If You Play it, They Will Come

Since we arrived to Austin we've been hearing about a summer concert event called Blues on the Green. It's held at Zilker Park (home of ACL) every other Wednesday. We've been wanting to go all summer and finally made it over to one last week.






The music was really good and besides the fact that we didn't bring any cold ones or cash to grab a few (hot and humid people!), we had a great time people watching and soaking up everything summer.

book early and save at case de vance

So far we are averaging fam/friend guests about every 6 weeks. We feel pretty awesome and heart the fact that everyone is so stoked to come visit. One of our latest visitors, Jake's sister and her 3 kiddos, arrived last weekend. Because we knew that there were kids in tow we had a weekend jammed packed with activities hoping that we would exhaust them (make them want to move here *wink wink*) and get some adult time somewhere in there.

The fam arrived on Saturday afternoon and we took them to the infamous Torchy's Tacos to show them what a good taco really tastes like. OMG was this place amazingly scrumptious!!!!

We headed over to Town Lake to grab a sno cone to cool down while catching an evening boat tour of the lake. Being newbies ourselves we wanted to do something "touristy" and having relatives in town gave us an excuse to try this out. The tour went up and down Lady Bird Lake (aka Town Lake AKA Colorado River) and gave a history of the city that run along its banks. We also stayed on the boat until after sundown to check out the bats that colonize the bridge.

Being silly boys!

waiting for the bats across S. Congress bridge

tens of THOUSANDS of bats and their babies over head!!!

................................................

The next day we headed over to the Salt Lick (yup Jess was thrilled.) to get some good ol' fashioned Texas BBQ. Its a cash only BYOB BBQ that people drive for miles around to make sure they hit up before they leave central Texas.

this is how crowded it was and it was only 12!

Meat at its finest?!

After lunch we hit up Barton Springs for some good ole' summer time swim action.

After the kids were good and waterlogged we headed over to Red's Porch for dinner. Red's is a really cool restaurant that overlooks Hill Country. Good atmosphere for sure!




Next up was a night on the town for the adults. We hit up 5th and 6th to show Allison was Austin nightlife has to offer and had a good time listening to some music - both "live" and from the karaoke bar!

Nothing says Austin like a little live music

"I will survive...HEY HEY"

by the end of the night Allison was gettin' her Texas on!
............................

Monday was the last day that the fam was in town so we took them to float the Guadalupe River. Again this is something that we've been wanting to do for awhile and having guests in town again gave us an excuse to do something we've been putting off -- wait why are you putting off these amazing things??!! We rented some tubes, grabbed some snacks and adult beverages and headed off to have a lazy Monday floating the river.

epitome of summer...

lovin' the snacks!

the girls know how to relaaaaxxxxx

Love having guests and looking forward to October and ACL among the other festivities we've got going on!

Who Wants a Cheeseburger??

The birthday boy does! We heart our animal son just as much as anyone else in our family. We've learned a lot about ourselves and what it takes to make a family work. So grateful for our sweet boy and look forward to adding a human brother or sister to the family one day. For now, Stewart's our only responsibility and we like it that way.

Today he and his twin sister (Mia) celebrate their 2nd bday-- ahhh the teenage years! On the menu tonight: cheeseburger from the drive through. Shhh don't tell our trainer : )

They grow up so fast....

Let Me Be Your Neighbor

We saw this house a few weekends ago when we had some family over and wanted to show them a neighborhood that we hope to move to some time soon. It's close to some of our favorite spots in town that has a lot of character (something that Jess is looking for) and overgrown trees (Jake's must-have in a neighborhood) We passed the house below and Jess absolutely fell in love. During our window shopping excursion on Sunday we had to make another drive past this beauty and take a few pictures and peeks through the windows.....She's visualizing as we speak!

Totally remodeled 1940's quaint 2500 sq. foot home.
Obsessed!

Everyone ready for an afternoon BBQ? We are.

Easy (Like a Sunday Morning)

Sunday is our day. The day that we blackout in our calendars for some "us" time. Lately with the many visitors (that we LOVE) and balancing our new work schedules our Sundays have seemed to fall on the wayside. This weekend we had a lull in the craziness that we call our lives and took advantage of the beautiful weather that Austin was having this weekend.

