I Can't Get Enough....

of THIS face!!!!!

blogs to post in the near future:

• Hong Kong Gary--Intern Boy Scout from Hong Kong!
• Carl and I are taking my cousins for the weekend. That should make for a good post!
• Finally pictures of the house.....before and after!

Here Are Some Pictures to Prove It!

It's been over a year and I FINALLY have my wedding album! It wasn't my photographers fault! I couldn't make up my mind. I like that I didn't get my album for a year because it was so much more fun to look at the pictures and really appreciate the whole thing! A big thanks to my photographer! Check him out!

Free and Almost Free Entertainment in Austin

Here is the ultimate list of Free or Near Free things to do in Austin.

They are in NO particular order!

Carl and I didn't have a ton of money to spend we are poor newlyweds (someone told me you are newlyweds for 2 years! Someone else told me your a newlywed for as long as you feel....gag me!) I digress. There were PLENTY of activities to do while in Austin that were inexpensive. We even had more left over! You might want to print this off when you go to Austin!

1. Look for Leslie

This was for me NOT Carl. Leslie is infamous in Austin. He/She is a homeless tranny that hangs out on 6th street. I mean HANGS out. He/She usually isn't wearing much more than a leopard print thong and a halter top to cover his/her hormone induced boobies. Leslie has run for Mayor several times. Homelessness is his/her platform. Interesting huh?!?! Leslie usually hangs out on 6th and Congress during the day. We were lucky enough to see him on Friday night! We were walking down 6th street we heard a "HEY" and sure enough it was Leslie! It's like he/she knew we were looking for him/her. Don't worry I didn't touch him/ her but I did buy the magnetic "Leslie Paper doll Collection" for my fridge!

2. Barton Springs

I vaguely remember going to Barton Springs as a kid. I don't know if we swam or not? Well we were HOT from walking around so we went to Barton Springs! It was $3 per person to get in. On the outside it looks like a HUGE public pool but when you look closer in the water you see that it's a natural spring complete with algae rocks. I was the first brave one to go in. It was a COOL 68 degrees! It made my feet feel awesome (they were throbbing from all the walking). We decided to go in at one of the walk in points. I ended up crawling to my final destination because the idea of slipping on the rocks was not one I wanted to experience. It was cold. I loved it. Sierra (our friend and personal tour guide) and Carl had goose pimples and shivered the whole time! BABIES! The best part was watching people try not to fall on the rocks while adjusting to the extreme cold! What can I say....I am evil. We didn't stay as long as I would have liked but the sun was going down. I will say that this activity is free if you go in after 7 PM but who would want to! I would think it's only for the Polar Bear Club members at that point!

3. 6th Street

While I see the appeal I think I am too old to really enjoy 6th street. I equate it to a brighter and cleaner walk on Bourbon Street in New Orleans (pre Katrina....haven't been back to see post....) They block off the street from vehicles at about 9 PM on the weekend. The only way to get from one side of the street to the other (other than good ol walking) is to take "Petty Cabs". Petty Cabs are men and women on bikes dragging a 3 person seat that take you to any club or bar for a donation. We chose to walk. It's good for the heart and to keep drunkenness in check! We did see the Pecan St. Cafe which my mom said was the ONLY thing on 6th Street when she was in school at UT. We went in to Babaloo, a cigar shoppe, and each picked out something to enjoy. The "I LoveLucy" reference was just too much for me to resist! We went to The Forbidden Fruit and met a future writer for "The Advocate". We watched the girls dance on the bar in Coyote Ugly. That was fun! We even stopped by and looked in at at The Dizzy Rooster that was made famous by "The Real World: Austin". We went to another bar....but I can't remember! We even had enough energy to walk back to the hotel! It was a long walk but we did save like 5 bucks by not getting a cab!

