austin texas: hells yeah

while clicking through my flickr page i realized i don't pimp my town nearly enough. perhaps it's a subconscious thing. i like the size of my town and if i make it known to the general parenting public, and anyone else for that matter, everyone would probably drop their current lives-run to our super-fab town-live happily ever after-causing major over crowding-thus making the town suck. then i realized how absurd that sounded and i thought why not throw up a quick photo essay of our fair city to show how great it really is.

when i think of what i like about austin in relation to parenting, the first thing that comes to mind are parks. holy shit this town is infested with parks. just about every neighborhood has at least one if not more. in my little corner of southwest austin there are three within walking distance and a few more just beyond that. now, not all the parks are flashy with crazy playscapes and water features that your kid will naturally gravitate toward and certainly require a clothing change before the drive home. but, i have found that sometimes it's nice to have place where she can run free and i don't have to constantly lurke 6 inches behind her making sure she doesn't fall off some bridge linking a sunken ship with a dragon. with that said the parks in this town kicks major ass.the following photos are of a park in our neighborhood and one of our downtown park that sits right on the colorado river.























not only are the parks boss, just bummin' round town is extremely kid friendly and also fun for the adults. downtown plays home to great coffee shops where kids are cool to hang and there's also a fun and educational children's museum. outside of down town are districts that also make it easy to have fun with kid in tow. in additon to that we have two major univertities here, the university of texas and st. edwards university, both are nice for for killing an afternoon. the first of the next two photos is from a day we spent walking around the soco district. a very hip area of south austin. many claim this as the last vestige of "old austin". a time and place when hippies still ran the town. before progression moved in with it's construction cranes and urban living spaces. the second is from an afternoon on the campus of st. edwards last spring getting photos among the bluebonnets.























austin's undoubtedly known for it's hipsters due to its live music scene. this has been the case for years and that vibe doesn't seem to be going anywhere. hence the self applied slogan "keep austin weird". and honestly i don't think anyone wants the town to lose this either. it pretty much makes austin, austin. so naturally, if hipsters have kids then there kids will too be hipsters. insert the kiddie live music scene. this aspect of the town caught us off guard. the thought of taking kids to live music shows makes perfect sense in a town like this but it never crossed our minds. that kind of thing just doesn't go on where we're from. but this part of the living here has been so much fun. the following photo of edan (from flailing my arms) and calli took place at a joe mcdermott show during acl fest(austin city limits festival). side note: music festivals are huge in this town and generally include a kid friendly stage.

i hope you've enjoyed the little tour of our town. seriously if you get a chance you should come check it out. by far one of the cooler cities in the us.

also, i'd love to hear about and see some your favorite places where you live. if you read this go back to your corner of the interwebs and post about it.