Christmas in Austin

For Christmas this year we were lucky enough to have welcoming family that had recently moved to Austin, Texas. As a last minute decision we figured out a way to change our schedule and go hang out with them. It was a great decision!

On the morning of December 19th we pulled into Buda, Texas, to the house of Kathleen's Aunt Julie and Uncle Chuck. It is also where her cousin Aubrie, and Aubrie's husband Ben P,  live in another house on the property. Half the family was at work when we arrived so we had the chance to take showers and hang out for a little while. That evening Kathleen's parents, John and Leslie, also flew down. Aubrie and Ben were so welcoming that they actually moved out of their house and into the big house, giving their space to us and Kathleen's parents. They even let our kids hang out inside, which made the kids very happy!

Aunt Julie is a super host! She had everything ready for us, including a drafted out schedule for a week of festivities.

 

The first two days were super relaxed as we were still waiting for Kathleen's other cousins, Allie and Ben D, to arrive from Portland. It was great to have down time, talking with family, using the internet and showering whenever we wanted to. Saturday evening we drove to northern San Antonio to get dinner with a former co-worker of Kathleen's mom. It was a nice drive down, and a lovely dinner, but we didn't see much of San Antonio. 

Allie and Ben arrived late on Saturday night and then the party really started. We began with breakfast tacos at Valentina's food truck. They were so good we had to go back another day!

 

Photo Credit: Cousin Allie

Then we spent Sunday driving out to Fredricksburg, Texas, to look at the holiday lights. On the way we stopped and went wine tasting, which was fun. We didn't know that Texas had a "wine scene." Fredricksburg is a "Germantown" but it wasn't played up as much as we were expecting. The lights were fun though. And they did have a giant Christmas Pyramid. 

 

On the way back to Buda we also stopped in Johnson City for more lights. It was a super cold night, but we found a Glüwien stand so that helped warm people up. The lights in Johnson City were incredible, especially this display put on by the electric company. 

On the 23rd, Aubrie, Uncle Chuck and Ben D had to work. So we had another fairly quiet day. Sugar cookies are a Conery family tradition so we baked those as well as made challah and latkes which is also something we like to do every December. It was nice to be able to contribute by being responsible for making everyone dinner one night. Cooking in a real, big, spacious kitchen with all of the necessary utensils was a nice change.

 

On the 24th we spent several hours decorating the cookies we had baked on the 23rd. This is by far the most time-consuming, but also enjoyable part of cookie making.

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Photo Credit: Cousin Allie 

Christmas Eve also involved a trip to our very first Texas Mega Church. It was definitely an experience. The church had a dog park, an amphitheater and a disk golf course on site. For the service we were seated in the over flow of the over flow where we watched the service on a TV at the front of the chapel. The music was absolutely amazing and and the chapel was beautiful but it was very different from the small Portland church where we have attended Christmas Eve service in in the past. They even had prepackage communion and electric candles.

After church we ate John's traditional Christmas Eve Paella and then had a game of high stakes Texas Hold Em Poker for a Texas prize pack. A lot of us had no idea what we were doing and it was a lot of fun. Kathleen ended up taking home the prize pack, mostly in a win of attrition. We played until after midnight at which point there were three players left in the game. The three didn't have time to restart the game before John flew out, leaving Kathleen as the winner.

Photo Credit: Cousin Allie

 

Throughout the trip we also participated in another Gatewood family tradition of Pickle hiding. Hiding the pickle is a tradition that started in the American Midwest but is widely attributed to Germany and has, to some degree migrated back. The Gatewoods picked up the tradition while they were living in Amsterdam in the 90s. The tradition involves hiding various sized pickle ornaments in the tree. When someone finds the pickle they get to pick a small wrapped gift from the "pickle prizes." It always leads to some good family competition and everyone participates.

 

On Christmas Day we opened stockings, but had all agreed that we didn't want to do gifts this year. Instead of gifts we all made the effort to come together in Texas and spent money on activities we did together. It worked well for us, since we don't have room for more stuff. Most of Christmas was spent participating in amazing games that Aunt Julie had found, making us do some crazy things. It was a ton of fun.

Photo Credit: Cousin Allie

Photo Credit: Cousin Allie

This was the perfect way for us to spend Christmas! As different as it was from previous Christmases, it had the normalcy of hanging out with family, and several Gatewood/Conery family traditions. While our Thanksgiving this year was nice, it didn't feel like Thanksgiving. This felt like Christmas. And the fun family times didn't end with holiday!

Travel Update 14

This week we spent a lot of time in Louisiana. We started out by driving through Baton Rouge

In Breaux Bridge, we took a swamp tour on recommendation of our friends. We saw a few more alligators, a bunch of turtles and a few more birds similar to the ones in southern Florida.

