Downtown Austin Adventure

The whole group, getting ready to embark on our downtown Austin Adventure!

Summer has been so hectic, that I can't seem to get caught up with my posts! These pictures are from clear back in May. When Kaiya was baptized, both my parents and Jayson's parents came for the occasion. We have lived in Austin for twelve years now, and have already done the standard Austin tourist attractions many times, so I decided that we needed to do something a little different with all of our out of town visitors this time. After looking online, I discovered that there was going to be a big art festival downtown, which sounded like great fun to me. They closed off several blocks of 6th Street and had all kinds of vendors, food, clowns, etc. No one else would voice an opinion (except my mom, who also thought it sounded fun), so the plan was made.

Once we got to the festival, it didn't take us long to realize that it was a BAD idea! A couple days before our adventure, I had asked several friends if they had some small, single, umbrella strollers that I could borrow for the day, to avoid taking the "silver bullet". After my first three unsuccessful phone calls, I decided to give up. This might seem a little crazy, but having quintuplets has become so "normal" to us, that sometimes we forget what an anomaly we are to other people.

At the festival, there were huge crowds of people, and the quint stoller drew people to us like moths to a light bulb. It was CRAZY! I am used to people stopping me in the stores to ask me questions, but this went WAY beyond that---we could barely move without people stopping us or running over to take our picture. We stopped to look at a few booths (which would have been fun under other circumstances) but we soon realized we needed to switch to Plan B!

I love this picture of us at the festival---the looks on everyone's faces pretty much says it ALL---the only one smiling is me---the guys are looking around for the nearest exit route (bet they won't be so slow to voice their opinion during the planning stages next time!), and the kids were tired of seeing nothing but strangers and camera flashes.

We left the festival and walked about 2 miles through downtown Austin to get to Butler Park. The park is bordered on one side by Lady Bird Lake. In one area of the park, there is a spiral sidewalk leads up a small hill. At the top of the hill, there is a terrific view of downtown Austin. The park was awesome! It will definitely be added to our list of "standard" tourist attractions to take visitors to when they come.

Grandma Wilkinson and Mimi with the kids in front of a guitar statue we found on our city hike

Lady Bird Lake: Ryder, Kassidy, Kaydence, Kyndall, Rustin, Riley and Kaiya

Jayson pushes the Silver Bullet up the spiral sidewalk

Kaydence, Rustin, Kassidy, Ryder & Kyndall: At the top of the hill, somebody had put a piano---way too fun!

Riley and Kaiya

Grandma and Grandpa Wilkinson with all the kids

By the time we got done at the park, we were starving! We decided to try a well-known Taco joint called "Torchy's Tacos". We walked another two miles in the heat, dreaming of eating in air-conditioned comfort only to find out that the "restaurant" was actually a trailer! Although there was no air-conditioning, there was a covered patio, and the tacos were every bit as good as their reputation!

Walking to Torchy's

The Quints in front of the Torchy's Taco Trailer

Jayson and Rachelle enjoying our legendary tacos!

Mimi and Papa

Better than any playplace, the kids had a blast playing in the little sitting area. A few chairs and a napkin dispenser is all it took to make them happy!

The patio even had a small stage, which the kids enjoyed "performing" on.

Despite its disastrous start, everyone agreed that our Downtown Austin Adventure was a success!

Downtown Austin Adventure