Todays discovery

I love how Austin always keeps me guessing and there are surprises on every corner. From the apartment to work I can take about 7 options of side streets. I think I've gone down all of them at least once, so I was shocked to make such a fun discovery when Kati and I were driving home from our walk today. May I introduce you to Nic? 

Isn't he cute!! He lives at a house right off of Congress, and at first I thought he was just a shaggy dog. His owners have a sign out front that says 'Hi. I'm Nic. I'm 2. Please dont feed me anything bad.'. He's about the size of a miniature pony and seems really sweet. I took these with my iphone while Kati was waiting in the car, but I managed to sneak in one 'aerial' shot of his horns! 

I'll be sad to leave this awesomely random town. 

It's been a while (cue bad Britney sound track)

Hellooo internets! Sorry it's been a while, life has been a bit of a whirlwind! My Louisiana family decided to take a road trip down to Texas last weekend, so I decided to meet up with them. Coincidentally it was also the same weekend as Jasons El Scorcho race, and Cindys visit at the lakehouse. Oh yeah, and if that wasn't enough I had a 5 hour grant writing class to squeeze in there somewhere. Seriously it makes me sleepy just to think about that weekend again! So, Im sure you understand why I had to take a few days to just recoup. Anyways, on with the pictures!

Emily and I. Would you look at how much that girl has grown? I swear she is almost as tall as I am and GOOOOOORgeous 

Dad, Hayden and Carson under a big tree. We found out later that about 1 wedding per day happens under this tree. Whoops!

So after walking for what seemed like 5 hours we finally found a place that the kids would eat. Unfortunately for this veggie girl it was a steak place.... which meant I could eat cheese sticks. Ah well, at least I was with my fam!

A quick stop at the ice cream store was a must. Carson decided to show me that he could fit the whole ice cream cone in his mouth. It was really funny. 

Most people who have travelled with me know that I'm not a huge 'tourist' kind of traveller, so doing something like the riverboat cruise was a little out of character for me. The kids were so excited to go on it, and I think after steak (or cheesesticks) and ice cream it was pretty much a necessity. 

Unfortunately, by the time we got there they were no longer doing Alamo tours for the day. So the kids and I looked for Daniel Boones name (and were never able to find it) and settled for a picture in front. 

On Saturday, we had breakfast and then it was time to hit the road again. I went to a super interesting grant writing class up at UT, the decided at the last minute that Kati and I should make the drive to see Jason. It was the 3rd annual El Scorcho race, and while I knew they had a large crowd this year, I thought 2 more visitors couldnt hurt- Kati and I! I think Jason was pretty shocked to see us, which made the 3.5 hour drive totally worth it. 

I somehow managed to convince him to come back to Austin with me, under the guise that I would drive and he could ride the train back home on Tuesday. In classic Jason style, all he heard was 'come sleep in the car'. 

 

On Sunday, we headed out to the lake to meet Cindy and Jim.  A friend of theirs graciously volunteered their amazing lake house. Cindy, how on earth did we go a whole day without me getting a picture of us???? I did manage to snag one of the sunset from the observatory. Would you believe this view??!!!

On Monday it was back to the grind, but I have to give props to my friend Danielle for introducing me to Bananarchy this week. It's this fun little hut that serves chocolate, or vanilla or carmel covered frozen bananas. Not that I ever get tired of snow cones, but theoretically it's a nice option during the summer in case you do. 

Danielle was smart and only got a 1/2 

But I pretty much insisted on getting a whole. I was only able to eat like 2/3 of it before I was stuffed, so I guess I'll know better next time!

Thanks for checking in and have a great weekend!

Yippee visitors!

This weekend, Lyndsey and I had our first round of visitors! I was so excited to see Shayla and Carrie that Kati and I kept peeking out of the window waiting to see their car! We had a great visit and really enjoyed having familiar faces around. After a foiled trip down to Hamilton Pool (the bacteria levels were too high..... stupid right?), we had a glorious day just bumming around. Here are a few pictures from our weekend! 

Before heading out to Barton Springs, we headed over to the farmers market! Here's Carrie showing off her loot- lots and lots of baby tomatoes!

After the springs, we went to one of my favorite restaurants here, Enoteca Vespaio. You may remember from the miniature octopus post :0) 

Love the Farris Buellers Day Off glasses Shay!!

After lunch, we hit up Sugar Mamas, the most glorious bakery in town. I guess we had a little too much to eat because we all promptly fell asleep when we got back home. When we woke up, it was time to hit the pool again before visiting the bats!

Later that night, you guessed it, we were eating again. This time, we made the trip up north to yogurt planet. Oh MY it was sooo good! They have tart yogurt and you get to throw whatever toppings you like into your cup. It is sooo yummy and we all enjoyed our late night snack. 

This was mine: tart yogurt with blackberries, kiwi, strawberries, raspberrys and a scoop of chocolate chips! Heaven!

On Sunday,  we said goodbye to the girls and Lyndsey and I decided to go to a local bead shop. We'd both been eyeing a few necklaces and decided to try our hand at making a custom piece for ourselves. Here is my creation. I was thrilled when my total was only $18 as compared to my inspiration piece at $160! 

That's all for the weekend checkin! We had a great time, and I cant wait to have more visitors head down our way! 

The elephant in the room

Kati has been a little lonely since Carter went back to Fort Worth, so today we made a run out to Petco to pick out a few new friends. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0tOzMcz1RU

A visual aid of what I've been up to....

1. Eating cupcakes from Sugar Mamas bakery. Let's just say the Odd Couple (salted carmel, chocolate cupcake) is life changing. 