 

 

 

After our tour, we really wanted to get some good Cajun Food. Kathleen's foodie friend, Julie, highly recommended Crazy 'Bought Crawfish, which was just down the road from our tour. The crawfish themselves were a bit small because they weren't in season, but we still got plenty and they were so good!

 

We spent the next few nights at Rutherford Beach, a popular boon-docking place for RVers and we could see why.

One of the nights there we had a thunderstorm. It's the only time Aiden chooses to come up onto the upper bed of the RV. We calm her down by playing music through our bluetooth speaker.

After a few nights a Rutherford beach, we continued on to Texas. We met up with the same Julie that recommended the crawfish place to us in Houston for our first try at Texan tacos. The tacos were good but for Kathleen, the real joy was catching up with an old friend that she hadn't seen in quite some time.

We spent one more night between Houston and Austin before getting into Buda.

Travel Update 13

After wrapping up in Biscayne and the northern entrance of Everglades, we started on our road towards Austin for Christmas. We drove up the gulf coast of Florida all the way through Alabama, Mississippi and into Louisiana. We mostly had driving days with a few library stops here and there, trying to keep up with blogging.

The most interesting bit of driving was going through the Florida panhandle, especially near Panama City, where Hurricane Andrew made landfall in October 2018 as a category 5 hurricane. It seemed like nothing escaped without some form of damages. Many of the buildings seemed like a complete loss. Still, the city is slowly rebuilding, as construction crews were on many sites, replacing what had once been there.

On a much lighter note, on Thursday, December 12th, shortly after crossing into Alabama, we were looking for a place use the restrooms when we turned the corner to find .. a Buc-ee's. As we haven't driven in Texas yet, we were not prepared for what we saw.

   

All sorts of coffee, but only one type of tea.

Buc-ee's is a Texas based travel stop with Buc-ee's branded everything from travel gifts, to coffee, to "brisket for now and jerky for later", to roasted nuts, to world famous restrooms. We happened to stumble upon their first store outside of Texas.

That night we ended up at a free campsite in Mississippi at which we were able to stretch our legs and have a quieter and darker night than we had at the Walmarts the prior nights.

  

We stayed there for an extra day to recoup from driving, but had to continue on the next day to catch the Oregon men's basketball team beat Michigan in overtime and cash in on a free burger at Red Robin during Kathleen's birthday month.

Everglades - North Entrance

On our way south we stopped briefly at the Shark Valley visitor center in Everglades national park. However the main attraction from this visitor center is a 15 mile paved trail. There are trams that operate on this trail, but it is perfect for a relaxed bike ride. When we stopped on the way south it was getting late in the day so we didn't have time to complete the loop before it got dark. So instead we decided to skip it and make sure to stop on the way back north.

The trail was well worth the bike ride, and it was nice to be able to stop and take pictures of all of the wildlife as we went along. There were a ton of animals a long the way.

Baby Alligators!

Wood Stork

In the middle of the loop there is a 45 foot tall observation tower. From the top there are amazing panoramic views of the "river of grass" as well as many of the birds and other wildlife that the park has to offer. 

It was beautiful and a great way to end our time in southern Florida before rushing to Texas for Christmas.

Biscayne

The second National Park that we visited in Southern Florida was Biscayne National Park. Biscayne covers nearly 173,000 acres, 95% of which is covered in water. It was established as a National Monument in 1968 to protect the bay from encroaching industrialization in Southern Florida. Biscayne bay is incredibly shallow, averaging only 10 feet. Plans were made to dredge out a channel to the ocean, which would have devastated the coral reef ecosystems that support the large variety of life. 

Since the park is covered mostly in water, we had to take boat tours out to explore the park. Our first trip out was an evening trip: The Park After Dark - Evening Bay Tour. We ended up having the whole boat to ourselves because we were the only ones who booked the trip that night. It was a super relaxing slow boat ride around the bay as the sun was setting. 

The next day, we came back and took a trip out to Boca Chita Key. This key was owned by Mark C. Honeywell in the late '30s. He used the island as an exclusive party key and had a variety of structures built on they key, including a light house (on the wrong side of the key), a chapel (so that he wouldn't have to leave the key on Sundays), a garage (for fancy cars with no roads?) and a random wall.

 

The structures were almost exclusively made out of bricks from coral limestone.

As we mentioned, the lighthouse was on the wrong side of the key, leading a few ships to run into the coral reefs and sink. The coast guard eventually had to tell the owners of the island that they could not have any lights in the lighthouse. From the top of the lighthouse you can also see just how shallow the water is and how many boats have scraped along the coral reefs nearby.

Walking around the island we also caught a glimpse of some underwater life.

All in all, we really enjoyed our time in the park. If we go back, we think we would love to do the snorkeling excursion that they offer. There is a lot to see underwater, including many shipwrecks and a ton of sea life around the coral reefs. Even better would be bringing your own boat out to explore at your own pace.