4. South Congress (So Co)

Ok. Now this is more MY style. It's more artsy. More hippie. More unusual. South Congress has a huge event every month called "First Thursday". The title is when the event takes place (duh!) and its a time that all the stores stay open later, the street is shut down, and more vendors are added in the street. It's a place for starving artists to sell their works. I wish we were there for First Thursday but alas we weren't. There was plenty to look at without being at First Thursday. First stop was "Hey Cupcake!" It's a charming vintage metal travel trailer. Much like the trailer in that movie that Lucy and Desi did together about traveling in the trailer...the name of the movie escapes me.... We had just had a fabulously greasy meal at Dirty Martins so we passed on eating a Michael Jackson Cupcake (you know...a chocolate cupcake with white cream cheese frosting!). It was tempting! Carl taught Sierra and I a ton! One of the places were full of Folk Art and Folk Craft. Carl just took a Folklore class at SFA and taught us that Folk Art is to look at and Folk Craft is to use! Learn somethin new everyday! I enjoyed looking at all the art, interesting antiques and amusing gifts. I was so tempted to bring back bacon flavored tooth picks to Ryan. There were plenty of paintings I wanted to take home. There were even antique medical paraphernalia that I wanted. I passed on all of it and just dreamed of the day that Carl and I will have enough money for original art (notice I said WILL). Day turned into night and the atmosphere was much more quiet than 6th street but still hoppin. We returned to eat at Homeslice on So Co and you could hear the live music flowing all down the street. The people were more casual and relaxed. Still much more my style. This street is what sealed the deal on my desire to move to Austin!

5. Geo Caching

Ok. If you know what this is then you know that you can do this ANYWHERE! This has been Carl and my new hobby for 2008. A couple friend of ours showed us the joys of Geo caching at the new year. If you don't know what it is then I suggest you click on the link and look at the "Getting Started" bar. It will become your addiction. In short it's basically a treasure hunt using GPS. It's an underground cultural phenomenon that's sweeping the world! Quite literally. There are caches on all 7 continents. My favorite type of cache is the urban cache because the marvel of a treasure in the presence of hundreds of people and they don't even know! Austin had several! We found the 4 we looked for. We started our hunt at midnight on Saturday so that it would be more covert. What a blast! I recommend Geo Caching even if you don't go to Austin. Just check it out!

6. Congress Bridge Bats

What an AWESOME sight. I think this was the highlight for Carl. We were there about 45 minutes before the bats began their flight. The general rule is that they come out at sunset but nature has a mind of their own and we didn't want to miss it! We had front row spots on the Congress street bridge right where Ladybird Lake met the land below. Sierra (our personal tour guide) said that was the premo spot and right she was! You could hear the bats talking to each other determining the best time to all leave and shortly after the sun hit the horizon the show started. The bats that live under the bridge are Mexican Free-tailed bats and belong to the largest urban bat colony in the US! Isn't Texas cool? The bat is even our State Flying mammal! They started to trickle out one at a time. If you blinked you missed the first few "scout bats". Then they started to come out in droves. It was truly amazing how fast they were flying as a group making a swoosh towards the lake and then up over the trees, catching bugs the whole way. I would totally recommend seeing this sight. Unfortunately it's not a guaranteed sight!

I am pretty sure we did more but that's all I could think about right now!

Look below for the randomly awesome pictures!

This is a picture of The Bat Sculpture by the Congress Bridge (there is a cache very near!)

You can smell the bat poop when you cross the bridge! This is the view from our room!

Sierra hooked us up!

This is the guitar and knee of Stevie Ray Vaughn!

Andrew Update!

I can't believe he's already 7 weeks old! Just to review. He is not my baby. My friends Kelly and Ryan claim him. I love him so much though! He is a blast and he doesn't really do anything. These are my favorite pictures as of late!

Eat Your Way Through Austin

It's no secret that eating is one of my FAVORITE pastimes! Austin is in my opinion one of the best places to eat. The city focuses on fresh and organic. We ate out all weekend but left like we hadn't. Every thing was so fresh and yummy.

If you will fasten your seat belts we will now take the food tour!

Friday Night Dinner: Chuys Mexican Restaurant

Wow! I have never had Tex-Mex like this before. The chips were light and crisp and went so well with the just made salsa. I ordered "The Vegetarian" (Finally a city that truly caters to all eating habits) It came with a Veggie Enchilada that had squash, potatoes, corn, spinach, serrano, onions all in a blue corn tortilla with red sauce and cheese. I also had a cheese chili relleno (my favorite). All that with rice and vegetarian refried beans. It was all good. I topped my freshly made meal with a light margarita. I had "The Dot" margarita which is margarita with a dot of strawberry margarita on top. Ingenious! It was not heavy and perfect for a hot evening.

What the others had: The Classic Tex-Mex Enchiladas and Big as Yo' Face Chicken Burrito

Saturday Lunch: Dirty Martin's

We were looking for a cheap place to eat for lunch. You know burger and fries. I actually found this place online weeks before we went. It has been featured on the documentary "Hamburger America". This was definitely a dive. It was full of students or fathers and sons. Not a place you would take your mom. Too greasy! With that being said they still have a Veggie Patty burger! You better believe I got that! It reminded me of the veggie patties I would get at the school cafeteria...in a good way...a nostalgic way. We each ordered a different side and taste tested. The tater tots, fries and onion rings were soooo yummy! We all topped it off with a to go shake like mom would make! Very cheap. Still yummy. Not overly greasy. The gut held up well for an afternoon in the hot hot sun!