2. Spoiling Kati with Pupcakes, also from the above den of sin, Sugar Mamas :0) 

3. Eating delicious veggies I grew in my garden. Thanks to everyone, especially the hubbster, for helping keep the garden watered while I am away. 

4. Learning to not be able to live without a record player. I'm seriously trying to figure out how I can get Justin's amazing player and collection back home with me without him noticing... but somehow I think he would miss it too. 

5. Riding my scoot everywhere. The grocery. Work. The above mentioned bake shop. If Kati could fit in the basket, we'd really be in business. 

Have I mentioned I love coming home to this view? Austin is everything I hoped it would be and more. 

I love fireworks!

Hello hello! 

I thought I'd drop by with a little update before I head off to bed. This week was exciting: Perry called a special session, it was first thursdays, the fourth of july and I found an awesome Louisiana band all the way in Texas! Here are some pictures!

Ok, first you might be asking.... but what the heck is 'special session'??? Basically, it's an emergency calling of the legislature when something important didnt get done during session. Texas has what is widely regarded as a crazy legislature system that only meets once every two years for a very short amount of time. More often than not, something will go wrong and the governor will have to call an emergency session to hammer out the necessary things, in this case the biggie was TxDot.... you know, that agency that runs the highways in Texas? Well, will all of the pressing issues happening this full session, TxDot managed to basically expire- meaning that for at least a few days we didnt really have anyone overseeing our freeways until the Special Session started to allow for a grace period. All of this crazyness gave the legislative team the chance to visit the capitol while it was all abuzz. Here's a picture of the 3 legislative interns getting our morning started: me, Danielle and Kristi. 

Last Thursday was also exciting since it was Lyndseys First Thursday experience! She purchased a super cute dress and we had a great time walking around. It was really funny when she went to buy the dress because there isnt exactly a dressing room, so the booth lady helped her try it on over her clothes. It was very cute then, but even better when she tried it on normally at home!

We also ran into my neighbor Allison. She plays in an awesome band, and they led a parade through the South Congress area. 

We had a great time celebrating our first Fourth of July in Austin. HEB (the grocery store) and the Austin Symphony Orchestra put on a great show and the fireworks are some of the best in the state. Apparently, about 100,000 people show up and line the greenbelt so we made sure to arrive early and claim our little spot. 

The orchestra was great and played a wide array of music. I was so impressed that this is their 30 some odd year performing for the 4th of July celebration as a gift to the city. 

The fireworks were awesome, I've never seen a better show. 

After the fireworks show, we made our way over to Hole in the Wall to see a few awesome bands playing. My favorite of the night also happened to be from Lafayette Louisiana! They are called Vagabond Swing, and they totally rocked. One of the guys is actually a year younger than I am and went to Alleman! It's a small world!! From what I can tell, they dont have a cd or a major web site, but here is their myspace account which includes a few songs. My favorite one is tipsy gypsy, its cajun jazz with a little hipster action. Love it! 

http://www.myspace.com/vagabondswing

Alright, I'm heading off to bed. It's back to the office life tomorrow! Until next time! 

Pull up a chair

It's going to be a long post :0) Sorry for the inordinate amount of silence, things around here have been BUUUUUSY!! Lets see, heres a bulleted list of what all has been going on 

• wicked migraines
• wedding in Houston
• mom came to visit
• Lyndsey moved in 
• special session was called 

Whew. Tires me out just looking at it! But, now for the fun part- pictures!! Last week I had 3-4 days of terrible headaches which turned into a full blown migraine. I woke up that morning and made it as far as the shower before I realized I wasnt going anywhere that day. My friend Hana from the ACLU was awesome and stopped by to walk the dogs for me, and I finally managed to wake up enough to eat something. I ordered this pizza from a local pizza place and just had to take a picture of it it was so funky looking- I loved the portabella mushroom presentation! 

Fortunately for me (who has a love/hate relationship with my job) the ACLU has become really great at organizing happy hours! Here are a few of my fellow interns enjoying the great outdoor Austin weather and a cold beverage. 

On Friday, Jason and I made the haul down to Houston with the doggies. Skyler, the bride, is the little sister of one of my best friends Chelsea so it was really fun to work with their family. Of course, in classic Kati and Carter style they were all over the ride in the car. Here is Cartman doing his job giving mom wet willies 

and Kati monitoring the light

They are very good at their respective jobs..... except when Carter decides to 'nest' on the camera case. For whatever reason his favorite place is wherever is highest in the car, I swear he's really a cat that got stuck in his halloween costume. 

On Saturday, mom visited us from DFW. It didnt take much convincing to get her to go to the city wide garage sale with me, although Jason wasnt too thrilled at being roped into it too! We rewarded his efforts with a snowcone later so I think he forgave us :0) Heres a picture of moms loot and our almost eaten snow cones. 

Lyndsey moved in on Sunday, and its been so nice to have a roomie! She'll be working at the AGs office this summer, so we'll get to spend the next 6 weeks enjoying the time here together. I dont have a picture of her but I'm sure they will come in the next few posts. Today I was craving marshmallows and decided to hunt down some yummy vegetarian friendly ones. I had to drive about 15 minutes to a Whole Foods up north, but they are worth it! After that I made some awesome veggie lasagna featuring a home grown egg plant! My neighbor came over to eat with us and we all had a great time. 

Alright, well it's 1 am and I have a memo due tomorrow. So I'd better go and actually get some work done. Special session starts tomorrow and HOPEFULLY will go through Friday. When I have a little more time I'll explain what that means and what I've been up to :0) Until then, g'night!