Our trip to Schlitterbahn...A.K.A (the world's biggest collection of water shoes and fanny packs)

Our adventures in Austin continued with our trip to Schlitterbahn. Schlitterbahn trips have been a summer staple in the Horton house since I was little, but Johnathon had never been before; so my sister, Johnathon and I packed up the car and headed down to New Braunfels for a relaxing day at the waterpark. Or more realistically, a day where you pay $15.00 for a turkey leg and get repeatedly elbowed in the ribs by some kid in the wave pool. Totally worth the $50.00 entrance fee. In hindsight I probably should have warned Johnathon about two things:

1) The extremely long lines you get to wait in all while carting your inner tube around
2) The awesome people watching/swimsuit violations.

Folks, its been a couple of years since I'd been to Schlitterbahn, but I'm here to report that the dress code there has not gotten any more conservative or classy since last I visited. I lost count in the first fifteen minutes the number of water shoes and fanny packs I saw that were paired with visors, money pouches, and beer bellies that should have been contained underneath a t-shirt, but were on display in all their sun screened glory. It was quite a visual treat for the eyes. The people watching could have been enough fun in itself, but we got lots of quality tube rides in as well. I am also happy to report that the only injury sustained was when my sister accidentally roundhouse kicked Johnathon in the face at the bottom of the first water slide. Good times had by all.

On our second to last night in Austin we decided to have a big family dinner at Eastside Cafe then played some Top Golf. Some genius (me) decided Top Golf would be fun for the whole family, and not the least bit embarrassing. For some reason I think I envisioned myself looking like this when I played...

But apparently it was more like this...

At least everyone else was pretty decent, and we all had a good laugh. Here are everyone else's action shots that turned out infinitely better than mine...

My sister killed it out there

My beautiful mom :)

My handsome husband :)

My dad swinging away

It's now our last night in Austin, and we have spent the last twelve hours packing all our belongings into two checked bags, all while staying under the 50 lb weight limit. If you're wondering, it was definitely as easy as it sounds. I believe somewhere around my second bag I decided my packing skills were best utilized in a management role, and essentially supervised my mom and my sister as they sat on my suitcase to zip it shut. That's family love right there. We have had the best time with my family, and it will be so hard to say goodbye tomorrow. I just have to keep thinking about how much fun we will have in Michigan, and that we are one step closer to our new island life. I will definitely miss my crazy, fun, beautiful family, but I'm so glad for all of our memories we made these last couple of weeks!

my family xoxo

Southbound...35...

Well we finally made it out of our extended stay hotel, and on to our first destination...Austin! I'm no marriage expert, but I feel like if we can survive 3 weeks in a one bedroom extended stay with a dog, multiple suitcases, and a questionable free happy hour (think corndogs and Franzia), then we can make it through anything! Needless to say we were very excited to be out of there and on to see my parents and sister in Austin.

One of the joys of staying with your parents, is that you get to sleep on the same bed you did when you were sixteen. In my case this wouldn't be a bad thing, except that I have a sleep number bed with only one air chamber. This means you can only select one number, and if you have two people sleeping on the mattress, it acts like a waterbed where you sink and rise depending on the other persons movements. In case you're wondering...this is a sure fire set up to a great night sleep. Fortunately, by night number two we discovered that our magic sleep number is 40, and if we plug in a fan for white noise and each sleep with our own comforter we are pretty happy campers. (I have been accused of stealing covers so Johnathon insists on sleeping with his own comforter...I will neither confirm nor deny my sheet stealing tendencies).... I say, you snooze, you lose.

Over the last week we have done lots of lounging around the pool in an attempt to get a base tan before the island. Sadly we are Polish, German, and Irish so our genes aren't really working in our favor. We are mostly just a pleasant shade of burned.

My mom and Johnathon enjoying some pool time

 I also decided that it just wasn't an Austin trip without taking Johnathon on a date night to The Oasis. That's an awesome restaurant on Lake Travis with beautiful views of the sunset. We got there in time to get a seat on the patio and catch the amazing sunset.

Johnathon and I enjoying the sunset at the Oasis

On Thursday we decided to get up early and take our dog Sadie for a walk around town lake. I thought the trail would be pretty empty if we went early during the week, but I forgot how annoyingly athletic people are in Austin, so we had to share the trail with all sorts of in-shape people jogging around us. It was my one goal to get a picture of Sadie with the Austin skyline behind her. I didn't have very high hopes for this because...while adorable...Sadie may be the most un-photogenic dog I have ever seen. Sadie...if you're reading this...I say that with lots of love. It's just that she never looks at the camera, and one of her eyes tends to look lazy. I swear she's adorable in person. Luckily, I think Sadie was feeling competitive against all the obedient, athletic dogs running around off their leashes, because she hopped up on the ledge and looked straight at the camera just long enough for me to get this picture....

Success!

Hey guys! Well we officially started our blog so we can keep in touch with everyone and share stories and pictures of our adventures on Kwajalein! Stay tuned for more posts and pics as our journey begins! Thanks for stopping by!