What the others had:

O.T. SPECIAL - large bacon cheeseburger with mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato

D.H. SPECIAL - Hamburger patty with grilled onions between two pieces of cheese on toast with tomato and pickle

Saturday First Dinner: Torchy's Tacos

Ok. So we had two dinners! We didn't eat lunch and we knew we would be eating a LATE dinner because of the events we had planned (you will have to check out the next post for events) We were in our swimming gear when we walked up to this deliciously smelling trailer. The keyword here again was FRESH! You wouldn't think that at a trailer right?!?! I ate 2 tacos because I couldn't decide! I had the fried avocado taco which had carrots, vegetarian refried beans, tomatoes, lettuce and poblano ranch! I also had the "Taco of the Month" Magic Mushroom. It was wonderfully magical with portabella mushrooms, carrots, lettuce and chipotle sauce! To die for! I wanted more but I resisted! I would eat there right now if I could. Fresh cheap food doesn't get any better! We spent less than at a drive thru and ate more and ate better!

What the others had:

Beef Fajita Taco:Marinated and grilled skirt steak with grilled onions and peppers and topped off with shredded cheese and pico de gallo on your choice of tortilla and salsa

Trailer Park: Fried chicken, green chili’s, lettuce, pico, and Cheese served on a flour tortilla with poblano ranch.Get it trashy! Take off the lettuce and add queso!

Saturday Second Dinner: Homeslice Pizza

We didn't eat until 10:30 PM but it was well worth the wait! This was surreal to me because you don't even have the option of eating past 8:30 PM in Nacogdoches. Yet there was an hour wait at 9PM!!! Now I will tell you I am not a fan of pizza. I like food so I will eat it but given a choice I would always choose Mexican over pizza. Or at least pasta over pizza. You could say I am a pizza snob! I like "different" flavors other than your typical pepperoni or cheese. Homeslice and I were a fit when I saw the menu. We enjoyed sitting out on the back porch while Sierra and Carl had a pitcher of Fireman's #4 and I went all out and had diet Dr. Pepper (really that is going all out). We shared some hot garlic knots to help our hunger stay in check while we waited. We ordered a medium classic “white” pie with ricotta, olive oil and spinach. It came on it's own stand and had gobs of spinach and ricotta. Very yummy. I had about a slice more than I should have! We even had 2 slices left over. Of course Carl didn't eat it! He is your average pizza eater and got a couple of slices of pepperoni. This was a perfect choice for a late meal because I wasn't miserable and unable to go to bed. Freshness points here!

Sunday Brunchy Lunch: Kerby Lane Cafe

This is an Austin Institution. Now I know I have beat down the word "fresh" but seriously. This place has it's own farm! Not lying! They have tons of vegetarian and vegan options. We could have eaten here all weekend! I went with having eggs Benedict Florentine in mind because more people should have that on their menu! When we opened up the menu I had to have something that NO ONE else would have on their menu. I went for the "Paris Texas Platter" It was an awesome combo of french toast and migas (vegetarian migas no less!). My taste buds were doing a happy dance! Spicy and sweet what a combo! I just watched everyone else in the restaurant and what they ordered. They even have Vegan pancakes! Made with tofu! I don't know about all that but at least they have it for anyone who wants it! The coolest part was that they have artist original paintings for sale and the artists change frequently!

What the others ate:

Carl had Carl's Breakfast: English muffin with all natural Canadian bacon, a fried egg and cheese. Served with home fries and fruit.

Pancake stack of the day: Raspberry

Austin: 1 Year of Love

Carl and I booked it to Austin on Friday. I was trying to surprise him for our 1st anniversary! This is the first day I have taken off in the year 2008! I needed it bad!

You may be asking, "Why Austin?"

Here is the list:

1. We don't have much money to spend so Paris was out.

2. I am trying to convience my husband to move here so why not show him what a wonderful time we could have in this AWESOME city!

3. Our friend, Sierra, works at the Hyatt in Austin so she gave us the HOOK UP!!!

The next few blogs will be devoted to our trip. It was fast, fun and full! I love Austin and I want you to love it too! I hope after reading my review of Austin you will fall in love with it too!