Another cheap adventure with Mal

We're still about 2.5 months away from our big family vacation, and this past week, D was really having a hard time with noise. Meanwhile, of course, Mal is the source of all noise in the universe. 

We were already planning to attend free admission day at the Zilker Botanical Gardens today (Monday, Presidents' Day), and it turned out that I had a free night at a Wyndham Hotel. SO it seemed like a good time to get Mal out of the house for a bit, go to a hotel (which is his favorite thing in the world), and give D a good quiet 24 hours.

Sunday morning, we usually meet up with one of Mal's friends for them to play and have lunch at McDonald's, but his friend's grandmother is in town so instead, we went with James to his usual (except it was unusual, because we drove a ways and he usually stays pretty local) Sunday brunch.

We chose Garbo's Seafood ft. Maine lobster. 1) Maine lobster. 2) Small outdoor play area for kids. Everyone was happy, especially my belly.

We got one Cincinnati lobster roll, and one Main lobster roll. OMG.

Mal made a new friend, as usual, and they had us parents exchange phone numbers. Then James headed back home, and Mal and I set off for adventure.

Our first stop was the Tyler's outlet, which was having a huge sale. I was particularly looking for a pair of flip-flops to replace D's favorite shoes... they've had them for at least 8 years, and we bought them at Tyler's back when they had a storefront on The Drag and we could just walk over. Anyhoo, they didn't have the brand in stock Sunday. I figured I'd look for a cool tie-dyed "Keep Austin Weird" shirt for Mal, but he found another shirt he really wanted. It, of course, was not among the $5/$10 sale clothes, so we ended up getting a $5 t-shirt for me and a $20 t-shirt for Mal. Sigh.

Next on the agenda was to go play mini-golf at Peter Pan, which is Austin-famous. Unfortunately, on a holiday Sunday, it is PACKED, and we couldn't even turn in to its tiny parking area, much less actually park. We ended up skipping it and going down to South Congress to visit Big Top Candy Shop. That involved a lot of driving around trying to find 1) an available spot that 2) wasn't neighborhood-permitted parking.

I've been to South Congress on the weekend, but not in many years. It was packed. Once we got into the store, it was fun to look around. We both picked out a couple of things. But the sidewalk was just walls and walls of people. We were more than ready to check into our hotel at that point. We drove through a McDonald's because, of course, Mal hadn't eaten any lunch at the seafood place.

This is a weird stand-alone LaQuinta just off of Mopac, kind of in the middle of nowhere. I think I redeemed a free room there almost 3 years ago, after a few months of the pandemic "lock-down." We were going to visit my sister for the first time in months, and decided to sleep in a hotel the night before just because we were going stir crazy. 

After we got comfy and rested a bit, Mal was ready to go to Windmill Run Park, where we used to visit when we lived in the apartments in Oak Hill. Mal didn't remember it at all, but still liked it just as much as he used to.

We had a free pizza at Domino's, as well as a $3 "tip" from our last carry-out order. I used that to get a 2-liter beverage, so we had our dinner back at the hotel completely gratis!

We walked around a bit, defaced a poster that Mal got with his Happy Meal, and watched some TV before I fell asleep super early. Mal said he ended up going to bed about an hour earlier than usual, as well.

This morning, we had a free breakfast. Mal's "hotel breakfast" staple is Froot Loops. He also had a left-over slice of pizza. Then we checked out and went to the botanical gardens.

Zilker doesn't have any greenhouses, and it's just gone from being below freezing (last week) to over 80 degrees today, so there isn't much in bloom. But the grounds are pretty, and Mal really loved the Japanese garden. I did, too... especially the place where they had a bunch of native Texas trees pruned in the bonsai style. It was extremely beautiful and thought-provoking, even though most of the trees didn't have leaves.

We were going to play at Zilker Park for a few, but Mal said his legs were tired. So we drove around to the Austin Science and Nature Center. Admission there is always free (not just Presidents' Day!). Mal wasn't super enthusiastic about going -- "You lost me at 'science'." -- but he ended up having a good time. His favorites were playing with the small, smaller, and nano magnets; seeing the rescue birds and bobcat; and playing in the dino dig, which he took very seriously. He also was able to look into a microscope for the first time.

By then it was approaching noon and getting pretty warm. We were ready for the half-hour+ drive back home. The afternoon was pretty low-key. Back to our routine tomorrow, with our homeschool library/park meet-up. Then Mal is having a friend over to play after school lets out.