We woke up today to the unusual, if not totally rare, occurrence of snow in Austin. It started with the typical hard icy rain/snow mix and at first we thought that was that. But then after a bit it really did snow. Real snow. Big flakes that actually stuck to the ground, and get this, accumulated. We had about 1.5 inches of accumulation by midday. It continued to snow the rest of the day, but because it had warmed up it didn’t really stick much after lunch. We did what pretty much everyone else in Austin did. We took full advantage.

Because of doctor’s appointments, sick children and other considerations (not least of which is that no one in Texas can drive if they are even predicting snow) I ended up at home rather than at work today. So Wesley and I had a great time. Jillian was pretty sick and though she came out a couple of times she didn’t have nearly as good a time as we did. We started with a good old fashioned snowball fight.

He really, really liked having snowball fights. Look at his face. He was loving it.

We took a break and made a little snowman. This was before we got most of the snow. It could have been bigger, but served its purpose. He later knocked it off the deck with a couple of snowballs.

This was about as much fun as Jillian would have: standing around near the door and looking before getting cold and going inside.  It took us longer to find her boots and mittens than she was actually outside.

After getting hit with a few too many snowballs we did a bit of cardboard sledding (we don’t actually own a sled) and then played some snow baseball.

After the snow fell a bit more heavily Amber and Wesley made a snowman in the front yard. It was really quite nice, complete with carrot nose and rosemary hair.

Like his smaller brother in the backyard, this snowman was not long for the world. His enemy was not global warming, but a charging Wesley.

It is nice that we finally got a “real” snowfall. It was quite a bit a fun. It gave us an excuse to drink hot chocolate and cider and just have a really good time. Wesley would have stayed out until his arms froze off. Even Redmond, who normally refuses to go out in the cold and wet did his share of playing with us.

I ended up doing more yard work in the snow than I’ve done in nice weather of the last few months. I learned that if you snow covered overhead branches you will get a face full of snow and wet when you least expect it. I also learned that said branches, rather than landing gently on the roof and needing a tug to get them off, will come careening down every which way and you’d better be prepared to move.

 

At first we just trudged through some mud and didn’t get too wet or dirty.

Check out the mud caked to her shoes.

What is Jillian pointing at? Vultures. Lots of vultures.

We saw at least 50 vultures on two towers.

We were staying pretty dry until we crossed the creek. Because of the rainfall the creek was running higher than usual.  The only thing to do? Fall in of course.

Wes fell in a hole and got really wet.

Once you get wet you might as well get muddy.  Really, really, really muddy.

This was just the start.

Time lapse of the kids in the big mud puddle.

We had a fabulous time. We stripped the kids naked before they got in the car and had to tie Redmond in the back of the wagon to keep his muddy self off the seats.  I hope it is muddy next time we go.  A lot better than the trips in the 100F+ temp this Summer.

 

We’ll get bumped off the front page when their next volume comes out, but you can still find the photo and their Austin travel page here.

The photos is used on Schmap.com as well and has been for about 2 years.

Both sites are giving us photo credit and a link to our Flickr page.  And TravelMuse even added a year to our Flickr Pro account.  Not making a living this way, but kind of fun anyway.

 

Aside from the creeks and the trails there isn’t much in the park itself.  The north end has some ammenities, but the rest is empty.  It isn’t really beautiful (except for along the creek).  Mostly just junipers, brush and dead grass.  Oh, and powerlines.

But the creeks are wonderful. They are so different from what I am used to in the Northwest.  Even the small creeks down here are generally in deep canyons which makes them both striking to look at from top and bottom and refreshingly cool and shady to walk along or through.

We spent some time along Walnut creek before heading across and up the other side to follow more trails.  The whole park (or at least substantial portions) are off-leash for dogs.  We took the risk and Redmond surprised us by staying near by and returning when called.  He also got a little more comfortable in the water.

Originally ranch and farm land, then used by motorcross riders it is now packed with mountain bikers.  They like the proximity to town, the fact that you can pretty much go anywhere since there isn’t anything to hurt and the more than 15 miles of trails.  Luckily trail markers are frequent or we would probably still be wandering around out there as there isn’t much in the way of landmarks.  All the mountain bikers we came across were cautious around the kids and the dog and we didn’t have any problems.

As the hike wore on the kids got tired.  They wanted to ride and they wanted to hold hands and sometimes they wanted to do both.

Even though they were exhausted walking somehow when we got back near the parking lot/pool/ballfield/playground complex they found new energy. (Note the sunglasses.  He has been doing everything but sleeping in them since he first got them).

 

So there we were trying to find a place to park around the Capital building.  Yesterday was their Pre-K day at the Capital. I was bit confused about the whole thing (and after attending, I am still confused) – but when I found out that characters from PBS cartoons would be there, I wanted to take Wesley.

