Birthday Week

For my 52nd birthday, I was lucky enough to have the pleasure of both my brother, his wife, my son and his wife, along with my own little family, help me celebrate. It was one of the best birthdays I've had in a while.

I wish I had gotten more pictures than what I did, but I was so busy enjoying my company that I didn't really think much about my camera.

Thanks to my other selfie loving family members, there were a few captured moments.

On my birthday, my brother treated me and my family to Southside BBQ. Diep pulled out her handy dandy selfie stick and captured a memory for us...

It's been a while since I've gotten a picture of these two curtain climbers together....

Lucas and Emily spent their spare time lounging in the pool....

 .....and venturing some of the area bike trails...

.....and we all took a hike on Barton Creek....

Only my strange teen would wear long pants to a creek in 100 plus temps....

I think the most fun we had was the night before Lucas and Emily headed back to Alabama. Toby and I bought tickets to Esther's Follies. We ate dinner and one of our favorite restaurants downtown before we walked the block to Esther's for the show.

Esther's has a reputation for randomly picking a member of the audience to participate in their comedy skits. Lucas happened to be that "lucky" member. It was HILARIOUS!!! He's such a good sport and has just the personality for his "part".

Unfortunately, no videoing is allowed in the theatres so the memory will be forever ingrained in our minds rather than the digital world.

It was a non-stop week chock full of family fun.

Moon Walk

Here are a few pics of our walk downtown last week. We really didn't walk too much because it was an extremely hot day and our original motive was to grab a couple of items from the downtown Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and the medical supply store.

A little pup waiting patiently for his master outside of P. Terry's....

Paddlers enjoying the lake..

I love the design of  Pfluger Bridge, especially the spiral portion.....

Bike rentals...

Even though I have walked by this area a few times, it's the first time I ever noticed what appears to be a large picnic table and some lamp-like lights....

Today we headed to McKinney Falls. It's a beautiful state park and it's been awhile since I've been there.

Because of all the rock, I always feel like I'm on the moon...

We got out of there just in time for the bus loads of day care kids and scout campers.

Other pics from the week:

The teens enjoying a sunset swim....

Fun In The Sun

We had a successful July 4th celebration. We invited a few neighbors over for a swim and a fancy dinner of grilled hamburgers and hot dogs.

I was too busy having fun with my adult conversation/beverage to take make any memories via photos, but I did think about my camera when I saw this nice sunset....

In comparison to last summer, we've been having a good one this year. Our daily life stress levels are lower on the Richter scale. We've all spent a good bit of family time swimming in our pool this year. It was a lonely pool last year.

Today Toby and I had to run an errand in NW Austin, so we mixed in a little fun by taking a hike in and swim on Bull Creek.

Even though the annual drought has already began, our creeks are still flowing nicely from our abundance of spring rains...

 

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Toby spotted a lost tube, most likely left over from July 4th creek celebrations...

I've uploaded a couple of videos I took onto my YouTube channel. I've added this link for you to view or subscribe if you are interested in videos.

Architectural Walk

The past few months, Toby and I have been spending our free time with a walk downtown. We usually end up walking the same, familiar blocks each time we go, so I suggested we pick up a map of the downtown walking tours from the Welcome Center and map out or own self-guided tour. That way, we can cover the downtown area in a more organized fashion.

So, this week it was the West of Congress Avenue Architectural District.

It was a nice walk and very hilly so it gave us a good, sweaty workout. I only took a few pictures on our walk....

After a few miles of walking, we were hot and hungry and headed for lite lunch, and a Purple 'Rita.