Ok FINALLY. Here it is! A quick glimpse into our time in Austin! We went to Austin to photograph a wedding but we also decided to turn it into a mini vaca while we were there.
But let me start by saying, the wedding we photographed was INCREDIBLE. Holy moly was it such a great time!! Jen and Steven were fabulous and their day was nothing short of amazing. It was such a special time and a huge celebration! People from ALL over the country came to Austin to watch them tie the knot. And that’s pretty special, if you ask me!

My sister Danielle was born in Austin, TX and hasn’t been back there since we moved away when she was a baby. So we brought the kids and Danielle and her husband Cameron came along to help us with them and to be able to see Austin too! It was SO FUN having them with us! If you travel with more than one kid, I definitely recommend a 2:1 ratio.
Spoiled, I know.
But it really made a huge difference having them there through all the travels. Plus, it allowed us to work and not worry about the boys but to still be able to bring them so we could be together as a family. I am SO grateful!
SO, we landed in Austin without TOO much craziness on the plane. We had one huge meltdown by Rider, but other than that the airplane ride was great! SO we landed and got settled in the place we stayed. We have some good friends who live in Austin who graciously opened up their home to us without hesitation and provided so much more than we could have asked for! They were awesome hosts and again, we were SO grateful that they allowed us to stay with them. They don’t live too far from downtown, which was OOBER convenient and made it a fabulous time for us to be able to see the city some!
After we got settled, we decided to go grab something to eat downtown. Austin’s downtown is LEGIT. Have you ever been there? Oh man. It’s a photographers dream. So many cool spots, awesome people and lots and lots and lots of character!


We ate at STUBBS. It’s famous in Austin. And we understand why. It was FABULOUS food. We wanted to eat BBQ because well, we were in Texas. Duh. (Notice the milk bottle in the top lefthand corner and the beer bottle in the top righthand corner haha!)


Cruz was very fascinated with this bike.

And then THIS GUY walked up. Please check out his shirt, specifically right above Cruz’s head. Innappropriate? Ya, I know. I HONESTLY DIDN’T NOTICE until I was uploading these pictures to this blog. I was just thinking the picture of Cruz talking to random strangers (with Jay) was super cute. I never even saw his shirt. WOW. The kicker? I’m 98% sure that this bike did not belong to this man.

The people in Austin were so friendly. At least to us. And we had fun with so many random strangers that would jump in shots or talk with us. I loved it!


Austin is a fun city.


I love this face.

Some other fun shots.




I love this picture. I love him.

This is where the bats were supposed to fly out. We literally stood there for over 30 minutes, past 8:30 pm and they hadn’t flown out. When it was just about dark, Jason noticed that they were flying away on the distant horizon. So we totally missed it and so did everyone else on the bridge. SO WEIRD. So we went back a couple nights later and we were able to watch them fly out. They didn’t leave until it was pretty much dark so we weren’t able to see them in the sky. BUT, we did see them flying out from under the bridge. And it was kinda loud and smelly!! And there literally was 1.5 MILLION bats. It was crazy.



We ONLY ate at places that were local to Austin. It’s one of my favorite things ever to try new places and one of those that we tried while we were in Austin was called Mighty Fine Burgers. OMG. YUM. If you’re in Austin it’s a ‘must-go’!




Aw. My sweet picky eater. He loved the fries though!

This is Jackson. Rachel and Tim’s little boy. We stayed at their house. Cruz and Jack were BEST FRIENDS the whole time we were there. He still asks about Jack. I wish we lived closer to them because they’d be such great little buddies.


After dinner on this night we went to a store called Whole Earth. They had some REALLY cool stuff inside and we all had fun shopping. Then we all goofed off on the hammocks that they had hanging outside their store.




He’s always picking his nose. I have more pictures of him picking his nose than I know what to do with it. How do kids learn how to do this?? I can assure you, we did not teach him this.

We did a photo shoot with The Allen’s while we were there. We had a blast walking all around downtown snapping pictures of them and of all kinds of things too! One thing is, it was FREAKIN HOT. I mean, humid HOT. I’m used to the dry heat! But it was NOT dry. And it was HOT.
We were able to snap a family picture while we were at it. I love this picture.

Some other shots of us roaming around downtown.





Other cool stuff I saw. I know this post is long. It’s almost over, I swear.




He loved checking out the planes as we left. We didn’t want to leave.


So you guys. PLEASE go check out Steven + Jen Stamps wedding. Their wedding post is up on our site and you’ve got to check it out! They got married at The Driskill Hotel and it was SUCH an amazing day and celebration!! We were so honored to have been asked to be a part of their day! And we loved traveling to another location for a wedding. With our kids.
We totally have the bug.
I can’t wait for the day when we can travel on a regular basis, nationally AND internationally. With our kids. It’s pretty rad.
We loved Austin. I would totally move there if the right opportunity arised. Humidity and all! Ok wow. This post is SO long. Thanks for reading it. And thanks for waiting for me to post it. These past several weeks have been some of the craziest of my life.
But I feel like I’m ALWAYS saying that. God keeps opening doors for us. Including us getting a few of our weddings published in a pretty well known magazine to be out later this summer. SO STOKED. I am so grateful for this job. I am so grateful that God told me to ‘wait’ for all the years that I desired to do this but never did. Because it definitely wouldn’t be what it is today if I had relied solely on MY timing. It’s rad.
Can we please travel somewhere else to shoot a wedding? I want to ASAP.
Tags: Austin, motherhood, photo shoot, Texas, wedding photography, weddings, working mom