Northbound 35

which isn't nearly as exciting as Southbound 35, but we made the most of it!  We packed up our hotel room said goodbye to our new friends.

Miss Kennedy gave Cami a big hug...which was reciprocated by a little hair pulling.  Oops!

Jackson hugged his new friend and we were off!

The only thing that made leaving ok was that we were stopping at one of my all time favorite restaurants, in my favorite city in Texas.  HULA HUT!!!

We sat outside by the dock and got our waitress to take a picture to commemorate this special occasion for me.  See how Miss Cami is reaching for something?  I thought she was just waving at the camera--wrong!  Right after the picture was snapped, Cami pulled that entire large cup of iced tea right over onto me.  Soaked everything!  Oh well, at least I was wearing black shorts, not khaki or white!

Nothing was going to derail me from my happiness, though.  I mean, just look at this view.  Love this place so much.

Then a few minutes later my roasted chicken pipeline arrived and all was even better.  Jared made a solid choice with his BBQ chicken tacos, but I totally out-whataburgered him!  I shared a few bites with him and both of the girls.  Thank goodness the pipeline is enormous because we polished off every last bite.

Until next time, Austin.  Hook 'em Horns!

And hopefully the next time I come see you, Hula Hut, it won't be noon.  Then I can enjoy the Mexican Martini and be able to enjoy the greatness of you.

 

On our way out of town, we decided to show the kids some cool sights.  We drove down Congress Avenue and had a great view of the State Capitol.  The kids were actually impressed!  Then we went by the Govenor's mansion and headed towards campus.  I showed them the UT campus and the dorm I lived in my freshman year--it was so nostalgic and kind of surreal having my kids back there!  We swung by the football stadium on the way out, which J man thought was pretty darn neat.  Jared and I would love to bring him back for a game some time. 

 

If we would only have been able to hop on a helicopter and take it back to Murphy from Austin, things would have been a total success.  That didn't happen, though, and we sat in a lot of traffic for the next 4 hours.  We finally made it home around 7:00 that night--only 4 1/2 hours later, with our sanity barely in tact!  Praise the Lord!