He was very excited!  He kept telling me in the car that it was OK that there was rain – we could use an umbrella.  Then I told him that I don’t know where they are and that they are in the box with the missing hats, gloves and scarves.  I found a spot really close to the capital and when we got out it was barely drizzling.  We were then on a mission to find Clifford and Super Why.

There were a ton of kids inside the capital building!  It was hard to move around.  Wesley held my hand and stayed very close to me and I had Jillian in the Ergo.  We made our way through the building and to the elevators.  Then we found both Clifford and Super Why.  But the kids would not go near them!

Jillian enjoyed pointing and panting like a dog and Wesley just watched them both real carefully.

Then we ended up down where Clifford and Super Why were meeting with the legislators.  There were no kids around – just us!  Wesley was feeling much better about them.

Wesley really loves Super Why.  His catch phrase is “Hip Hip Hooray” after they finish their story.  Wesley will often say Hip Hip Hooray after he is done with something too, it is super cute!

He told me that Clifford was talking - but not to him.

Clifford seems much bigger on TV...

Then we went and wandered around the capital building.  The kids loved all the people, stairs and windows.

He wanted to climb everything.

Cheese!

Being goofy

The kids were ready to get outside.  They ran around the grass getting wet and muddy.  Wesley did not want to part with the super long stick he found.

She looks so tiny with the Capital in the background.

I think he was trying to fight the man on the horse.

It was a fun time.  I am glad that I got out into the wet weather. Wesley now really likes the pointy building and I think he will forever point it out when we drive by.

 

Mat recommended we head up to Mount Bonnell.  A peak that is commonly believed to be the highest point inside the Austin City limits.  At 785 feet above see level it is actually much lower than the Jolleyville Plateau (1100ft).  The difference is that Jollyville doesn’t feel high.  It’s just a large flat area coverd in houses and strip malls.  Bonnell on the otherhand has a 200 foot cliff overlooking Lake Austin.  It gives the impression of being up high mostly because it is dramatically higher than the lake below.

We parked near the top and “hiked” up several flights of rock steps that lead to the top.

From the top you can see the lake, the relatively well known bridge over Loop 360 and the skyscrapers of downtown.  All along the lake are crazy expensive houses like this one:

It was windy on top and more hazy than usual.  Wesley led us around the many trails in the woods surrounding the peak.  He was sure he had found a shortcut.  In the end we were just walking in circles, but still had fun.

After working up an appetite hiking we went to dinner with the Godfreys.  We went to the Tokyo Steak House in Round Rock.  Chris and Tiah had been there before and thought it was lots of fun.  My understanding is that it is a lot like Benihana.  It is teppanyaki style where you are seated around a grill and the chef prepares your meal while making a great deal of noise and show.  It is kind of spendy, $70 for the two of us (the kids shared our food) and we don’t drink alcohol, but fun.  All the kids had a good time and were pretty enthralled by the cooking.

I wouldn’t say that I’d go on a regular basis, it was too loud and too spread out to have much of a conversation, but it was definitely entertaining. The food all kind of tasted the same (which I guess makes sense since it is all cooked together), but it was still pretty tasty.  We were also a mellow group.  I think this is the kind of experience that is improved by a rowdy crowd that’s been drinking a bit.

Here is a video of Wesley’s reaction to the chef lighting a bit of oil on fire.  He also really got into the onion volcano turned steam train.

– “That made me laugh!”" –

 

This year the Blue Santa program was giving horse-drawn carriage rides (a year round staple in downtown Austin) in exchange for toy donations.  I read about it in the paper and thought it sounded fun.  We arrived shortly after it started expecting there would be a line.  Typically a ride for 4 people would be about $60 per half hour so it was really a pretty good deal.  But when we arrived at the downtown fire station we had a carriage waiting for us.  Maybe the cold weather had kept the people away.

It was a pretty chilly night and we bundled the kids up.  Earlier in the day Amber had taken Jillian and Wesley shopping and had tried to give Wesley a Santa hat to wear for the ride.  But he refused saying something along the lines of “No.  Santa will give me a Santa hat.”  So magically a gift bag complete with Santa hat was waiting for us on the sidewalk when Wesley got out of the car downtown.  It is amazing how easily they believe.  He was sure it was from Santa, wore it proudly, and never had a single doubt.

We toured around downtown hitting the highlights including Sixth Street, Congress Ave, and the Driskill hotel.  We were pulled ably by a Red Belgian Draft horse named Clay.  He was friendly and let Wesley give him a few pets on the head at the end of our ride.  Jillian spent most of the ride yelling “Neigh!” and trying to jump from the carriage.  It was rather cozy the four of us cuddled together underneath a red velvet blanket.

