Our SXSW Experience

Oh my goodness, y'all...we're back from SXSW and we had the best time!!! As you probably remember, my son and his friends made a movie and it was accepted into the SXSW film festival lineup! They wrote, produced, directed and shot a film called "Stripped" and it was such a huge deal for it to get its premiere at SXSW in Austin, Tx. You can click HERE to read my big announcement. 

SXSW receives about 6000 high school film entries each year and only 22 make the cut. We were so excited when we found out their film was one of the 22!!!

So, my son and his friends traveled to Austin for the premiere and stayed for 10 days to enjoy all the film festival has to offer. (I just flew up with my mom and older son for four days) They got to attend tons of screenings, premieres, panels, etc. They saw Ryan Gosling at the premiere of his film "Song To Song" and they got to attend the premiere of "The Disaster Artist" alongside Seth Rogen, James Franco, and Dave Franco. Like, they literally sat in the same theater with them for the premiere! 

Here's my son Logan (in the middle) along with his fellow filmmakers Kendra and Hector at the red carpet premiere of their film "Stripped!"

They had another screening at the Alamo Drafthouse later in the week. Here are some pics from that...

Here I am with my son Logan. I was one proud Mama. :) 

It was so thrilling to sit in a packed theater with them to watch the premiere! And so fun to see their film up on the big screen! After the screening, they brought them on stage for a Q&A with the audience...

Here's Logan in front of their film poster displayed in the Austin Convention Center...

Kendra's family also came up for the screening and afterwards, we all enjoyed a fun meal at The Oasis on Lake Travis...

The Oasis is known for its sunset views. (click HERE to see more pics of the restaurant) They even post what time the sunset will be each day on their website. 

The restaurant has multiple decks for your viewing pleasure. :) 

This was the sunset view from our table. Just gorgeous! 

Here's another neat thing. They made up shirts with all the films that premiered at SXSW. The convention center was selling them and we were lucky to snag the last three! They sold out very quickly!

The front of the shirt...

And the back with all the films at SXSW 2017...

There's their film, "Stripped!"

Of course, I couldn't resist buying a few other shirts too...

My son was very lucky to meet some YouTube stars too. Here he is with Jenna Marbles...

And Julien Solomita...

And here's Ryan Gosling at the premiere of "Song To Song"...

They got to hear Rainn Wilson speak...

And here they are at the premiere of "The Disaster Artist" with Seth Rogen, Dave Franco, and James Franco...

Here are a couple of random pics from our trip...

This is the view of the infamous 6th street from our hotel room. This pic was taken very early in the morning, as it was a TOTALLY different story at night. ;) (think packed streets, loud music, and general craziness ~ ha!)

We had to visit VooDoo doughnut...

That's my cotton candy one on top and Dylan's maple bacon on the bottom. Yum!

Ran into these three cuties one night, took a quick trip to the capitol building (with my mom and son Dylan in their St. Paddy's day finest), saw the bluebonnets and of course had to partake in P.Terry's burgers. :) 

A silly pic of me enjoying one of several orange mochas I had at Caffe Aragona! So yummy!

You can't really see it, but that's Grumpy Cat flying over the Capitol. No idea what that was about. Lol.

Had to bring home some Stumptown coffee and Stroop Waffles from Royal Blue Grocery...

My cute mom enjoying her quiche at The Driskill Hotel...

I can't tell you how many times we frequented Royal Blue Grocery during our SXSW visit. They had everything you could need and they're all over the Austin area. We enjoyed their sandwiches for a quick lunch several times and they make a great cortado. Everything was pretty reasonably priced too. I think our ready made sandwiches were around $7.

Just noticed that's my mom going into the store. Ha! They were really good at having a strong police presence during the festival too, especially at night. We felt safe the whole time, which was nice. 

Since we flew in, we needed a car for transportation, but didn't want to drive ourselves. We were a little disappointed to learn Austin doesn't have Uber, but thankfully we found that out before we left, and we all got the "Fasten" app instead. It works the same as Uber. I actually liked it better than some other ride sharing services because you can tip your driver within the app. Some others don't have that convenience, so you still need to carry cash for the tip. That defeats the whole purpose of a cashless ride to me. With Fasten, as soon as your ride is over, they send you a notification so you can rate your driver and add a tip. Very convenient. 

We never had to wait more than a few minutes for a car and I love that they send you a picture of the driver, a picture of their car, and the license plate number so you know you're getting into the correct car. I always took a screen shot of this pic to send to my hubby or someone else, just so they would know which car/driver picked us up. You can never be too careful. :) 

And here's something some people don't know...you as a rider get rated by your drivers as well. Yes, indeedy. :) They rate you on whether you're out there and ready or they had to wait on you, if you tip, if you're loud, spill food in their car, etc. 

My son also used Ride Austin and had good luck with them as well. He also got to use the SXSW shuttle service for free since he had a filmmaker badge. That would take them from venue to venue and was convenient. 

We had such a good time and it was thrilling for all of us to see them rewarded for all their hard work. :) Thanks for all your congrats here and on IG. I really appreciate y'all following along! 

I know the kids had a hard time with re-entry into the real world after all that fun. :) The festival was held during their Spring Break and they went non stop the whole time. They're exhausted, but happy, so that's always a good thing. 

I know I've been absent from the blog scene for awhile, but now that we're back, I'm doing my best to get caught up with all of you.

P.S. I'm about to get a new iPhone (with a much better camera) so hopefully my pics will improve on here soon. :) Y'all know I'm not known for my photography skills. Ha!

~Lisa