Kevin to the rescue

We had such a busy weekend, its Tuesday night and I still feel like I'm recovering!

Our sis-in-law turned 30 on Friday and so we made a quick trip to Austin to surprise her on Saturday.  The surprise party was successful even if we were a little late -- our arrival was still a surprise.  Why were we late?  too much construction in Houston.   It was a small party and whether or not it was a surprise had been off and on since we weren't sure if she'd have to work that morning or not - keeping a party a secret and making sure the guest of honor is there is tough!

We enjoyed the day, visiting and went out to eat.    The birthday girl got a karaoke machine as a gift and we ALL made great use of it all evening!!!   The music selections were pretty wide ranging - country to rap to Spanish love songs, it was quite a night.    Youtube has a ton of karaoke songs available!

Sunday was going to be pretty laid back.  We decided to stop off at a Renaissance festival on the way out of town to enjoy the outdoors (the weather was beautiful).  We'd only ever been to the huge one near Houston, this one is much smaller but very similar and larger than I was expecting (its only 4 years old!), much less crowded which I loved.  It had a great falconry show - I'm in love with a little owl named Widget (picture Harry Potter's owl).   During the show, I got a phone call -- my sister's boyfriend had car trouble and they were stuck in Austin.  She had to be at work the next day so we headed back to Austin to rescue her, thankfully her boyfriend's schedule was flexible and he could stay in Austin to wait on his car.   Very happy that we could help her out, it was actually K's second rescue of the day - he'd used his jumper cables to help a guy at the gas station that morning.   We got home after the Oscars were already on, I barely watched any of them, just sort of zoned out and then we went to bed. 

From this trip and the one over the summer we've realized that Austin really needs to be a 2 night trip....hopefully we'll remember that next time.


I kept our hotel keys the kind that look like a credit card when we checked out.   I was telling K why, and he said I should start a blog to give travel tips - he's joking of course, but I'll try to tag posts with travel tips.

Why should you keep the keys?   Your credit card is attached to them and if the hotel re uses them its possible your credit card could get charged for someone else's stay.  Someone told me this just recently, I'm not sure if its true but better safe than sorry.  So keep the keys and cut them up yourself...