Afterwords we drove up Congress to see the Capital tree and then headed home.  The strings of lights in the picture, which look all white are actually new LED lights the city is rather proud of.  They’ve been touting their energy efficiency for a few weeks now. And in truth they are very neat. They change color, play patterns and in general look nice when viewed down Congress Ave.

 

That’s right.  We got snow. The first in several years for Austin (though they did have some rather large ice storms a couple of years ago).  What makes this even more unusual is that on the 9th, the day the snow fell late in the evening, it was 81 degrees.  A record high.  By the time the snow started falling just before midnight we were at freezing and getting some lovely flurries that I woke Amber up to see.

It wasn’t much, a quarter inch is probably generous, and it had mostly melted by the time the kids got up, but Amber got a few shots of them before they were too cold and had to go in.

And here is Jillian doing her best to clean up the deck. She is very fastidious.

This will likely be it for as long as we live in Texas.  I came home after my morning run to play with the kids, but it was much less impressive in the daylight.  No snowmen. Oh, well.

 

As is our new Texas holiday tradition we headed down to Zilker Park for the lighting of the “tree”.  We first enjoyed the enormous yule log fire and then counted down as they turned on the lights.  Once the crowd thinned down underneath the tree we headed inside to do some spinning.  The photos look a little blurry because of all the people walking and spinning, kicking up the dry Texas earth.

I started with Wesley in my arms and spun him around and around as he stared up at the lights.  After just a few rotations we met Steve Albert, KVUE reporter, and his cameraman, Woody.  They asked if we’d like to be filmed and we said sure.  By the time they had gotten all set up and had me mic’d up I was spinning Jillian around and Amber was getting Wesley dizzy.

Jillian loved the spinning even more than Wesley.  She would get this mellowed out zombie look and go limp.  When I stopped she would sit up looking all dizzy and then ask for more.  As I say so eloquently in the video I don’t think she would ever have stopped on her own accord.  And I must admit it is rather dazzling looking up at the lights.

They filmed us for a while, asked me a few questions (and to my defense I was rather dizzy and not thinking straight), and then told us it would be on at 10.  We went home, eventually got the kids tucked in and sure enough the Zilker Tree Lighting was their top story.  I managed, with some effort, to get a copy of the video off their website.  Feel free to skip ahead to about 1min 25sec.

And yes a few people at work actually saw us on the news.  I was in the elevator with Jack today and he said “Hey I saw you on the news!”

 

Today Amber and I took the kids and headed down to the Randall’s grocery store near my office and voted on the way home after work.  We knew we were in the right place because most grocery store parking lots aren’t littered with campaign signs.  Texas has this early voting thing where they set up a limited number of polling stations for a couple of weeks and let you come in regardless of precinct and vote.  It seems like a good idea, but really it is still only about half as convenient as mail in ballots.  I haven’t gone to a polling place since 2000.  In Washington it is easy to get an absentee ballot.  In Texas you have to be disabled or out of the county during election day and you have to request a ballot every year.

The line was pretty long, but it moved quickly.  They are using an all electronic ballot here. Which was pretty easy to use, though I think a touch screen might have been more intuitive.  I’m sure they have the usability studies to prove me wrong on that.  No paper trail.  So unlike an ATM when you withdraw $5 and get a receipt, here I vote for the President of the United States of America and it just says “Your ballot has been cast”.  Has it?  What if the machine reboots or has other problems?  A verifiable paper trail is not too much to ask.

The whole process worked like this:  You stood in line and then presented your voter registration card.  They then generated a little sticker which they placed on a sheet of paper.  It had your name and address.  You signed next to it, confirming the info was correct.  Then the next person gave you a little receipt with a pin number on it.  You have to enter the pin number to begin voting.  The pin is linked to your precinct so the correct electronic ballot is presented.  Of course it isn’t a hard stretch to do this math:  voter registration = little pin code = ballot = your exact vote.  They could all very easily be linked together in a one-to-one way.  Didn’t feel very confidential to me, but I’m the paranoid type.

At least the thing wasn’t a Diebold.  The product we used is called the eSlate and is made by Hart Intercivic. A company that happens to have offices right up the street. If you are curious they have a simulator you can try here.  Hart does make an add-on for what they call the “Verifiable Ballot Option”, that Travis County apparently isn’t using. Which as they describe it: “the Verifiable Ballot Option (VBO), which allows voters to review a printed paper record before casting their ballots.”  I certainly would have felt a lot more comfortable.  In case you need one you can pick up the eSlate for $3000, add an extra $1200 for the VBO.

So rack up 2 votes for Obama, plus a couple of school bond initiatives.  Unless of course the machine didn’t really count them.  On the up side, if there is a big debacle surrounding this election I won’t have to go far to picket the voting machine folks.