Busy Weekend

  Last weekend I was scheduled to referee the UT Rugby match vs. Sam Houston St. down in Austin.  We thought it would be a great opportunity to take a short trip down to Austin.  We picked up Macie from school around 11:30, dropped the dogs off at the kennel,  and headed out.  We stopped in Waco at the Starbucks to buy my mom a Starbucks gift-card. (Happy Birthday Mom) and mailed it from the post office across the street.  We also stopped in Belton at Sonic.  We got to the hotel in Austin around 3:45 (the Renaissance  at the arboretum) and checked in.  My game was Friday night so we left to hotel around 4:30 to get out to the field.  We got there around 4:45 and it was empty.  I thought the B side was supposed to kick off at 5:00 so I was really nervous that maybe we were at the wrong place.  Fortunately I found out later that the B sides were scheduled to kick off at 6:00.  I met up with the UT coach and confirmed my game time was 7:30 so we all left to grab a bite to eat.  We drove past the house my dad grew up in and it was painted VERY BRIGHT yellow.  We then drove to campus and went to the co-op to buy some stuff.  I got a hat and Jamie, Macie, Averie and Lindsie got shirts.  We took a picture by the statue out back and grabbed a smoothie from Jamba Juice.  We then headed back to the fields.  Jamie dropped me off and I reffed my game.  UT lost 34-22 to Sam Houston but I felt it was a really good match.  It was a lot of fun.  When I was done it was after 10:00 and the girls were exhausted.  We drove around looking for somewhere to eat but ended up eating at Taco Cabana.  You can't go wrong there.   Saturday we woke up kind of late and were not moving too quickly.  We were going to meet up for breakfast with the Kwans but that fell through.  Instead the girls and I went swimming at the pool for a while.  It was a lot of fun.  We then took showers and got dressed to go drive around town.  We drove out Highway 360 and then took 2222 out to Lake Travis.  We drove past Oasis and saw the lake from up above.  We then backtracked back to 360 and continued South to were Jamie and I used to live while in school.  We showed the girls our apartment and the area around we used to frequent. It was an absolute beautiful day so we went to Zilker Park to hang out and let the girls play.  They played on the playground, rode the train and got snow cones.  Since the girls didn't share with mom and dad very well I went to get my own snowcone.  When I got back the girls were all standing up and the table and there snow cones were covered with bees.  Lucky dad got to grab the cup and "shoo" all the bees away.  Furtunately I didn't get bitten.  We decided to roll since we were getting hounded by the bees and headed to campus.  The UT football game vs. OSU started at 2:30 and it was now around 3:30 so we thought we would be safe.  We went the the Texas State History Museum and walked around for a little over an hour.  We then saw an IMAX 3D movie about the ocean.  It was pretty cool but I was more interested in trying to "watch" the play by play of the game on my phone.  Everytime something important happened my signal would drop and I would panick.  The end of the game and the end of the movie happened at the exact same time.  I saw there was :04 left and OSU had the ball near the 50.  I refreshed and got "no signal".  I was freaking out.  As we exited people asked me if I knew the score as I was busy fumbling with my phone.  Finally I saw it was a Final.  Hook'Em. So, know we were exiting the museum which is basically on campus at the same time the game was letting out.  We knew were would not get anywhere for a couple of hours so we decided to walk around campus.   Not sure what the "sculpture" above is but it is right by Jester dorm.  The girls thought it was fun.  We walked over to the Union and ate some Wendy's and the girls had a blast playing around on the fountains and stairs.  We next walked down to the stadium and showed the girls the field and the inside.  By this time we were all EXHAUSTED.  We went back to the museum to our car and headed home.  We got home around 11:00. Sunday I went to more rugby and then we went to the "Pumpkin Patch" and bought some pumpkins.  We took them home a carved them.  What a weekend....