When I grow up I want to work in Advertising...

Usain Bolt

fastest man EVER hahaha

Lakes and Hot Sauces

This past week+ has been fantastic. Last friday Mike and I went to his dad's family reunion at Canyon Lake. We had an amazing home-cooked meal and got to go on a sunset cruise on the lake.

On Sunday we met up with Lauren and Dave and went to Lake Travis to see Fastball... you know, that band whose single "The Way" was huge in middle school? Well, apparently they're from Austin so we got to see them for free on Lake Travis in a multi-tiered pool.

Mike's cousin (second or third or something, we can't figure it out) who we met at the reunion lives in Austin and invited us out to Blues on the Green. We hopped in the car for the 1 minute drive to Zilker Park, sat in a field and listened to great music. I just love the amount of free music there is in this city... and QUALITY music, too! The guy we saw is supposedly famous so I should be ashamed that I don't remember his name, but he covered a ton of Stevie Ray Vaughan songs (people here are obsessed with Stevie... there is even a statue of him downtown).

I had three orientations in four days- one for school and two for work. The one for school included a lot of partying which was great. On Monday we met up at Zilker Park for a BBQ with a great view of downtown.
We then went to the Blind Pig Pub on 6th Street. The Blind Pig actually reminded me a lot of Gainesville... poorly made drinks, bad 80's music and obnoxiously drunk people! It was great to start getting to know the other people in the program. I couldn't participate in a lot of the advertising activities because of my orientations for work, but a group of 11 of us all went tubing down the Guadalupe River on Thursday and my did it put Gainesville springs to shame!!!! I mean, canyons, rapids, crystal clear water, NO alligators... it was great! We had two extra tubes that were dedicated to carrying the beer and we floated for about 3 hours. The UF group of the tour (Mike and I, Lauren, Dave and Rachel) all went to Gruene to eat dinner afterwards. Gruene is this old German town with the oldest dance hall in Texas. Very charming but the type of place where you become thankful to live in a real CITY!

On Saturday Mike and I met up with the Lone Star Gator Club for the annual SEC picnic. There were a couple hundred people there, all SEC alumni, and everyone was decked out in their college gear for some silly games, grilling and good times. It was great to meet fellow gator alum, even if I was definitely the youngest person. We'll be meeting up with them to watch gator games at a local sports bar this season. Mike and I then had dinner at Chuy's, which made me think of a Mexican version of Satchel's. The food was good but there was a sign outside saying "No Crybabies" so we were disappointed to find out their hot sauce is actually quite mild. I thought this was Texas! Isn't everything here supposed to be spicy?!?!?
Anyways, we took care of the spicy problem today by attending the Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival. It was a fun day with good food, live music and an endless supply of salsas and hot sauces. Our favorite tasting hot sauce was Aztecan... favorite enough that we left with three bottles of it (and we're already halfway through the first bottle after 1 night). Our favorite brand, though, was Big Daddy's Ass Burn whose motto is "Hell Goin' In, Hell Goin' Out." Awesome.

so cute!

A brief update...

Our lives lately have been a crazy blur of misunderstood GPS directions, trips to Ikea and every other possible furniture store, Tex-Mex food and Texan beer, dips in the pool, amazement with the grocery stores and an absolute LOVE for our new city.

Mike and I went to the Texas State History Museum to see the new Batman on IMAX last week. The museum is located directly between the capitol and campus.

The capitol:


The museum:


Here is Winston lounging on the biggest box ever... the one that housed our new 52" TV.



On Monday Mike and I met up with Lauren and Dave (both are Gator grads and Lauren is in my program at UT) and we went hiking down the greenbelt. We were able to walk to a path just down the street from our apartment and the hike was just wonderful. Tropical Storm Edouard was hitting the coast so we had nice overcast weather with occasional sprinkles but nothing that should be considered rain. Barton Creek was all dried out from the dry summer so we strayed from the hiking trail and actually walked through the rocks that usually make up Barton Creek/Springs.






I'm anxious to post pictures of our new apartment, but that will have to wait until we get our washer and dryer and I am able to remedy the growing piles of clothes. We just bought a dark red recliner sofa so everything is starting to come together.

OH! Almost forgot... I got a job with the UT Intercollegiate Athetics Student Services. I'll be tutoring and mentoring student athletes. I'm not excited about having to get to campus to work 4 days a week, but the pay is good so I'll just see how this semester goes :)

Goodbye Gainesville...

I really need to update on my last few days in Gainesville... They were an amazing mixture of crazy, fun, stressful and emotional!

On the Monday before we left Mike quit his job... I was already meeting with people from my work at Chili's, so Mike invited his coworkers out also. We ended up having a huge table of me and my favorite ex-coworkers, Mike and his favorite ex-coworkers, and Sara and Chris. After hours of eating, drinking and celebrating everyone went their separate ways so Sara, Chris, Mike and I all went to Balls. Now I need to explain Balls... this is a place that is COVERED from top to bottom in permanent marker. We decided it was finally time to leave our mark!




Afterwards we all went on campus where there were many fun activities including running across the Plaza of the Americas in our underwear and wading through the fine arts fountain.

We took our activities to the Courtyards for a post-midnight swim, then ended our night with a 2am pizza, garlic rolls and pepperoni rolls feast! YUM!


Tuesday was wonderful... Sara, Chris, Mike and I all went to Dragonfly (our favorite sushi restaurant) for dinner. Sara surprised me with an amazing card and awesome frame with four pictures of us, starting from our cruise to the Bahamas and ending at the night before! Ok, I admit, I cried. So we had our amazing meal... thought that was it, but then the waitress came out with two cakes for Mike and I... Sara and Chris had gone to a bakery and had them put our symbol on two little cakes! Then went to Dragonfly and told them to bring them out to us after dinner! I couldn't believe it. Then to top it all off, those sneaky two stole the bill. They couldn't have been more thoughtful...



Next we all walked down the street to Downtown 101 where we feasted on $4 martinis (it was martini night) and the coldest beer in Gainesville!


Megan, Norman and Courtney all met up with us and we spent hours being goofy and having a ball.




We ended the night with a post-midnight feast at Perkins. YUM!



Alas, Wednesday arrived. Mike's good friend Chris came in the morning and the official move began. Sara and Chris arrived in the afternoon and helped even more. Without the three of them we would have been helpless. Official moving hours = 8am when we woke up and had to get the trailer to 1am when we finally laid down to rest. It was horrible, but it was wonderful having our friends around to help us. Sara and Chris hung around past midnight, I cried like a baby when they left, then Mike and I went and said our goodbyes to Bijou and Cherie. We went to sleep on the air mattress, woke up early, turned in the keys and said goodbye to Titletown.



Dear Gainesville, you have been so good to me but I have outgrown your barriers. If we could have stayed 19 forever we never would have left... but it seems that we have grown and you have not. I will always hold you dear to my heart and consider you my home, but now it's time for us to go somewhere that has more to offer.
Goodbye Gainesville, we love and miss you.