aren't married or dating, but other than that, we loved the hotel. We also had dinner at Moonshine in downtown Austin and the Baby was able to eat her fair share of crostinis and pickles. She really didn't eat the pickle but just squeezed it and looked at us and laughed. But the crostinis she loved. It's fun watching her eat and just look at her food and the reactions she makes every time she tastes something. So far she loves bread, celery, broccoli, pickles, and chicken. I gave her a raw onion and she wasn't too happy about that but that's been the only thing she doesn't like to eat.

Saturday morning I went off to the game, the Wifey had breakfast in bed with the Baby. She also left a lot of her breakfast in the bed, mainly my side, but that is neither her nor there. Lunch we drove out to Salt Lick in Driftwood to indulge on some BBQ. The Baby turned seven months old on Saturday and she said she wanted to try out Salt Lick, so we went. That evening we stayed in and caught up on some sleep and prepared for our drive back in the morning.

Sunday morning we met up with my old college roommate(s) Charles and Matt. I actually lived in the dorms with Charles at A&M and for one summer I slept on Matt's couch at his apartment. Except one night I woke up and Matt was starting at me in the middle of the night, so I took that as a sign that I had overstayed my welcome and abruptly left. Charles likes to miss all the major events in my life by playing GI Joe and being an All-American hero in the Middle East but now he's at Fort Hood. He actually gets paid by the government to break into the bases and other maximum security government offices and then tells them what they need to fix to keep people like him out. Crazy stuff. But anyways, we had a good breakfast, shared a few laughs, and then the family left for home.

So this past weekend we realized the Baby is pretty good in the car. She also can't stay in a hotel room for an extended period of time and prefers to actually go out and do stuff. She already understands being stir crazy. The Baby has also started moving forward with a mixture of regular crawling and army man crawling and now she can roll onto her butt and sit up by herself. And as of today she is able to pull herself up and stand up. She eventually comes crashing down but the fact that she even does that has gotten the Wifey and I are to start baby proofing corners and lowering the cribs. It's absolutely nuts to fathom that the Baby is actually seven months old and she is learning new things faster than we can keep up with. But all in all, great weekend. Happy Seven Months baby.