Jessica wanted me to say "something cool about them" sooo... they have cork on them..
NEW SHOES!!!
Jessica wanted me to say "something cool about them" sooo... they have cork on them..
Officially Texans!
Jess always says that we have nothing to blog about, but that is certainly not true. This past Tuesday we officially became Texas residents. Last saturday we took our cars to get them inspected, which, in the county we live in, there is a safety inspection and also a emissions inspection. Then we found out where we were suppose to register our cars at was closed on the weekends. So Jess took a day off of work Tuesday, thinking it would probably be a half day or something.... welllllll that was wrong thinking. I tried to keep my expectation very low for a day that you have to go to the DMV. Well here in Texas, we actually had to go to the county tax office to get our cars registered and get plates. Well if you are a new resident you get to have a $90 new resident tax as well. But the $355 dollars later we have our cars registered in the state of texas and we received our plates for our cars. Side note, Texas is phasing in new license plates. Well I think the newer ones do not look as masculin at the older ones, and I was hoping for some old ones. Well just did her paper work and received a set of the new license plates. Then I finished my paper work and BAM I received the older license plates!!! AWESOME!!!
There is a sweet picture of the "Rally Racer" as my friend from college use to call it. The funny part about this truck is that I bought it from my brother-in-law that lived in Texas. I registered it in Arkansas but never took the inspection sticker off the windshield until this past Saturday. Now it is full circle and the ol' Rally Racer is in its home state. Well the county tax office was surprisingly quick and easy. Then we went to the DPS (Department of Public Safety). This is the place you get your license. Well we tried to walk in the door but there was a line zig zagged all the way till the door. So after waiting for 3.5 hours and paying more money, we received our 8 by 11 sheets of paper that were our temperary license until then came in the mail after like 3-6 weeks. An 8 by 11 sheet of paper!!!! I guess everything is bigger in Texas. So you have to carry an 8x11 sheet of paper with you where every you go. In the long run it doesn't matter because we are finally Texan residents. Since we are Texans, we can now start to officially say "Y'all", "fixen to", "coke (even though you might be getting a mountain dew it is still the general 'coke'", and all the rest of the southern slang. We can start calling people from the north.."Yanks" haha . Well I might be back with a picture of Jessica's license plate. OHH!! I almost forgot about the best part of our day. The church we have been going to has a young marrieds group. Well one of the young marrieds works at state farm insurance. Well a long story short we are saving a lot of money on our insurance!!!!! Thanks Cody.
There is a sweet picture of the "Rally Racer" as my friend from college use to call it. The funny part about this truck is that I bought it from my brother-in-law that lived in Texas. I registered it in Arkansas but never took the inspection sticker off the windshield until this past Saturday. Now it is full circle and the ol' Rally Racer is in its home state. Well the county tax office was surprisingly quick and easy. Then we went to the DPS (Department of Public Safety). This is the place you get your license. Well we tried to walk in the door but there was a line zig zagged all the way till the door. So after waiting for 3.5 hours and paying more money, we received our 8 by 11 sheets of paper that were our temperary license until then came in the mail after like 3-6 weeks. An 8 by 11 sheet of paper!!!! I guess everything is bigger in Texas. So you have to carry an 8x11 sheet of paper with you where every you go. In the long run it doesn't matter because we are finally Texan residents. Since we are Texans, we can now start to officially say "Y'all", "fixen to", "coke (even though you might be getting a mountain dew it is still the general 'coke'", and all the rest of the southern slang. We can start calling people from the north.."Yanks" haha . Well I might be back with a picture of Jessica's license plate. OHH!! I almost forgot about the best part of our day. The church we have been going to has a young marrieds group. Well one of the young marrieds works at state farm insurance. Well a long story short we are saving a lot of money on our insurance!!!!! Thanks Cody.
On the airplane
flight to Cleveland. Dan brought his netbook and thought " why not get
a dandy game of unreal tournament in before we land. " here is a
ictire of it.
In Austin airport
really early, but iwould rather be early than rushed. I saw one guy he
didn't want to be uncool so he wasn't running, but he was speed
walking and I think it looked worse.
Preparing for a Roadtrip/lots of packing
Well my flight for Ohio leave around 8:00am from Austin, TX. I have a stop in Nashville where I'll actually be meeting up and getting on the same flight as Dan to Cleveland. I added a map at the top of the blog temporarily. I have an application on my iPhone that gets my location via GPS or a triangulation of cell phone towers, and then sends it to a website which then puts a lovely dot on a google map for you. Here is a link ( http://map.phireant.com/ ) for the Map (which is pretty much the same thing at the top of this blog). So this application has to be running on my iPhone in order for the location to be sent. Well obviously I'm going to have to use my phone for other things, so the location will not be exact. But you will get a general idea of where our convoy is located. I'm going to be trying to blog this trip out, but I'm unsure how well I'll do because of other things going on and also I'll be driving one of the 3 26-foot penske trucks.
