another day

Jared and I decided to make another adventurous trip to San Antonio this last weekend.  We left just after lunch and it's supposed to be a little over an hour drive, but traffic always seems to be not so friendly.  It ended up taking us about an hour and forty-five minutes . . .Our first stop was our LDS Temple, beautiful as always and so great to see so many people from Austin :)

Our next stop was dinner.  We wanted to go to a pasta/pizza place, but didn't want to drive to far.  The gps found a place called Zio's Italian Kitchen, it was amazing and we highly recommend it :)

When we first got there . . . we weren't quite sure what to expect.  It looked okay from the outside.  We went inside and it was adorable.  All the waiters were clean cut and sharp looking (all black with ties).  With a place looking that well put together, we were grateful we chose here.  All of their tables were covered with white paper as their table cloths, haha equipped with crayons :)  After a little coaxing, I convinced Jared to color with me.  So much fun and entertaining.  The food was fabulous.  It's a must go.

After a delicious dinner, we headed to downtown San Antonio.  We found super cheap parking for only $2.50!  Usually it's $5 or $10 for the day.  We got lucky.  We walked around the shops and places around downtown and happened upon a young man who was spray painting art.  It was the coolest thing ever (but very smelly), we couldn't stand too close.  Check out his work, we watched from beginning to end and still didn't believe that the only thing he used was spray paint, paper, lighter and a knife.  This picture below is similar to the one he did in front of us.  Some of his work is a little more abstract than we liked, but some are super amazing and talented.

After walking around downtown for a while, stopping into shops and stores and entertainment places (that were ridiculously overpriced), we decided that we'd seen enough :)  Great, fun, exciting trip to San Antonio.  We loved exploring and getting in a good walk downtown.

crazy things in austin

Jared and I decided to go exploring and find out what's the thing to do on a Saturday evening.  Well . . . let me tell you we had a wonderful time together.  We started off on the MetroRail.  It's only a dollar each way.

So much easier than driving downtown in the oh so wonderful Austin traffic and looking for parking that is unnecessarily expensive. Needless to say, we thought the metro was a lot more fun.  The train took us right into the heart of downtown by what we like to call the Bruce Wayne building . . . turns out its just a really really tall bank - that also happens to be known as the owl building because it looks like an owl :)

 

Before we did any exploring we knew we only had a little bit of time before sunset and we wanted to go to the Congress bridge that is famous for millions of bats living under it and flying out right before sunset!  We got there just as one of the waves of bats was finishing and we thought we'd missed them :(  but ten or fifteen minutes later another huge wave of bats came flying out from under the bridge (we found out that the reason for all these bats is because of the design of the bridge is perfect for the feet to hang . . . crazy huh?  Anyway here's some pictures . . . the black dots in the pictures are bats.

It was a little cloudy and I was hoping to get a picture on the bridge of the beautiful sunset behind us, but the clouds covered it up :(  this is the best I got.  Still a really pretty sky color.

After the bats and pushing past all of the hundreds of people around us . . . we made our way to an ice cream shop called Amy's ice cream.  Delicious!  Sort of like Cold Stone ice cream except the employees are CRAZY!  The pride themselves on how silly they are.  They were constantly throwing ice cream in the air and catching it in the bowls for customers.  Our server asked if Jared would catch our ice cream from across the street . . . we thought he was kidding, but neither of us wanted to do it so he just gave it to us.

When we were paying for our ice cream, our server pulled up the receipt signature and drew a picture (upside down) of a shark in the water and then a speech bubble and told Jared to sign in the speech bubble . . . so they really are kind of strange, but I guess that's what makes Austin, Austin.  I'm not just exaggerating here's a picture :)

After a long walk around downtown we decided to head home on the metro and call it a night.

Wonderful night well spent experiencing the night life of downtown Austin.

our new journey

Catching up on what I have been meaning to do for a LONG time.  A blog for all the adventures we’re having, but life has been crazy.   Where do we start . . .

Our journey began with a job offer Jared got from National Instruments in Austin, Texas.  We realized this would be a long hard transition, but we started the trek.  We began our journey in Boise, Idaho and drove down to Salt Lake, UT.  We stopped there for the night.  The next morning we traveled to Moab, Utah.  We wanted to stop and see the famous arches, so we did!

Such a beautiful place to visit.  We then trekked our way to the 4 corners monument.  Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico, we had officially been in all four states at once.  We were able to walk around all the venders that were around the monument, and we came away with a handmade craft that showed all four states and great artwork.

Our journey then took us to Albuquerque, New Mexico.  We stayed with Jared’s friends Mike and Caitlyn Channer for the night.  The next day we made our visit to Aunt Cyndi and Uncle Craig’s house for dinner and a place to sleep.  Saturday morning we made our final car ride to Austin Texas and checked into our apartment - they accidentally put in wood floors instead of carpet, but they were nice and didn't charge us extra. :) 

Jared started work at National Instruments on my birthday.  But he made it up to me later that night by taking me out to dinner to a restaurant called Bj’s.

We then continued getting settled into our apartment, getting furniture and creating new projects.  Jared really wanted to get a bookshelf and a desk, so we did.  Bought them at Ikea and had a blast building them :)

Our first real Texan experience was seeing our first cockroach friend . . .

Don’t worry, Jared was wonderful and killed it for me.  We were just grateful this little bugger didn't fly . . .

 

For Jared’s birthday in June, my parents got him an apron. Perfect for Texan barbecuing.  So for the 4^th of July, Jared and I experimented making burgers . . . on our stove :P  not a grill . . . It worked though.  Just a little greasier than we wanted.

Later that evening on the 4^th, we got invited by some friends of ours to venture through downtown and listen to a wonderful concert by the Austin Symphony and watch some beautiful fireworks over the Lake.

Some adventures that Jared and I have had since being in Austin have been, exploring the Austin Zoo.

Hiking up Mount Bonnell (one of the highest points in Texas)!  Gorgeous view of the city and of the river that runs through Austin!  Photography done by yours truly.

Hike near downtown and see some interesting lizards.  They do this weird push up thing and Jared and I thought it was hilarious.  They’re fast little buggers though, so I was lucky enough to get a close up of one that stayed still long enough for me to snap a shot.

Visiting the Alamo in San Antonio.

San Antonio.  Seeing a mamma and her babies :)

 

. . . And following a crazy looking bird.

Visiting the Capital building.  Texas Pride, all of their symbols are stars with TEXAS around them.

 

       

Over the past couple of months I have been desperately looking for work.  Being home is great, but I needed some work.  So I got out the resume and started applying to dance companies, photography studios and banks.  I got a callback for an interview at an Arthur Murray dance studio and at JcPenny Portraits Studio.  I was sooo excited.  A month later of training at the dance studio, I got the job.  I am now a certified dance instructor.  The JcPenny studio is going a little slower, I’m hopefully starting that job mid-August with paid training, so we’ll see how that goes.