Ackleys Take on Austin

We spent most of last week in Austin, TX for my good friend Jared's wedding, where Bella and Rowan served as flower girl and ring bearer.

I was kind of nervous about flying with Rowan at this age. He is a busy 2 1/2 year old...but Dale and I were prepared and he did great! We just kept him as busy as we could (ok, I'll admit, we medicated him).


We had a super early flight with a stop in Denver. It wasn't supposed to be a lengthy layover, just long enough to get to the next gate with some cushion time. Well, at about the time we should have boarded for Austin, the reader board informed us that our flight was canceled.

Ugh!!

We were able to get onto Frontier's next Austin flight...much later in the afternoon. Altogether we spent 6 hours in Denver. I made Rowan run up and long corridors in the terminal to wear him out. He was all rosy-cheeked and out of breath, and as soon as he'd slow to a walk I'd be all "No, keep running!" I wanted that boy worn out! It worked! Here we are killing time in Denver.





When we finally arrived in Austin, it was dark out. We walked outside to get the rental car and it was about 75 degrees. It was SO nice. The kids and I were singing "We love Texas!" There was a heatwave while we were down there. It reached 91 degrees on Friday.

Entertaining ourselves in the hotel. Looks like these kids need to find a good hygienist!


Texas shaped waffles for breakfast.


We ate lunch at Chick-Fil-A. They have them all over the country...EXCEPT the west coast. They are the best!!!





I posted this picture of me napping to show how un-cooperative my hair was in the humidity! Flat!


We had the wedding rehearsal and dinner that night. That is were Rowan earned the nickname Drunk Uncle. Shows up in a Hawaiian print shirt, uncooperative, makes a scene, lays on the sidewalk, embarrasses himself, etc. We were pretty scared for the wedding day if that was how he "rehearsed".



I just love this shot of my little cutie-pies. They look so happy!




Courtney is my good friend that I have mentioned numerous times on my blog and Jared (the groom) is her little brother. I am friends with the whole family. They are a military family, and I had the amazing opportunity to spend a month with them in when they were stationed in Italy in 1997, then in 2002 I spent time with Courtney in Germany while she stayed there. This is Jared looking at Courtney.


Courtney and her Fiance, Mike.


Afterwards we had the rehearsal dinner held at a small, creek side restaurant that specializes in BBQ. Best food ever!! There was a back deck that was strung with lights where we hung out in the warm evening air watching fish being caught and turtles swimming around.



In this next shot I was explaining to Courts that with my new 50mm 1.4 lens (which is the only lens I shot every single one of these shots with, FYI) you can shoot in pretty low light, and at the same time it blurs out a lot of the background (creating a shallow depth-of-field). So as I talked about my lens, I told Jared to give Jenna a kiss so Courtney could see an image a wide open lens with low light could take. I intended it to be more of a test photo...but it ended up being one of my favorite pictures of the whole trip!


My dinner. Diet? What Diet? Healthy? Workout? What? You talkin crazy in Texas.
It was the best food. I realize this looks a little too zoomed in, but I only had my 50mm.


The next day as we are getting dressed and made up for the wedding, I recieve a text from Courtney. I look like a drag queen she wrote. So I hurried over to her room to assess. This is the face I see in the mirror:


Personally, I thought she looked stunning. I wanted her to see that. So once she was ready, I took her around the place and did a little impromptu photo shoot. I knew if she saw herself in pictures, she would see that beauty that I think she is.



I was a little disappointed that this on turned out slightly blurry on her face, but it is still a powerful image and is my favorite of her. She has the most amazing green/blue eyes, and I wanted to have the picture on the wall in the corner of the image to tie the colors in.



Getting the kids ready...




My kids started to rebel against me sticking the camera in their face. Ok, I promise Bella isn't using her middle finger with purpose here.


Ok, these next ones are some of my very favorites from the wedding...






















Jared and Courtney


We thought Rowan was amazingly well behaved during the wedding ceremony...Until we found out Uncle Mike's secret weopon...Gummy bears!



Rowan, Courtney and Mike


Ok, this was like the best wedding cake ever. Each layer was a different flavor. I chose tiramisu, to honor the time I spent with Jared in Italy.



This pic was Jared's idea.


I was kind of worried that I would annoy the wedding photographers, being that I was often on the heels of one or the other, asking questions and peering over their shoulders. But they didn't care it all. They were both SO nice (I have spent time in Texas before, and that is by far my favorite thing about it. Everyone is nice. It's that good old southern hospitality.




I found it kind of funny that one shot with Nikon, while the other shot with Canon. The Canon shooter was even letting my use some of his stuff...his idea!! He stuck his wide angle on my camera and was like "Now go play around with that. You'll love it." I turned the camera around and captured this one of myself.



We spent our last day in Austin on one final mission. Ok, now don't laugh at this story...my husband is a huge fan of the movie Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The house where the original movie was filmed back in the early 1970s is now a restaurant in Kingsland Tx, which is about an hour outside of Austin. So Courtney's parents agreed to watch my kids while Mike, Courtney, Dale and I made the pilgramage this restaurant. Everytime I had the slightest urge to make fun of my husband for being a TCM groupie, I had to remind myself that I am a Twilight groupie, and at some point this summer I will drag Dale along on a pilgramage of my own. Luckily, Twilight is set in Forks...just a few hours from here.






We were all prepared to try Rocky Mountain Oysters (Mike joked that he'd order his still in the sack) but then they ended up not serving them anymore. I tried frog legs...they were foul!! Watery and bitter. Bleh!



Courts and I with our matching Vera Bradley bags.


They headed to one coast while we headed towards the other. See you guys in June!