Austin, TX | Spring Break 2017

Thanks to Facebook Memories, Spring Break in Austin is really like 2017, 2015, 2012 and so on. We've relied on this city to provide a great escape to us for quite some time now, it's not to far away and that makes the drive there easy. Some how to us it is just far enough to feel like we are really far away. So many people always ask - Why Austin? Or What's in Austin? 

I'm not 100% sure what the answer is but I have been drawn to this city since my single and broken hearted days and now as a family of four every time we visit we end up talking about moving there. Every. Time. I can probably tell you more easily what we have not been able to do on our trips there; things that everyone always wants to do in Austin. We have not been able to get into Hamilton Pools, I know this is sad but we have never had luck with that one, I can only assume there is a witching hour for getting in and we just are not making it on time. We have never stood in line at  Franklin's BBQ - We went once after 10 am and I am pretty sure it was laughing at us as we drove by. Other than that this we have over time tried all kinds of Austin things to do. 

We have shopped all around and love going to record stores from the college side of town straight to Congress St., resale shops, antiquing and vinyl records are a must. Although H-Town is know to be a mega "Food" city, you can't really go wrong in finding a good place to catch some grub. Food trucks are a must, Torchy's Tacos muy beno! Pizza joints no problem try some Via 313 Pizza and get your pie on. Summer time calls for some serious shaved ice and I promise your taste buds will be happy. 

Although Hamilton Pools is one good place to find a watering hole don't forget Barton Springs is a great watering spot and head over to Lady Bird Lake and go canoeing or paddle boarding. I have to say we are old school and simply enjoy Lake Travis, we rent a Pontoon boat and a jet ski and set out to have lunch and some fun times on the lake. This year we had a change of pace and rented a small Ski Boat and we had a blast. 

Our little family like to go out for an easy hike (especially with the little bear in tow) we enjoy heading over to Perdenales State Park, truly there are so many parks in and around the city you can't go wrong. The city quote "Keep Austin Weird" so if you go wondering about make some "weird" stops like we did this trip and find your self at "Hope Outdoor Gallery". 

So if you want to get away and keep it nice and easy find yourself in the winding roads and steep dips of Austin, TX. Go exploring and be weird! I'm sure you'll enjoy it! 

Weekend Snapshots | Jellystone Park

Hello everyone and welcome to the 4^th week of school! Hallelujah we made it! I know I’ve been a little MIA but the beginning of school is always a rough time for me at work, to add on to it we’ve had family member in the hospital and time has been scarce. Thankfully we’ve made it through, my family is at home recovering and the roughest time of year is settling down – YAY!

So of course we should totally go camping right? I know, maybe not the best time, but we did it anyway! Actually we had booked this little trip back in June but it was rained out and moved to this past weekend. So we packed up and headed out and let me tell you it was a welcomed chaos, to completely detach and worry about packing, food, supplies, and clothes and camping gear, was a total de-stressor!

We didn’t head far just an hour or so away to Waller, TX to Jellystone Park, the perfect place to go if #1 you don’t like camping and #2 if you have kids (or you’re a big kid yourself!). Why is it the perfect place to go camping if you don’t like camping? You can rent a cabin! A cabin with a bathroom, bed, kitchen, couch and a TV! See easy-peasy, we decided to use our tent so we booked a tent camping spot, minus some of the luxuries of the cabin the “tent camping” includes water, electrical outlet, one picnic table and a fire ring. Bathrooms and Showers are not far away and super clean, believe me I have been camping all my life and I’ve seen some bathrooms and showers that make you want to pee outside and you feel perfectly fine being stinky so this is a major plus!

At Jellystone there is something for your kids to do all day long, they have the swimming pool area, with kid’s slides and they have a few grown up slides too, they have a lazy river and a splash pad. Out of the water they have miniature golf, a playground, human fooseball, giant tetherball, a craft center and a stocked lake for fishing. The park organizes something to do all day, like free craft time and a train ride twice a day. You can take the kids to meet Yogi Bear (although Hailey really didn’t know who he was!!) and they throw in things like a Foam Party and a Fire Truck that comes out to spray the kids down! Really you will not be bored, they also plan events all year round for Halloween, Christmas, Easter and even Mardi Gras! 

