We had the opportunity this last week to tag along with Darin as he was assigned to go to Austin for his work. The babies and I had a fun time and were able to see some awesome animals and to have some interesting adventures.
The first adventure occurred at a small park that I took the kids to. They were able to experience their first ride in a swing. The coolest thing was that I could fit both kids in the swing at the same time. I almost teared up, they looked so cute!
We had the chance to go and witness a spectacular event: the nightly exodus of bats at the Congress Avenue bridge. This was amazing. Apparently there are 1.5 million bats that live under this bridge and every night they all fly out in search of food. We stood there watching them come out and I was seriously amazed at how these animals have adapted to our urban society. The concrete gaps and ridges under the bridge create a perfect environment for these bats to give birth, grow, and thrive. We were very lucky because any day now, they will migrate south to escape the cold. The babies didn't really know what they were seeing, but I was very impressed.
One afternoon the babies and I made the trek out to the Austin Zoo. I was not very impressed with this zoo because the pathways were all gravel and a majority of the experience I was huffing and puffing from having to push the stroller over logs, large rocks, up inclines and so on. I don't even know how someone would navigate this zoo in a wheelchair (I specifically thought about that because embarrassingly enough, when I was 7 1/2 months preggo with the twins, Darin pushed me around the zoo in Glendale in a wheelchair when my class was going on a field trip so that I wouldn't have to be on my feet with my huge belly and I could still be with my class). The animals were interesting in this zoo because they were all rescue animals. Since they were all rescue animals, some were missing body parts (weird I know) but they were interesting anyway.
On the last night we stayed north of Austin in a place called Round Rock. While we were trying to find our hotel, Darin noticed something in the air that looked like smoke. Upon further investigation, we discovered that it was not smoke, but clouds of bats. We found that they were coming out from under an overpass. In some ways this bat sighting was more interesting because the bats were coming out when it was still light, and you could drive up underneath the bats and see where they lived. We found out that this overpass supports a bat colony that is not as well known or as large as the Congress Avenue bridge, but in some ways it was cooler.
We had a great trip and there was only one major mishap: Cameron running out the door of the hotel room, me chasing him, Dallin shutting the room door, me not having a key, Dallin bonking his head and noticing he is all alone in the room, me trying to get Dallin to open the door, Dallin screaming so loud you could hear him all the way down the hallway, me running to get the key from Darin who is unloading stuff from the car, me pushing open the door and finding Dallin with a big bruise on his head and completely hysterical. Ahh drama. A daily occurance. Other than the drama, we had a great time seeing animals and having fun in Austin
Here is the picture of what our living room looks like now. We repainted the walls, and the biggest change that we made (actually in the whole house) was the addition of a mantle on our fireplace. We are 90% done with the tile, but we just need to put the finishing touches on it. I still have a lot that I would like to do to the front room. Most of the things that I would like to do are predicated on the twins learning not to grab things down and ruin them. ha ha. Notice that the mirror is the same over the fireplace. The old owners were kind enough to leave that as a little gift for us. I really love it.
This was a sweet moment while we were reorganizing the pantry today for FHE.
Hanging out after church. 
