Anniversary Getaway to Austin

A while back we started thinking about our anniversary & decided we should take a little getaway.We picked Austin, Texas as our destination as we have only ever heard great things about the city. We also took this opportunity to see if Austin could be a potential location for us after Doug finishes his program. So it was a 'killing two birds with one stone' kinda weekend. :) My sweet sister was kind to stay with our boys so we could take this trip just the two of us. I was beyond excited about that fact alone. Haha! Doug & I have never left them before & you'd think I would be nervous about it, but I wasn't at all. Well...I was a little nervous for Aunt Laura's sake of surviving their high energy for the weekend. But I knew they would have sooo much fun with their aunt.

We took off on a Thursday afternoon & had a direct 3 hour flight into Austin. Flying in general was always a drag prior to kids, but once having children on board a flight took that 'drag' to another level. It makes me laugh at how excited we were to fly without our kids. When everyone else is dreading being on the plane. Haha!

After arriving & getting our rental car we headed in to down town Austin. And of course we hit rush hour traffic. Boo! We met up for dinner with some friends of a friend here in Florida. He's a general dentist & they've only been in Austin for 2 years, but they are LDS & we thought it would be good to pick their brains a bit about the area & adjustment to living there etc. 

We ate at Stiles Switch BBQ & it was oh so good. Gotta love me some tasty Texan BBQ.

I'm generally not a huge fan of coleslaw, but this stuff was delicious!

And the mac n cheese was heavenly too. Yum!

We drove around a LOT!!! That was pretty much what we did the entire time other than eating. Haha! I was pleasantly surprised at how green it was there. And quite a few rolling hills too. To be honest, it reminded us a lot of Utah. Other then the humidity of course. But in comparison to Florida, it was not even close in the humidity department. It was hot, but we didn't feel sticky all the time like we do down in Florida. I loved that! 

We stayed with one of Doug's friends friends who happens to be an Oral Surgeon. They had just remodeled their home & were so gracious to let us stay with them. And what a beautiful home it was. We were very spoiled staying there. The family was the epitome of southern hospitality. Their teenage daughter opened the door & greeted us with a cheery, "Hi y'all! I'm Caroline. Welcome to our home." Seriously, a 17 year old is this friendly to strangers coming in her home?  And the husband Rob was out of town until Saturday so his wife, Karen was more the gracious to host us on her own. We got to meet a bunch of their friends who were all very friendly too.

Friday we started out the day with getting some breakfast from Torchy's Tacos. 

The best breakfast taco I've ever had. Ok, the first as well. But still it was delicious!

 

After we had to hit up the Apple Store because Doug dropped his phone & the LCD screen broke. Can't really make contacts etc in a new city without a phone. Good thing he had an upgrade available. And an even better thing that my husband is the sweetest most giving guy I know. He gave me his upgrade & got me an early birthday gift. The new iPhone 5s! Wahoo. I'm such a sucker for the new & shiny things in life. 

We went into our host, Dr. Robert Naples office to check it out & meet his partner. He had just finished his last surgery & spent over an hour chatting with us about everything we're inquiring about with the field, location, living, growth, etc. Afterwards we grabbed some lunch. I did say that our trip was driving, talking & eating. Ordering our food was a riot. The employees were soooo happy & nice. Such a refreshment from what we are use to down here in So Flo. We couldn't get enough of the southern accents, the "all y'alls" & "thank ya kindly's". :) 

The rest of the day was spent driving around through most of the cities north of Austin. There is a lot of growth & development taking place there for sure. But the farther we got, the less developed & more rural it was. At one point we both looked at each other & said, "Too far.". Haha! 

One thing that is apparent there is the Texas pride. The flag is flown everywhere. The longhorns logo is everywhere. Football is everywhere. We were told that the high schools have million dollar stadiums for their players. What the?!?! Crazy people, crazy. We were also asked if we have ever watched 'Friday Night Lights'. I said we had not. And we were promptly told that if we do move here that we better watch it as it was filmed in Austin & there is great pride in that. Haha! 

Saturday we hopped back in the car (surprise, surprise) and headed out for Fort Worth, Texas. It was about a 3 hour-ish drive & I would normally be complaining. But knowing we didn't have our boys to listen to whining & having to stop all the time, it was great. We actually got to talk to each other a LOT this trip. And I LOVED every minute of it.

Why drive to Forth Worth? Yes, we wanted to check out the area, but more importantly it was to see our friends Justin & Traci Warcup. 

Friends of ours from Buffalo! It was great being able to see their home, their adorable kids & visit for a few hours. They drove us around Forth Worth & showed us his recently purchased pediatric/ortho office too.

It's so fun seeing your friends in their new elements taking on their new adventures. We sure have missed this cute family & are so grateful they took the time to have us.

By the time we got back to Austin we were pooped. It amazes me how sitting in a car can be sooo exhausting!

Sunday Doug was finally able to hang out & chat with our host Rob as he had just arrived back in town. They had a golf tournament at noon so it was a quick goodbye to our fabulous host the Naples. We packed our stuff up & decided to hit up down town Austin before going to the airport. There was a HUGE music festival that weekend so lets just say everywhere was packed with people! Kinda crazy, but made for a fun environment. We wanted to eat somewhere fun being it was our anniversary & all. I can't believe we have been married for 8 years!!! Time really does just fly by. So we came across this burger place & decided to jump in line & give it a go.

We got the special which was a truffle mac n cheese bacon burger. Ya, it was AMAZING!!! And we topped it off with shakes. I got the red velvet cake one. YUM!

HAPPY 8th ANNIVERSARY TO US!!!

I sure love this man of mine with all my heart. He has made me feel so special, beautiful, respected, cared for & loved our whole marriage. How did I get so lucky?!

After eating we just wandered around killing time. We came across a boot store & just had to go in. HOLY COW! I've never seen so many cowboy boots in all my life. 

 

Just rows & rows & rows of them. All different colors, patterns, styles etc.

 And whats crazy is the price tag on some of these boots. Doug just selected some random boot & it was over $800.00!!! What?! Go big or go home right?

(No, we did not purchase any-haha)

All of the places we ate were recommended to us by friends or our hosts. There was a donut truck that was on the list & if you know me, I love me a good donut. So I made Doug stop so I could partake of such goodness.

 I ordered the Maple & Bacon one as I've heard they are quite tasty & I figured Doug would be thrilled I ordered a 'manly' one versus my usual chocolate with sprinkles. (yes, I am a child at heart)

But I was sure taken back & surprised by what I saw when I opened the container. It was a very literal menu board as you can see. We have a donut with full pieces of bacon drizzled with maple syrup. *Sigh*

I'm not going to lie. I was bummed. I was thinking I'd be getting a frosted maple donut with real bacon pieces crumbled on top. It was still pretty good, but not at all what we were expecting. Doug ate pretty much the whole thing. 

We went to Lady Bird Lake and walked around enjoying the beautiful day together. And taking in the beautiful city of Austin.

We had a great time in Austin! Spending the long weekend with my love was a perfect way to celebrate our 8 years of marriage. From day one we've been on this long adventure of building Doug's career. And to see the light at the end of the tunnel as we are approaching our final year of school is very exciting! Are we going to move to Austin? Who knows? I sure don't. But we do know we could be happy living there. And this is just the beginning of researching areas of the USA for us to locate after school. Hopefully that means more weekend getaways! :)