We ended up using our trip to celebrate my little bears best friend's birthday and it turned out to be awesome! Just before the trip I made some shirts for the girls to celebrate their "wild" side and they had a blast. Even my 19 year old was able to have a good time, he even ended up have a little fishing lesson with the girls and they all did so great. Hailey was able to cast her line several times but most of all she was able to bond with her big brother. This crazy weekend was just what we all needed after some very stressful weeks in the real world. Little Bear says her favorite part of the trip was spending time with her fiends and family, sound like a girl after my own heart.

Finally being able to sit down and re-cap my Weekend Snapshots feels super good, remember to check out the other ladies at 3twentysix & The Reinvention of Jessica to see what they were up to this weekend! 

Yummy Breakfast! Eggs, bacon and pancakes! 

Yogi who?

Besties having fun! 

Human Foosball! 

Fun in the Sun

My little bear fishing! 

The girls just hanging out :)

My whole world...

The much needed group selfie!

A great feeling of accomplishment when you get the tent to fit perfectly back in its bag! 

Galveston Island – Quick Getaway

How has your summer going? So far our summer has been very crazy and busy – busy with work and busy being a parent. For my friends with young kids and you feel like life is busy and stressful, let me tell you what I didn’t believe when my son was just a kid. It does not get easier. I know you think it might get easier because your children seem to be more self-sufficient and they can take care of themselves, but at some point as they become a “young adult” you realize that when it comes to college and growing up it can be very stressful as a parent too.

This summer we did not plan a summer vacation mostly because in the last nine months as a family of four we have been to – Key West, FL – Freeport, Bahamas – Nassau, Bahamas, thanks to a cruise we took in November 2015. Then for Spring Break we took and little adventure and flew to Seattle, WA from there we decided to lose our minds and take a road trip from there to – Portland, OR – Sacramento, CA – San Francisco, CA and we even made a short stop in Lake Tahoe, CA. All of these were little stops along the way but they were major trips for my little family. 

So with the combination of trips taken and tuition we did not plan to go anywhere this summer, but the best got to us and we needed a time out. I needed a moment to breath, I needed a moment where it was just the four of us – minus the drama of life. I can’t lie I love wood working and I’ve found quite some peace in the solitude of drowning out everything with the sounds of a sander or a miter saw running but I miss my little family at the same time. That’s what we need don’t you think? Balance.

We decided to take a little trip to Galveston Island, not far and believe it or no other than taking a day trip to the beach or the strand in all my life I’ve never stayed on the island. So we booked two nights at the Hilton Galveston Island Resort and we planned to just let go and have fun for a few days.

We spent day one at the pool and just relaxed. Nothing special just a few drinks and swimming around like goofy people. Dinner was just pizza and movie watch in our hotel room just hanging out.

Travel Tip – the next day we headed over to Schlitterbahn for some serious fun. Did you know that you can check with your hotel and see what kind of deals they offer for nearby attractions? We scored our tickets to Schlitterbahn for 50% off the normal price!

Our day at Schlitterbahn was well spent, thankfully it was a cloudy raining day, there wasn’t a ton of people and it wasn’t super 100 degrees hot either. We did get rained on a little but it’s a good thing we were already wet and not made of sugar!

On out last day there we took the ferry over to Bolivar and we hit the beach. The rain caught up to us but not before we had a chance to make some sand castles and sand crab! The storms off of the shore looked crazy cool and again we didn’t mind more water too much.

Before we made it back home we stopped at the strand of course, there is no trip to Galveston Island without a stop at the Chocolate Factory and boutique shopping!

In the end out trip was well worth it, but then again isn’t any trip well worth the time? We got to breath as a family and enjoy our own company. We had fun together and laughed a lot, my kiddos are growing up, thankfully when we pull away from life and it’s just the four of us we fall back into place – almost like nothing ever happened. 

Weekend Snapshots 4.5 | Segway

This Weekend Snapshots is brought to you by Segway Tours ofHouston and I’m Linked Up with 3twentysix and onixj. Really this is a mashup of this weekend and the weekend before! I’ll make it worth your while with an awesome giveaway at the end brought to us by Segway Tours of Houston!!

Weekend before started off mellow and chill – Sometimes you just have to take a break. It feels like we go go go all the time and suddenly you just come home and you want to stay home. I worked in my garage all day long Saturday before last finishing up a chalk paint project for my niece. I’ll write up a post on the whole chalk paint – tips and tricks. Chris and I were able to get away Sunday to meet up with the peeps from Segway Tours of Houston for an awesome Segway Tour! It was epic and awesome.

