Texas, Part 5 (Austin and Bryan)

Once family cleared out, we took the kids to the Bryan Children's Museum just for something different.  Because of the holidays, we almost had the place to ourselves. Here's our 'cool dude' in transit:

See any familiar grapes?

Hadley enjoyed the vacuum tube that would seemingly magically toss out a ball.

They also had a nice collection of service vehicles, which was Owen's favorite part.

And they got a kick out of chess pieces that were nearly their size!  (Daddy has been teaching Owen how to play chess at home.)  There were many other parts to the museum, but those were the kids' faves.

The next day, we left the kids with the grandparents for a day trip to Austin.  We met up with our good buddy Juan and pretended like we were just a couple of hipsters living it up on the up-and-coming east side of downtown.

The city was a little quiet, since it was during the holiday break, but there were still plenty of people outside at the end of December. We walked down to the river where we saw some crew boats practicing, families playing, and joggers jogging.

We stopped in at a local brewpub where we caught this view of downtown, horse trolleys, and the metro rail all in the same frame.  So much activity in the big city! :)

And we couldn't visit Austin without trying out some of the local food truck fare.  The East Side King was especially tasty and sought-after since I'm a Top Chef fan.  (Austin's Paul Qui won a couple of season's back and started this series of food trucks.  We also spied him through the window of his new restaurant, Qui, while we were walking around.)