Living in Austin: the Kite Festival

Yesterday was the annual Zilker Park Kite Festival in downtown Austin.
It's the oldest kite festival in the US and has been going on for 84 years! (just as long as the Academy Awards. Funny).

If you ever want to see a good cross-section of Austin life, this is it.
Thousands of Austinites, hanging out in 73 degree sunshine, flying kites, eating food, wearing whatever, singing whatever, riding unicycles, throwing footballs, walking on make-shift tight ropes, blowing bubbles, having fun....it's all there.
It's so Austin.
We love it!
And the Austin city skyline is the perfect backdrop.

In fact Zilker Park is fabulous (also home to the SXSW music/film festival). If you're looking for "things to do in Austin, TX", stop by Zilker. Ride the little train, rent a canoe (like we did), watch the bats from the Congress Bridge, swim in the old Barton Springs Pool.
It is so choice.
Yesterday we headed down for a couple of hours and caught the tail end of the festival.
And I decided not to bring my camera--because I knew I would be a better mom for it. Do you ever feel that way? Just one less thing to juggle, to carry, to keep from bonking into kids heads when they run up to tell you something. Of course in the late afternoon as the sun went down, I really wished I had it. Those kites were just too pretty with the setting sun.

So you'll have to imagine that the festival this year was very much like these pictures from last year. The kids are a few inches shorter but their bums are just as cute.
City life doesn't get much better than this.
And I know we're famous for bats but we've got a huge bird thing going on to.
I love sights like this: