austin

Claire the Formula 1 Driver 🏎️

| patmcg

Last Christmas, I took the kids on a ride around the Formula 1 track at the Circuit of the Americas just on a whim. It was fun like any holiday outing such Trail of Lights, Mozarts Festival of Lights, or whatever.

In the year since, Claire has become a big Formula 1 fan, along with her friends. Heck, she even got me interested in reading a book (!) to learning more about the sport.

So this year, I decided to put Claire behind the wheel in her Prius 😆. We invited her F1 friends along, and Molly, a casual F1 fan, squeezed in too.

This turned out to be the most fun experience we’ve all had together in a long time. I’ll say no more and let the video speak for itself. 👌 (Also on Instagram.)

T8!

| patmcg

Molly nudges me into taking her to the Tate McRae concert at the Moody Amphitheater.

I wasn’t real familiar with Tate McRae, who came out wearing oversized hockey shirt with “T8” emblazoned on the front. 😆

But what can I say? T8 was gr8!

Creek Show

| patmcg

With Claire finishing up high school and heading to college next year, the holidays are feeling especially nostalgic. Sure, we’ll see her over the holidays after she goes to college, but it won’t be the same as now. 😭

With that in mind, our first holiday-style foray this season was the classic Creek Show, which feels like a mini pre-Christmas light event downtown and warmup for the madness of Trail of Lights.

Actually, their mom got the tickets but gave them to use since she was sick. Thank you, Kit!

Walking UT

| patmcg

Molly is in 8th grade, but after some walks on the campus of a certain neighborhood college, aka UT Austin, she is pretty sure where she wants to go to college.

“I like the vibe,” is her explanation. And she’s keeping her grades up.

We’ve been going on walks all around UT when we can. We’ll walk from West Campus to the football stadium, from the “Hi, how are you?” sign to Hyde Park. We always stop for pizza. The Dollar Slice Club was our initial go-to spot for pizza near campus, but our favorite new spot is Roppolo’s.

Today we checked out the student union, and came across the perfect activity for her: Swiftie Night! I offered to drop her off, but she, being mature, insisted that it’s for actual UT students and not local middle schoolers. Fine, wait a few years then, you dedicated Swiftie. 😉

Swimming on SoCo

| patmcg

Today was our first real swim since before the goddamn pandemic hit.

We’re easing our way back to “normal”, in this case meaning a more fun summer than last. ☀️ I jumped on a pool pass at the Austin Motel (“So Close, Yet So Far Out”). This hotel pool turns out to be less crowded and more fun than neighborhood social club the High Road, which we tried the summer before last.

One thing I love about Molly is that she’s not trying to be an adult yet. She made a “sea raft” out of swim noodles, held together with goggles. We played with our pool toys, Sammie the Seamonster and Ollie Octopus.

And we took lots of underwater photos, using my iPhone as a bit of a pool toy itself. I guess it could use a cleaning anyways. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Basic Austin Kid

| patmcg

We were heading out for an errand, when Molly notes that she looks like a “basic Austin kid.”

She’s right! And so self-aware. 🤔

The Whataburger drink gives it away. This is her favorite restaurant and has previously done a cartwheel 🤸🏻‍♀️ when told we were getting Whataburger.

Out for a Ride

| patmcg

Molly and I had the morning together while Claire finished up a sleepover at a friend’s house.  I asked Molly what she wanted to do, and we ended up combining the top two things on her wishlist: going for a bike ride and going over the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge in downtown Austin.

In a hilarious turn of events not well captured in photographs, Molly ended up riding her bike right past an active film set on the bridge.  The crew yelled, “We’ve got a biker!  Heads up!”  Molly was not the only such biker, but she was the funniest by far.

Here is our route for Molly’s ride.

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Molly is really motivated to ride her bike but is so far frustrated with the process and thinks the training wheels aren’t working right.

Also, isn’t she adorable on that bike?

Barking Springs and Sno Beach

| patmcg

Almost every weekend this summer, the girls andI have gone to our favorite hangout: Barking Springs.  A cold, rocky, slippery, green water paradise downstream from Baron Springs pool, this shallow swimming spot is a favorite for dogs and all kinds of people.  We walk over there and join the families, dog owners, slackers, fitness nuts, teenagers, and people on dates for an afternoon of splashing and floating in the water, and trying not to hurt ourselves or drown.  We had a 100% success rate this year on not drowning, but we did see a couple of other people almost drown, including a toddler in a floaty that got away from her parents, so that was a disturbing lesson to see in person.  Within five seconds on trouble, about a dozen people were scrambling to help the bobbing toddler, and they got her out safely.  One of the great things about Barton Springs is that everyone is nice and in a good mood.  You just can’t help it there!

The we run things is to go to the flat cement part on the west side of the river and wade into the current coming from the waterfall.  We float downstream for a while and do it again, trying not to trip and kill ourselves in the process of getting out of the river.  Sometimes we invite a friend of Claire’s to come along, which makes it even more fun.  Managing three kids at Barking Springs is not easy, but it does make the day more fun.

On the walk home, we always stop by Sno Beach, a snow cone stand that makes the best snow cones in town.  It makes for the perfect summer day.