ATX

We had a girls trip to Austin in early April, just McKnight / Lund girls, to visit my mom's side of the family. It wasn't exactly the weekend trip we had planned, but we were able to visit with my aunts, cousins and their children which we haven't had the opportunity to do, well, ever. They are fantastic people and, just like good friends do, we seem to pick up pretty much where we left off.

Also, strangely, I have been out-of-town 4 times since Georgia was born and 3 of the trips were to Austin. Three different groups of people. #homeawayfromhome

It isn't as easy to get to Austin as it should be, in my opinion, but we made the best of it. I had flown with both girls when we went to Florida, but Georgia was pretty much a different child then. Thank goodness for my Mom and Betsy to help with child wrangling.

Georgia had just learned to say "Hiiii!", so wandered around being cute and talking to people, only some of whom were nice back. She also perfected the art of limp noodle on our layover: I would hold her hand to re-direct her and she would lose all her bones and fall over. As you can see, she found it hilarious.

Georgia also crawled all over every inch of the Houston airport. Second child, clearly. We also ran into our fair share of grumpy travelers, who should have been delighted at the (considering the circumstances) excellent behavior of my children.

 In a perfect turn of events, we were able to rent the house immediately next door to my cousin's house. It was great.

Cards on the patio as soon as we got settled.

Ellen taunting Oliver with the promise of gold-covered chocolate.

Second cousins!

It was cool-ish for Austin, and drizzly on the day we left, but I think nicer than KC. We made it to the park in their neighborhood for a little exercise.

My cousin, Katherine (of NYC wedding fame a few years ago) and her darling son, Oliver. Oliver is about 5 months younger than Georgia, but just a smidge bigger.

G had a great time at the park and, sadly, I realized this was the first time she had ever been!

Monkey

Perfecting the pout

Drama for days

 To be fair, I realized that Ellen found herself in an odd situation, for her. She is used to being right in the middle of her Lund cousins - 3 older, 3 younger - and she joins both groups from time to time. Here, there were 2 babies and 2 teenagers and I think she felt like the odd man out.

She did have a great time with the big girls and couldn't stop talking about them, or visiting them, or begging them to jump on the trampoline or paint her nails. They were sweet enough to comply with most of her demands!

And, cards. You can't have a Hampton get-together without card playing. For money. The stakes aren't high, but it's competitive. We started with liverpool rummy, added some rounds of dominoes and Ellen legitimately won some money of her own, and we ended the evening with a game of teams playing Tenzi - super fun for everyone!

 Our trip home did not go as smoothly as the first leg, mainly because our flight was very late and basically started at the same time Georgia eats dinner and goes to bed. She is generally such a great sleeper - AT HOME - that it's hard to complain, but I'm not eager to repeat it.