Cherise's Creative Energy: 2nd Half of July....

I blogged about the first half of July in my last post so here goes the second half. Our anniversary is July 14th and my birthday is July 28th (I think Derrick planned that well) :) We wanted to take a mini vacation as we hadn't really done anything fun this whole summer so we planned a trip to Austin. It ended up being Austin because my brother's company, Texas Precious Metals, hit a huge milestone in their company and they had invited us on their celebration dinner cruise on Lake Austin. That was happening Saturday night so a couple of days before, we drove up to Boyd to spend a day with Derrick's family and get Rhyder settled in to stay a couple of days with the grandparents. On Friday, we drove back down to Austin to our hotel on the river. We wanted to see the bat emergence at Congress Street Bridge (which ended up being pretty incredible) but we got there early so we drove down to the Texas State Capital and parked for 21 minutes (according to the parking meter). We did a quick run through of the capital building, which is just amazingly beautiful. After all that, we joined Jason and his girlfriend, Hali, and his business partner, Tarek, at Moonshines which is a nice and yummy restaurant in downtown Austin. We shut the place down sitting around talking and enjoying a nice evening on the patio.

So proud to be a Texan!

There was way more to do and read than we expected like this Civil War Memorial....the quarter and dime we put in the parking meter for a whole 21 minutes wasn't enough!

Beautiful rotunda looking straight up in the entrance to the capital building. Focusing on the Lone Star! Whoop!

The House of Representatives Chamber...I was imagining a room full of rowdy and passionate people in lieu of the recent SB5 abortion bill

No photo can do this bat emergence justice. Its the world's largest urban bat colony....1.5 million bats emerge every night creating clouds of black in the sky. Crazy!

Saturday morning, we slept late!!! Whoa....no baby monitor, no worrying about feeding the baby, no noise...just a really cold window unit A/C, lots of covers and pillows, and no worries about the clock....aaahhhh! Yep, we slept late on our vacation. We were planning on going to Barton Springs that day but when we finally got up it was overcast and had rained HARD the night before so we weren't sure if the weather would cooperate, so instead, we decided to head down Congress to get the best burger in the world at Hopdoddy's and then go the Bob Bullock State of Texas History Museum. I think I mentioned in my last post that we like museums :)

I had been there years ago, but it was fun again. We watched the Spirit of Texas movie and perused the 3 floors throughout the afternoon. Then it was time to head back to the hotel to get ready for that night's dinner cruise on Lake Austin.

We went back by the capital on the way to the museum...I think this picture is awesome

You think Texans are proud of the Lone Star? :)

Problem with traveling as a pair is you never have anyone to take your picture!

The dinner cruise was very nice. My brother, Jason, and his business partner, Tarek, have done amazing things with the company in the short time that it has existed. I'd like to post some numbers, but I'll refrain as that's their business, but let's just say that Texas Precious Metals has become a HUGE player in the bullion industry in a very short period of time. If you or anyone you know invests in gold or silver, you really should check out purchasing it from TexMetals. The company has my true and honest endorsement. They are genuine guys from Texas doing the business correctly and in an honest manner...something you can't always get in the bullion industry. www.TexMetals.com

I love lakes and I love sunsets...the combination = perfect!

My brother and Hali

Tarek and his beautiful family minus little Marianna and Sebastian...if he looks familiar, its because he was on the Apprentice :)

There were 27 people on the boat...but I never got a good group pic. Sad day. They have a lot to be proud of!

The cruise ended at 9:30 so Derrick took me on a date to Amy's Ice Cream...we just love bein' together

On Sunday, we drove back north to Hillsboro to meet the Ratliffs and swap off the sweet kid. It was my first time away from Rhyder overnight so I was happy to snuggle him again. There is just something special about that warm baby skin and cute gummy grins. My mom had given me a pile of birthday gifts so when we got home, I enjoyed my new patio chairs compliments of Derrick and his mom and opened my gifts from my parents. What a great birthday weekend!