Check another U.S. city off the list- Austin!

Last week, I had a conference in Austin, TX, and decided to drag Drew along for good measure. Aside from the conference itself, we got a chance to see brother and sister, experience the nightlife in Austin and bond a little bit with my co-workers.

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Starting off the trip at the Cedar Door

Chicken, jalapenos, cheese deep-fried then wrapped in baccon and dipped in hot sauce

We checked out 6th- which is a little like Garnet Ave. meets Bourbon street- but fun nonetheless. Here is the Thirsty Nickel

Look who I ran into!

Almost Charlie's Angels (If I weren't barking orders at photographer Drew)

Co-workers Noel pictured on L and Brandie on R

Cute couple Dave and Brandie

After the conference sessions (yes I did work, I just didn't take pictures of it!), we went to the Congress St. bridge to see the bats. But they are too pregnant to fly or something

Group shot

The Stillwell family at the sponsored dinner

And I got a chance to see Mandy! I miss that infectious laugh soooo much. It's good to see the people who will just pick up right where you left off.

And the last night we went out to the Salt Lick and had a huge family-style BBQ dinner. It's a good thing because we brought some family along (sister-in-law Monica)


cute little Sierra

And our last night took us to 4th street (a much more mature scene- little bars with great live music). This is the Ginger Man- 81 beers on tap... yes, please

At Six (Mandy tells me this is Lance Armstrong's bar)

Good stuff. Next stop- Tahoe!

On the road again

Willie Nelson can't wait to get on the road again- and apparently, neither could we. It was just 10 months ago that my mom and I drove from San Diego to Tallahassee, but I found myself on the all too familiar I-10 when Drew and I decided we couldn't wait any longer to get his truck out east. So we thanked Drew's parents for taking care of Big Red in our absence, and set out from Exeter, CA.

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Last trip, I made sure to get a postcard from each state and sent them all to Drew along the way. This trip, we played the "capture the state welcome sign" game. We couldn't pull over to take the pic, and we didn't use maps or navigation to try and anticipate the state sign (but having been cross-country on numerous occasions, I was pretty good at remembering which little towns were on the borders). We got them all!

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Oh, Arizona, you still have a little piece of my heart

New Mexico: the land of enchantment. Hmmm. I'll refer to Toby on this one.

Really, Texas? I could make a comment about your obsession with everything being "bigger" but this is a family blog.

Everything's a little fuzzy in Louisiana.

The mighty Mississip. It reads: birthplace of America's music. Praytell, what kind of music would that be? I have a feeling the answer involves spoons and washboards.


Obviously a selling point for the position of Governor of Alabama

And here we are... the Sunshine State. Although I'm pretty sure Arizona and New Mexico feel slightly jilted by that slogan.

The pups welcoming us (and Big Red) home

Hopefully I'll get around to posting pictures of our last two trips on here soon- soonish.

2 years and counting...

Andrew and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary on Monday

Snapped a couple pics before we headed out

(I wore my hair up for Drew and he helped pick out my dress)

And because we are traveling out of state 3 times in only a few weeks, we decided to stay in town and do something simple. We ate breakfast out (my favorite), went bowling (we took a bowling class together in college, and let's just say our scores didn't reflect any such thing!) and went to the Hotel Duval for a leisurely dinner and drinks on the rooftop lounge (pictured). It was a great day start to finish

Earlier in May, we were at Drew's parents' house and spent some time at the same arch under which we said our vows. I knew, when picking the location of our wedding, that it would be special to be able to visit the place of our wedding for years to come. One day, we can show our kids where their parents got married.

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The Moms aren't going to like this picture, but I love it. I hope we get a similar picture when we are old and wrinkly- it will mean that we have spent a lifetime being silly together

My heart has had to grow to fit 7 years of love for Andrew into it.

Matty in Tally!

Drew and I were met with a nice surprise on Friday afternoon when Matt called and asked if he could drive down from Georgia with his Army buddy and spend the weekend with us! Although they got in very late Friday night (rather, Saturday morning) and had to leave early Sunday, we did get one full day of fun with them.

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Matt and Sawyer became buddies

When deciding where to go for breakfast, we remembered that Uncle Karl has been trying to get us to experience Cracker Barrel. So we did.

And to get the full Cracker Barrel experience, we rocked away our bellies full of grits and biscuts on the porch- another important lesson in how to be a Southerner.

The fellas wanted to get some frisbee golf time in, so we headed over to Tom Brown Park.

The dogs came, too. No surprise there
The rest of the evening was spent in the Midtown area of Tallahassee, as sort of an early birthday celebration for me.

Thanks for coming, brother. We love having visitors!

Last post on the dogs for awhile, I promise!

They have just been so happy lately and I had to share these pictures because they make me smile

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You haven't seen a happy dog until you've seen Lady in the car

We took them to the greenway this weekend and let them run around

I had to crop it to Sawyer running. Now that is some serious tongue and ear action!

They're even cute when they're being lazy (Sawyer was getting tired from the trek and got a little respite in Drew's arms)

Thanks for putting up with so many doggie pictures!

Whoops

A friend just pointed out to me that my blog was not enabled for comments from the general public. Here I am welcoming comments on my blogs and I didn't even grant you all the ability to do so. How very inhospitable of me - I must not have learned the true ways of the South yet.

I think I fixed the comment block, so once again, I invite you to comment as much as you like on our blog, and I will try to keep up my end of the bargain by posting more often. Mea Culpa-

Fresh Air! Another perk of having dogs

Although I spent most of my Spring Break in my office trying to catch up, I did get a chance to get some fresh air with these three:

This is Lake Ella which is about a mile from our house

We logged some patio time in the evenings

Yep, Sawyer still loves the lap
And for some reason Lady really likes beer and wine. Don't worry, we are looking into a 12-step program for her

And we even carved out a day for a beach trip!

Lady now knows that whn we get in the gold car, we are going on some kind of adventure (I use this term loosely). She doesn't care which seat she rides in, she just jumps in and starts whining impatiently

Although we can get to the coast in about 30 minutes from Tallahassee, the beaches are better on St. George Island which is about 2 hours away

We hoped the dogs would like splashing around in the tide,

but they were pretty terrified of the water

We got them extended leashes and tied them to a stake so they would have a bit more room for exploring. I wish we could let them totally off-leash, but they are neither courteous of other people's personal space, nor aware that birds can fly further than they can run

Nap time
He uses his cuteness against me

A little jog on the beach

Eventually we let Sawyer run loose a bit because, unlike Lady, he is good about coming back when we call him
Chasing after birds on the beach was the highlight of his entire puppyhood
A, A, S & L wishing you a Happy Spring!