A few years back I was able to work with the founders of Segway Tour of Houston and I had access to jump on Segways all the time, lucky right? Over the years I’ve kept in touch and I am so proud of what an awesome company it’s become!! They have tours going out from the Wrotham Center every weekend and they have a “Certificate of Excellence” from TripAdvisor. Most recent they teamed up with Ben’s Beans in Downtown Houston offering even more tours daily. Segway Tours of Houston is revamping all of their social media and websites and Chris and I were happy to take some pictures of a tour in action of them. This was our first time on an actual tour and we were impressed, the tour guide was awesome, funny and informative with things about the Bayou City you never knew you never knew!!

This weekend was a busy one as we are prepping to go on a big trip that’ll take us from Seattle down to Sacramento- we fly out today!!

Saturday – We ran around shopping and getting our plans straight for our trip and I managed to take a break from all that to join the Houston Latina Bloggers at a Wellness and Beauty Networking event.  Events like this push me out of my comfort zone, but I will say we all need that don’t we? If we plan big and dream big we should surround ourselves with like-minded people and when we plan big and dream big we can’t keep doing what we’ve been doing we have to be ready to step out and do different to be different. I consider myself lucky to be a part of an awesome group of Latina Women who encourage and uplift one another. Teaching each other the strength and beauty comes in many different shapes and forms but ultimately the beauty I can give to someone comes first from finding that beauty from within myself.

Sunday we went to New Hope and afterward my one request for lunch was that we could sit outside and soak up the stellar Houston weather. We found ourselves at Café Adobe, the grub was good but the view was better! Lots of outtakes with ducks, turtles and even an alligator! Back at the home front we did more packing and some semi-napping before heading to my dad’s for more grub. Oh and a small tequila tasting he set up for us!! What can I say? That’s my family and they know how to bring it together real nice! 

Enter here for your chance to win a free Segway Tour for Two!! 

HLB Girls lookin' fly

You & Me

Hello my blogger readers :) I am having one of those “moments”, one of those I have something muy importante going on and my first reaction is to close up, shut down. In January I made the decision to change the format of my blog from sharing my running and weight loss to sharing with you my daily crazy life. I promised to share more and I’ve tried to do just that. It’s easy when things are fun and exciting and we are just goofing around but I am out of my comfort zone when it comes to the dig deep and share with you what’s really going on. {insert deep breath here}

For Spring Break my little family is planning an awesome trip from Seattle down to Sacramento. We are so excited because we have never been to the west coast. We are more excited because the biggest part of our trip consist of a three day stop in Portland Oregon, to visit what is most likely where Chris will be going to school next fall.

The most asked question in the past week –“Uh-oh momma are you ready for that?”

My answer is indisputably “yes.” I get in return a blank stare or the “yeah right” look. Trust me I will more than likely want to fall apart the minute I leave Chris in Portland and I have no idea what it’s like to even be me without Chris. For those of you who don’t know my story, I’ve been a mom to Chris at this point in my life longer than anything else I have ever done or ever have been. I became a mommy at 17 years old, which be it crazy and not something I recommend, I wouldn’t change it for anything in the whole world. If offered to go back in time – knowing what I know now – I would do it all over again as long as it means that “Titan” “kiddo” “Gigantor” “Christian” would be my son and I would have the amazing experience and the honor of raising him.

Early on just like most parents I wanted to make sure that Chris would do more and be more than I ever have. I’ve told him to fly. Chris is a free spirit an old soul, if you know him you know. He has struggled with the fact that he was never quite sure about what he wanted to study or maybe he did, he just didn’t realize it was an option. I’ve told him to be himself, to do something that he loves and not be afraid if it didn’t fit the mold or if it didn't match what everyone else around him was doing at the time. He has a love for photography and not in a family portrait kind of way. He sees photography as a complex art form and he wants to pursue that passion. 

Around the time I meet my husband I fell in love with a song from the Dave Matthews Band “You & Me” and it was the song not just because it was a love a song but because I felt Jose and I believed this song truly before we had Hailey.  My husband was ready to join me and help me teach Chris to “fly” from the very beginning.

Am I ready for Chris to go to Portland this fall, yes I am, you see I’ve told my son to fly all his life and I can’t clip his wings now. What will I do while he is away? Well I guess God planned that out long ago because I have this crazy 6 year old spunky little girl and her flying lessons are daily.