James and Claire

Today we woke up and went downtown for breakfast. We went to Jo's, which has a nice shaded outdoor area. It was a very pleasant breakfast. The only thing to note was that there was a crazy 18-month old on the loose. While the mother gabbed on the cell phone, this child ran aimlessly through the store, streets, and crowds. He was patting women on the rear ends and grabbing fistfuls of hair from all of the leashed dogs whose owners were also enjoying breakfast. The Austin folk (and their dogs) impressed me with their patience...

After breakfast, we all went to the hospital. Christy spent 3 hours visiting with the babies while Mamaw and I took turns amusing Nicholas...who is ready to go home.

After Nicholas woke from his nap, he wanted to go swimming. So we got him into his suit, slathered him with lotion, and headed down to the pool. As he got off the elevator, he started running towards the door to the pool. When we got out to the terrace that overlooks the pool, we could see immediately that the pool was at 100% capacity. There must have been 50 people in this tiny pool...and it was easy to see that they had all been drinking heavily. So we had to tell Nicholas that the pool was closed and head back upstairs. The week nights here are very nice, but on the weekends, there are drunken fools everywhere. It is pretty annoying.

I was getting sad all day knowing that Nicholas and Christy were going home tomorrow. The sadness was improved, but not overcome, by the fact that Mamaw was leaving with them. Christy was also sad today, but we both know that this is the only way. Staying down here just is not fair to Nicholas...and neither is sending home to either set of grandparents.

We all went to one last hurrah at Chuy's. I took a photo of Christy in the same spot we took it on they day Claire and James were born. I had the 'ChuyChanga', which was quite good. I like Pappasito's better, but Chuy's is a close second.

We had ordered some baby slings on-line and had them shipped to the hotel. Even though the UPS tracking information shows it as having arrived and even named someone at the front desk as the signee, the front-desk is telling us they don't have them. So far, the hotel package reception appears to be a black hole. I had some work supplies shipped here, and they never made it either. I did successfully get one giant envelope that my dad sent me. Weird... The front desk has agreed there is a problem and they will work with me this week to resolve it somehow.

After dinner, the packing started. We are sending as much stuff as possible home tomorrow. At 8:00, Nicholas refused to go to bed. He insisted he wanted his 'big boy bed', which is at home. It took us an hour and a half to get him to sleep.

Tomorrow, we wake up at 4:45 AM to shuttle them off for their 6:45 flight. With that in mind, I am going to bed early.