are the stars at night big and bright?

we hope so.....cause we're movin to Texas in 3 weeks!
We really are. We're moving to Austin, TX. And we're not entirely sure what we're in for. But we think there will be plenty of this:
We haven't started packing everything yet but we've cleaned out the clutter, held a garage sale, made trips to Goodwill, ordered new couches, and have a long list of upcoming house projects. We're ready to get started!

If you're hearing our fun news for the first time, then background info is probably in order.
Here's the quick rundown:
When Casey and I got married 4 years ago we bought an investment home in the Austin, TX area....actually in a suburb just north of Austin called Georgetown:
It's a cute 4 bedroom starter home in a nice community and we've kept it rented with tenants ever since. Now flash forward to a few months ago. We had been house hunting here in Pasadena. We love the homes here, the charm, the community, both our families are nearby, etc. But....it just wasn't working out. And we found the entire process very frustrating. So we decided it was time to think outside of the box. We talked with Casey's employer and they agreed to let him work remotely from out of state. Wait. Really? Okay! Tag that on top of the month sabbatical Casey has coming up from work and everything just fell in to place. It really seemed like a no-brainer.
There is much we're going to miss about our California life. That is certain. But we feel ready for a change. So we're embarking on a new adventure. And we're jumping in with an open attitude. We may love it.....we may want to come back home. We won't know till we try.

A couple weeks ago, Casey and I took a trip there to check out our house again (we'd only seen it once before this trip) and to get a lay of the land.
Almost there. Hooray for Jetblue, personal tvs, and never-ending HGTV and What Not to Wear episodes.
The first day in Texas we spent hanging out in Georgetown; checking out the local sites, in our rental car:
We saw our house again, looked for Office Spaces, picked out new flooring, and just got a feel for what our new lives will be like. It's going to be very different! Georgetown is a small town. It has the normal stores we're used to: Target, Joanns, Home Depot, Ikea, Chipotle, etc. But it's just....well, small. There's a cute old dowtown square (the city was founded in the late 1800s) and just a mile from our house is Lake Georgetown:
It's got more of a Lake Powell feel than lush greenery. But at twilight it was just gorgeous:
Kids and their parents were cliff jumping. Looked fun!
default-Texas landscape looks like this:
There are these green shrubby trees everwhere. They feel more like large bushes. Thankfully we have two of them in our yard providing some shade (because it's hot there in the summer. We won't lie. At least now we'll have central A/C...not sure life can get better than that.)

Day two, we ventured south of Georgetown, through Round Rock, Pflugerville, and into Austin.
Their freeway system will take some getting used to. You can come and go and U-turn from these strange access roads next to the freeway. I'm sure once we understand it all, we'll love it. In the meantime, I'm pretty happy about their beautiful architecture:
We saw cool sites:
we saw cool artwork:
and we saw metal cows:
We ate here for lunch. Boring but we were hungry:
we took dumb pictures:
And this was not on the agenda but it was too interesting to not stop. The largest retailer of western attire is:
We had no idea so many styles of hats and boots existed (and this was only 1/30th of what they carried):

Eventually we made it to downtown Austin, home of the Longhorns and the University of Texas!
Remember those housing/selling/ride boards from college? They're still around.
Downtown Austin is beautiful and very eclectic.
The city is known as the Live Music capitol of the world, so there are cool little clubs, music venues, and restaurants all over the place. It's also a college town, so football is huge. Yet it's the state capitol so you've got this gorgeous building right in the middle of town:
Checking it out in our rear-view mirror:
Our last Austin stop was our favorite. We headed to the river that runs south of the city. There are great hiking trails:
and plenty of beauty to take in:
We found this cool dock hidden by some brush and jumped aboard. It was absolutely serene. We soaked in the golden evening:
watched the canoeing:
got our feet wet (Lyndsey, this picture's for you):
And just had a peaceful time.
As we were getting ready to leave, Casey glanced up in the sky and noticed a strange line of birds in the sky. We watched it for a moment, stunned and amazed at their procession. And then it dawned on me....duh! Those are the famous Austin bats! The Congress Bridge Bats.
It was the most amazing site I've seen. Every night in the summer, these bats leave their day-time spot from under the Congress Bridge and in a very orderly fashion, fly off looking for food. They follow each other in a line and can be seen for miles in the sky. There are millions of bats! It's absolutely crazy!
We watched them for about 30 minutes and the line continued to come:
a site worth checking out again with the kids.
And that wraps up our trip! It was short but it was just what we needed; a grasp on reality. We're excited to meet our city and see what new people we'll cross paths with. We won't be seeing this airport for a while, because in a 3 weeks we'll be driving out by car!
And we'll miss you, little Long Beach airport. But we'll come back to visit.
with two extra travelers next time.