Although Jess is usually the organizer in the relationship, Jake is great at planning. Of coarse he had a list of to-dos in hand before we left the house that morning.

The day started off late in the morning and was quickly followed by a few donuts....yummmm

Our cooler was packed (and so were our bellies) so we headed over to Lake Austin (about 30 minutes from our house) to enjoy a lazy Sunday with our son.

We read. We enjoyed the sun. We played Banagrams.
By our rules.




Guess who won?


After a leisurely drive in one of our favorite neighborhoods for some (window shopping) house hunting, we ended the day with some fries and chocolate shakes from P. Terry's- Austin's version of In N' Out.

yummmm. If you're counting that two tasty treats in one day. Hey, it was Sunday. Nothing counts on a Sunday right?

Sweet ending to a great day.

Memorial Weekend: Day Two

Ok, 4th of July has come and gone but we've been busy! Anyways, here's what happened the rest of the weekend when Perm came to visit. We decided to show the rest of the weekend in pictures (hint: it's been TOO long but we hate to not post these pictures from our award winning brother)

Saturday:

We're Bad Parents

Soooo Austin loves dogs. Like really LOVES dogs. They are EVERYWHERE. Which is cool if your dog loves other random dogs and people just chillin or walking around town. Stew? meh. not so much. We will say he's just a little bit unpredictable. There are so many places to bring, play, and exercise your dog here that sometimes we feel limited in what we are able to do. Enough is enough.

We've been determined to kick his bad habits for some time now but haven't been successful with the classes and training we've done so far. We've even been really good about not letting our little cuddlebug sleep with us on the bed or up on the couch. Those of you with dogs know how hard this can be when you just need a little extra TLC or your hubby is gone for the weekend.

Now, don't get us wrong. Our trainer back in Cali was pretty awesome. Stew came away from classes with some great party tricks (we'll show you next time you come to visit) and general obedience commands that are used day in and day out here at the Vance house. So what changed? Well, Austin has some pretty strict dog laws (any dog who punctures skin- even a scratch- is subject to have their dog quarantined for up to 10 days for rabies) though and we knew that with family and friends frequently visiting this year we wanted to take an aggressive approach and make some drastic changes around here.

After a lot of research (do people really think that you will pay $400 for group classes????!!!) we made the call to a wonderful place called, Training by Tara. Jess called and set up a consultation for Stewart. We knew this place was different when they sent us a bunch of surveys and questionnaires to fill out before our first session. They asked questions about how often he eats, how he plays, and even where he sleeps.

On Monday, Tara arrived to speak with Jake and see Stewie in his element. Although Jess wasn't around let's just say that the meeting can be summed up in two words: bad parents. No, jk. Well, kinda. The short version: Stewart is one confused little guy. He doesn't know whether he is the pack leader (if you think we are going Dog Whisperer on ya'll we kinda are, female version though) or if we are.

Calm, assertive energy.

She also said that he had a lot of anxiety because we were showing him that energy. She made some positive comments (parents trying to save face here) along with some great tips about dogs and how the whole dog/pack world works. The best news we heard was that she has had cases way worse than this. It was almost as though we let out a huge sigh and could stop holding our breathe.

The last (and first) time we had someone visit us here in Texas (Perm, still waiting for pics so we can finish our post....) Jessica's poor brother had to play fetch with Stew using an annoying squeaky toy every time he came in the house. Every time. Even when we went to the pool that's only 10 steps away from our front door. Not something we want to subject our future guests, family, and future children too.

even the squeaky toy is tired of fetch sometimes.

Moral of the story? The apple doesn't fall far from the tree (sorry Stew!) and we need to change the way to run the house to change how our son responds to ....well..everything. She claimed that we only need 3 sessions with her, but we know that it will take a lot of work and change on our end too. But, that's OK.

When people say that dogs are training for kids we're kinda thinking that they might be right. Although we laughed off these claimed early on, we're beginning to think that there's probably a lot of truth in what they're saying. No kids on the plate for now guys. Hold your horses.

if only.