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!