Austin, Texas

Dear Friends:

Here in Texas, it's Spring Break!  This means that the kids are out of school.  It also means that both my son and his wife are also on a vacation, as they both work for school districts in Texas.  Lucky for me, they decided to come down and visit us in Austin for a long weekend - and were kind enough to bring my grandson! ; )

My heart was incredibly happy to watch my younger children playing with my grandson, L.  My youngest son and daughter talk about L all of the time.  In fact, at the beginning of family prayer, she demands that we include L in our prayer ; )  They played and shared toys...it was truly awesome to watch:

I had several chances to get on the floor and play with the boy.  We had a ton of fun.  He's just started crawling...and at nine months, is pulling himself up to get a better view of everything.  This includes pulling himself up on the hair of Grandpa's arms...

We tried a fun experiment...we had him hold on to the back of a toy car, at about his height.  We were amazed at how quickly he was moving across the floor with a little "assisted" walking:

Austin is a great place to have fun outdoors - especially when the weather is great.  While the rest of the country is experiencing winter, we have temperatures in the 60s and 70s.  We love to go for walks, so we took everyone for a fun walk at a nearby park.  After some recent rain, the puddles became irresistible to my daughter, so I put her on my shoulders for a while:

I made the entire group pose for a picture on the trail, as it was getting late in the day.  You can't see my grandson, but I promise that he's in the carrier, attached to his mother:

We decided to go to a new place for dinner.  We've had some unbelievable meals in Austin and this one didn't disappoint.  We traveled to Driftwood (only 15 minutes away) to eat at Trattoria Lisina.  It's an Italian restaurant that happens to sit on the only vineyard that I've seen here in Central Texas ; )

The food was amazing - from the fresh Focaccia bread, to the fire-grilled lamb chops, to the risotto with lobster and shrimp.  YUM!

Behind them is the room where they cure their meats...I was staring at it all night long ; )

Afterward, we played in the courtyard outside.  They had several fountains - just like any good Italian place should...

After a long day of playing, Baby L took a little nap on the ride home.  I was lucky enough to sit next to him and just watch him sleep:

The next day, we decided to take everyone on a good hike.  G-Man and my daughter LOVE being outdoors and hikes are a great way to spend time as a family.  My son and his family love it, too.  We headed out to the Barton Creek Greenbelt Trail - it's one that we've enjoyed before.

One of the kids favorite things to do, is to throw rocks into the water.  The last time we went on this trail, there was a healthy creek/small river flowing down the middle.  Since then, it's dried up.  However, we found the head where water was flowing over rocks that we haven't been able to see in a while:

After 2.5 miles on the hike, we had lunch at Rudy's - and the weather was so nice that we dined outside under the trees.  That night, we finished off a trip to Central Market with a visit to the gelato bar.  The perfect way to end the evening!

While Baby L was here, we broke out some infant toys that we kept ready for the time that he would be able to play with them.  They were toys from both G-Man and my daughter's baby days.  As expected, all of the kids ended up playing with the toys.  Another favorite was my daughter's little toy car.  It's large enough that she can still ride it around the house.  She's convinced her brother to push her down the hallway, over and over again.  It's adorable to watch them play together, laughing...

My grandson watched them playing and wanted to get into the whole experience.  So his father decided to push him around as well - and Baby L loved it!!  Check this out:

On their final day in Austin, we packed them up and had a little fun before leaving the house.  G-Man helped me entertain Baby L with a little game we call "Bouncy Bounce".  My son jumps on the bed and I move my grandson along with him.  Squeals of laughter can be heard.  Then, as any Robison child knows, being thrown by your father is part of the fun.  I decided to introduce Baby L to the tradition.  He loved it...the boy will probably be a roller-coaster fan!

We finished their trip with a visit to the InnerSpace Caverns in Georgetown.  It's a large cave system that is fun to travel through.  All of the typical cave rock formations are there, with several large rooms of beautifully-colored formations.  We even saw a hibernating bat that was about the size of a chicken McNugget ; )

My daughter-in-law was a real trooper.  Not only did she carry Baby L all the way through the mile-long walk in the cave, but at one point she had to nurse the baby AND walk at the same time.  Amazing!

We absolutely loved having the kids here - it was such a treat for our entire family.  My younger kids really love each of them, including Baby L...so that makes me a very happy and proud father/grandfather.  LOVE IT!