Paul joined me earlier this month on my work trip to Austin for a seminar I had to attend. Thankfully my Mom was in town, so she was able to watch the kiddos while Paul stayed two nights. We arrived on Sunday evening around dinner time and went to this really yummy restaurant called Duo Forni. It means "two ovens" in Italian and they made the most delicious fresh pizza! One was 500 degrees and the other oven was 900 degrees. We ordered from the cheese bar and it was literally a glob of creamy yummy buffalo mozzarella cheese (sent fresh from Italy every 3 days!) that we smothered onto bread and pesto sauce. Oh my goodness!! We made it back there again for lunch later that week. It was THAT good. After dinner we strolled around 6th street and then hung out on the pool deck to watch the sun go down.
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| Relaxing Sunday night on the rooftop deck. |
Monday I was in sessions all day, so Paul walked around the city. He took himself out to breakfast at this really cool hotel that had a neat café. The hotel was called The Driskill and it is haunted! Super neat! He went inside the Capitol building to view the dome and read his book at the pool. We met up again that night for dinner with Blake at a delicious farm to table restaurant called 24 Hour Diner and had a fun drive around the city!
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| We got our photo in front of the iconic "I love you so much" wall on South Congress. |
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| Paul stole a kiss! :) |
We went on the South Congress bridge to see if we could catch the bats that fly out from underneath the bridge. I've always wanted to do this! We waited awhile and they finally came out. The didn't fly up too high, but we did see them circle underneath the bridge. There were TONS of bats! Wasn't the sunset beautiful? The colors in the sky were so pretty!
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| Selfie with Blake on the bridge waiting for bats. |
The next morning Paul and I went to breakfast at the Driskill before my first session began. Super yummy meal! Check out those purple potatoes! The omelet was stuff with veggies and goat cheese.
Later, Heather (my coworker and friend that came to the seminar as well) joined us for lunch at Duo Forni and then Paul headed home to San Antonio.
Above is a photo of what the rest of my day looked like. My workbook and tea and I listened to more sessions..It was a very interesting seminar though, so I am glad I was able to go! I met some really great people! I was at a Fraud Seminar, so that evening Heather and I went to the networking reception at the Global Headquarters for the Association for Fraud Examiners (ACFE). It was really neat to read about all the Fraud cases in the Fraud Museum there. They even had a "thank you" cigar box that Bernie Madoff used to give to his clients when they invested with him! Interesting stuff!
Below are some photos of the hotel where the seminar was being held. It was at the Omni Hotel downtown. It was really neat. It shared an atrium with an office building which was different, but still really neat.
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| This is a view from our room on the 13th floor. It overlooked the atrium. |
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| You can see the Capitol building far off in the distance. |
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| Not the neatest photo of our room, but I thought that the cow print ottoman was cool. |
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| Before Paul left, he put a note on the bed so I'd find it. So sweet! |
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| Our room number on the 13th floor...glad we aren't superstitious! LOL! |
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| The top of the hotel pool deck. The top of Frost Building is so cool. One of my favorite buildings in Austin. |
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| The pool |
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| Looking down from the roof! |
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| A selfie of me during one of my breaks. I took a breather up at the pool deck. |
The seminar was scheduled to end on Thursday morning, but my Mom's flight was early Thursday morning and I would miss saying goodbye to her before she left to go home. I was prepared to say goodbye to her when I left for Austin on Sunday, but as the week progressed I was getting sad about not seeing her again. I checked out the Thursday morning sessions and I figured it would be okay to skip those last sessions as they didn't specifically pertain to my job.
Heather was my ride back home since Paul left on Tuesday afternoon. She was cool with leaving early as well since she had to get back to the office on Thursday to tie up some loose ends. WIN/WIN! We checked with the hotel and they weren't going to charge us for leaving early so we decided to check out on Wednesday evening after the last session. I decided not to tell my Mom or the kids that I was going to come back early because I wanted to surprise them! Paul and I devised a plan for the surprise and Paul took a video of me giving Mom the surprise of her life! LOL!
Click on the YouTube link below to see the video. :)
https://youtu.be/juOExj0CCb4
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