Young Married's Gruene Tubing Event!
So the Young Married's Group at our church does a really nice job of planning activities that we can do together. This was another one of those activities. We met everyone at Gruene, Tx.
This was the name of the Restaurant that we ate at with the whole group. It was built on the side of a hill that over looked two of the different rivers that you could choose to float down. It supposedly is one of the most famous areas to eat in this town. It had multiple different buildings like a barn, and other pieces that had been added on. It had a very fun vibe, and our server was great!
We happen to come when there was a festival going on, so there were lots of people in this little town. Grant and I arrived earlier than most of the other people so we looked at the flea market stuff and the antique stores. As you can see, this is a historic village, so it was fun see the dance hall, the old grocery store, etc.
After this we went to the Gruene River Co. Where we rented Tubes, lotioned up, some more than others, and were driven to the drop off point where we as a group went into the water and slowly floated down the river. We decided to go on the Comal River since it was a shorter ride than the Guadalupe River. We hit two water chutes that made us go to parts of the river that had more currents. We had a lot of fun relaxing, talking, and getting to know people better.
Grant and I were surprised how clean this river was due to the fact that this is college activity sometimes where drinking is allowed on the river. (which seems dumb because of how fast you could drowned, but oh well.) There were actually police men in small boats that handed out tickets to people who littered. One of the guys in the group Paul, found a turtle and carried it for part of the trip which was also fun.
Our Ride was 2 hours long, where we were picked up and driven back to the place we rent the tubes and our cars where parked. We were all pooped and drove back to Austin which is about an hour away from Gruene, Tx. It was an awesome event, but afterwards we were all soooo tired.
Grant hadn't put on any sunblock for this adventure and ended up looking like a lobster. I tried to put sunblock on, but used this mist sunblock and failed miserably. So, I am not nearly as burnt as Grant, but have a few streaks where I didn't rub the sunblock in. So, I have a permanently burnt bikini on at the moment. It was defintiely a fun experience and meeting more people was great too!
This was the name of the Restaurant that we ate at with the whole group. It was built on the side of a hill that over looked two of the different rivers that you could choose to float down. It supposedly is one of the most famous areas to eat in this town. It had multiple different buildings like a barn, and other pieces that had been added on. It had a very fun vibe, and our server was great!
We happen to come when there was a festival going on, so there were lots of people in this little town. Grant and I arrived earlier than most of the other people so we looked at the flea market stuff and the antique stores. As you can see, this is a historic village, so it was fun see the dance hall, the old grocery store, etc.
After this we went to the Gruene River Co. Where we rented Tubes, lotioned up, some more than others, and were driven to the drop off point where we as a group went into the water and slowly floated down the river. We decided to go on the Comal River since it was a shorter ride than the Guadalupe River. We hit two water chutes that made us go to parts of the river that had more currents. We had a lot of fun relaxing, talking, and getting to know people better.
Grant and I were surprised how clean this river was due to the fact that this is college activity sometimes where drinking is allowed on the river. (which seems dumb because of how fast you could drowned, but oh well.) There were actually police men in small boats that handed out tickets to people who littered. One of the guys in the group Paul, found a turtle and carried it for part of the trip which was also fun.
Here is one of the water chutes that I mentioned above.
Our Ride was 2 hours long, where we were picked up and driven back to the place we rent the tubes and our cars where parked. We were all pooped and drove back to Austin which is about an hour away from Gruene, Tx. It was an awesome event, but afterwards we were all soooo tired.
Grant hadn't put on any sunblock for this adventure and ended up looking like a lobster. I tried to put sunblock on, but used this mist sunblock and failed miserably. So, I am not nearly as burnt as Grant, but have a few streaks where I didn't rub the sunblock in. So, I have a permanently burnt bikini on at the moment. It was defintiely a fun experience and meeting more people was great too!
