A little photo journal of Austin 2021 <3

For the record, traveling to see our son for the first time after a year and a half of Covid crazy (thankfully he has been able to come home but we have not been to see him) during the 20th anniversary of 9/11 for someone who carries far too much emotion any one human being needs to deal with may have pushed the envelope for this girl right here.

So as I decompress and hydrate myself from water loss due to tears, here are some photos from our little getaway to Austin this past weekend.

First off, I never ever ever get tired of having a window seat on a plane. While I suffer severe fear of heights when my feet are firmly planted on planet earth, I find looking out a plane window to be one of the greatest delights and can’t resist snapping pictures…

We also enjoyed the snacks tremendously since we could remove our masks while eating and drinking…we stretched that out as long as we could…

John had a bunch of fun and interesting things planned for our visit, but first we made a stop to his new office…

and I think all the moms would agree that stuff like this is just the best to get to sit and watch.

I am picture-hanging challenged so I just enjoyed watching these two work their magic.

We took in a baseball game at Round Rock with one of John’s high school buddies who also migrated to Texas.

John wanted us to see Fredericksburg this trip and particularly the National Museum of the Pacific War. Fredericksburg is the home of Admiral Nimitz and let me tell you, they have spared no amount of square footage or ink to detail the entire story of the Pacific portion of WW 2.

It was like taking a history class…we literally spent three hours walking through and reading as much as our brains could absorb.

If you remember from my opening paragraph, my emotions were already on high intensity overload and when I read the dates of things and thought about my own parents being married several days before Christmas 1942, it hit home what things they lived through and just soldiered on with little complaint of the hand they were dealt.

My dad was born into the first great pandemic and the opening shots of WW1. My mom was born a year later. They lived through the Great Depression, the terrible flood of Louisville the year my mom should have graduated from high school. They were married at the onset of WW2.

They worked hard to make life good for me and to serve others and I am so thankful for them increasingly as the years pass.

The museum was hard. The hatred and conflict and horrors of war was not played down in the displays. Things our country did..things other countries did…showed the depth of cost that wars bring.

And so it was rather sweet to step outside and visit this lovely garden…

a gift from the people of Japan.

This sweet sign explains the heart behind it:

My mom and dad served in Japan after the war and made lasting friends with several Japanese families. They loved the country and their time there and I am grateful that is my memory planted from the war as a gift from my parents.

We returned to Austin in time to watch this one play softball..

which was fun to be cheering him on again from the bleachers and he still blows me kisses when he scores a run so that was sweet.

Afterward we made a run to Home Depot, cause that’s our thing…

We ate lots of good food, enjoyed being a part of a slice of his every day life and as always unsuccessfully fought back tears when we parted ways.

Always fun to visit Texas and always hard to leave that boy behind….but thankful he is always close at heart.