Hi Austin Moms readers, I’m Jennifer York! I’m so thrilled to be a part of this organization and share my story. I am a hotelier by trade and heart. My first hotel job was working the 6am shift at the Driskill Café in college…it was early! My career in the hotel world eventually took me to Las Vegas at the age of 23 where I spent 7 years in convention sales, opened a Las Vegas resort, met a ton of lifelong friends and had a few heartbreaks. In 2011 I sold everything I owned, which was extremely liberating, shipped my car and started a new life in Chicago.
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Fun fact: my neighbor across the hall was no other than Lady Gaga (her then boyfriend Taylor Kinney was filming Chicago Fire). Exactly one year to the week, I landed my dream job back with my company and was offered the chance to move home to Austin. A year later, I ran into a dear friend at ACL Music Festival, which I best describe as a scene from a romance novel: we see each other across the field, run together, he twirls me around and we literally never let go. 9 years later we live in South Austin with our 11-year-old, 4-year-old, and 6-month-old baby boy.
Travel has always been a passion and I believe it is so important to experience new ideas, cultures, and people! My favorite personal trips include Thailand and South Africa. When covid hit, my work and personal travel halted. We needed to escape and found creative ways to do so. Our first trip was renting an RV as we hit the road to Big Bend National Park! What an amazing experience with my family that none of us will soon forget. I highly recommend this at least once with your children! On another ‘getaway’, we stayed at Open Air Resorts in Spicewood, where we rented a vintage Spartan Trailer. We immediately fell in love with the Spartan history (Spartan Aircraft Company made planes for the World Wars. After WWII ended, the metal tubes in production were turned into high end mobile homes.) We decided to find our own Spartan, remodel it, and place it on our family property in the Hill Country. Two years later, we call her “Pearl” (named after Janice Joplin’s last album) and she is our weekend getaway when we need to get out of town.
Another covid hobby became our backyard garden. We upcycle washer and dryer drums (and even an old beer fridge) for the purpose of gardening! This helps keep these items from the landfills and make excellent raised beds and are the perfect height for toddlers. My daughter learned from an early age how to grow food and we enjoy foraging for unique tastes and textures from our garden. Her favorites have always been cherry tomatoes, the stevia plant, and now spinach!
I’m so excited to share my experiences and learn from others on this platform. We are truly better together!