Young Married's Camping Trip
So, Grant and I went on the Young Married's Camping Trip last weekend. We had a BLAST! The day before it had been raining(the first time since we had been in Austin), and so the forecast said it was supposed to be rainy and cold. So, I packed warmer things with me. By the time we get to the camp grounds which are an hour and a half away from downtown Austin, it is hot and muggy filled with lots of sunshine. I think I wasn't in the best mood cause I never get hot, and I was hot. Then there were all these Gnats, and it was a little overwhelming with all of these people that we had met once and lots of new people. Well, I mainly helped Tanya out at the beginning socializing with some people,but not with all of them. Then toward dinner time it got cooler, the gnats disappeared, and everyone seemed to warm up to each other more. Then we all started having fun! the dinner was great, and through out most of the day I had talked to everyone I am pretty sure. Everyone was so nice, and it was really funny to see that almost all of the young marrieds had either their children with them or their makeshift children... their dogs. so that was a lot of fun.
Here is Grant and I being silly... On our way into the Camp Grounds which were pretty huge, there was this allotted area where you could pull off the road and take pictures. Well, I am not the touristy kind, but it really was a beautiful view, so, I asked him to stop. So, we took this picture... which he did not want because he said that someone from the young marrieds will probably see us and he would feel dumb. I assured him no one would and right as we were taking the picture the Georges (who are Tanya and Wilson's Neighbors) drove by... he was not to happy with me lol! The funny thing is, is that I look like a goof since I saw the Georges driving by and Grant looks great in the picture.. oh well!
Here is Grant and I being silly... On our way into the Camp Grounds which were pretty huge, there was this allotted area where you could pull off the road and take pictures. Well, I am not the touristy kind, but it really was a beautiful view, so, I asked him to stop. So, we took this picture... which he did not want because he said that someone from the young marrieds will probably see us and he would feel dumb. I assured him no one would and right as we were taking the picture the Georges (who are Tanya and Wilson's Neighbors) drove by... he was not to happy with me lol! The funny thing is, is that I look like a goof since I saw the Georges driving by and Grant looks great in the picture.. oh well!
Me standing by the pretty view.
Grant being goofy and bearing with me while I want him in pictures too!
The view!
I have to say I like this picture, and it is my background on my computer! Woot for amateur photographers.
There were people canoeing, but I missed them in the pictures!
And the last nature photo!
Here you can see the bigger tent that Anthony, Shea, Grant, and I shared, and then you can see the smaller two person tent that Mia and Wilson Shared. Tanya and Ally where there during the first day, and then met us for Lunch on Sunday at Dan's after the church service she went to. We had service at the camp grounds.
Here you can see part of the group of people at the young marrieds. There was a group photo taken, so I hope that I can get a copy, but we will see. On the left is the picnic table that was used to display all the food for an assembly line approach, and on the right you can see part of the main circle of people with the camp fire and everything.So, as it lot later on the first day, it got darker and cooler which gave it a nicer atmosphere in general. A few guys(Paul, and Ryan) who had their dogs asked Grant and I if we wanted to go on a walk. They took us to this really cool inlet of the lake where you could go cliff diving and just a fun place to swim. Now it was almost dark, and we were there only for the dogs, so they threw the ball into the water and let the dogs go and fetch. When we were almost ready to leave, Paul threw the ball one last time and the dog missed where he had thrown it and didn't know where to swim to retrieve it, so Paul mentioned the we should find a stick to throw in the same area so that his dog(Dixie) would get the ball. So all the guys but me start going around in the dark searching the brush and area of the trail for sticks. So, I guess Paul lifted a rock, and literally picked up a baby rattle snake without it biting him, dropped it, and then told us all about it. Well, after Dixie got the ball, Paul ended up bringing the snake back to camp where it was gutted, and the skin was cured. My first rattle snake experience.
Then we played a new game called knock which was a lot of fun, and then went to bed later that night.
The next morning there were some crazy tools that they used for cooking. You can see the huge iron skillet on the fire which was used to make bacon, and eggs. Then you can see the dutch ovens(had never seen them before either) where they were cooking the biscuits, and later gravy was made too! It was a great breakfast!
Here you can see Mia, who was still sleeping after everyone else was already awake,but she slept in a Tent with no problem so that was good.
Wilson ended up waking her up due to the fact that he wanted her to see what the whole camping experience was about with the whole camp fire cooking etc.
It took Mia a while to wake up,but Maizie was right there ready to welcome her since she had been up for hours already!
Just a fun shot of Mia while she was waking up. It was acutally kind of chilly, but that is how camping is supposed to be, so it was nice after all that I had brought warm things!
Here is Mia after breakfast and after our church service all happy and awake in Anthony and Shea's tent while we were all trying to clean it up since it was time to start heading out.
It was definitley a fun filled weekend, it was a little overwhelming at first, but a great experience nonetheless!
