Salt Lick

Jordan works with 3 other interns at Dell. They were all dying to meet me (I like to think), so they arranged an excursion today. Meet Marcus (left) & Jaraad - pronounced Jared (right). Claire is behind the camera taking the picture (with Jordan's phone I might add, explains the poor quality). They are all really nice & very amusing. They all agreed to go to the Salt Lick for some of Austin's Best BBQ, literally. It was a little bit of a drive, so Jordan offered to pick everyone up. The drive had some beautiful scenery so it did not seem l o n g at all.

The restaurant is kind of out in the middle of nowhere, but that does not stop anyone from making the drive. The parking lot is huge, almost feels like a theme park & the Salt Lick itself has had many, many additions to accommodate the large amount of guests. As soon as we exited our car, you could smell deliciousness. Then when you walk in you are welcomed by, what can only be described as {a hot tub full of slow cooked meet, living it up in all sorts of fatty juices} Amazing!!! The food was really good. It tasted different than the BBQ I am used to, but change is definitely not a bad thing in this case.I cannot believe all the totally awesome things we have done so far in Texas...& it has only been 1 week. We have for sure had a friendly welcome.

Texas we ♥ you!!!P.S. Texans are proud of their state & their country. Everywhere you see our National flag of the United States, a Texas State flag is directly underneath it. Why aren't all states this patriotic?! Certainly an admirable quality, I believe.

Friday Night At the Bat Bridge

We did not make any plans for tonight. Yet, we ended up doing a lot.

We had some Brick Oven Pizza and realized we were just about a block from the State Capital Building. So we parked & walked around. The grounds were beautiful. Squirrels ran around eating nuts they found. It was seriously like the town put on a show for us to put their best faces on [like in Funny Farm, you know?]There in the front yard of the capital building was a couple getting married! So exciting! They must have been Scottish because the men & little boys wore kilts & a there was a bagpipe playing all sorts of music during the precession - - including 'Star Wars' & 'Here Comes the Bride.'Inside the building was HUGE!!! The ceiling went on & on. Can you spot the small spiral staircase in this picture (it kind of puts the picture into perspective & give you an idea of how tall it actually is).The pictures do not do a great job at showing how Tall the inside was, but believe you me, I got the heeby jeebies standing over the edge. Look at how small those people are down there.
By the way, since we did not know all the fun things we would be doing tonight, we did not bring along our camera, so pictures were taken with our phones. [AKA...pictures are not that great.]
Then we headed down to walk along the river & explore the area a little more. When driving across the bridge we noticed hundreds of people standing along one side of the bridge, hundreds more in the park right next to the river (see picture below), & tons of kayaks & tour boats in the river.

We found a place to park & joined the group of people on the bridge. We waited & waited. Not knowing what we were waiting for. We speculated what we were waiting for, wishing some conversations around us would give us a clue. Finally, I figured it out. My friend's husband mentioned there were bats that lived under the bridge & at night they all flew out in a huge swarm.
We stood there for over an hour...N.O.T.H.I.N.G...
I wish I could tell you after all that waiting, this is what we saw...

Ha! That is what we were expecting, but apparently, not what always happens. It got way dark & we could see bats flying around in circles here & there, but no large swarm. You had to squint to see anything at all. Very disappointing. We could not believe how many people showed up to watch what we had just witnessed. Lame-O!!

I guess we are glad to have gotten the bat bridge experience over with early on in our stay.

Insanity Deserves Ice Cream

Our Internet connection is hit or miss. Today - ALL DAY - it was a miss.

This made me a little crazy. Thankfully, Jordan recognized I was about to lose my marbles & offered to take me out to ice cream (he knows the true desires of my ♥). We found a popular place in Austin called Amy's Ice Cream.

I was about to sit down inside this yummy ice cream parlor when I realized, "I am not in Mesa, it is beautiful outside, let's sit outside."

Well, we were glad we ventured outside. We walked past some beautiful fountains to this beautiful spot overlooking the sunset.

Look at all that green!!! It is beautiful here! You definitely cannot find a perfect spot like this in Mesa. There was even someone in the distance playing the trumpet, well, I might add. The park had a bunch of these marble sculptures and naturally someone needed to get a picture riding one of them (Jordan was not game).

I feel much better since I got outside of the apartment for a short while today. I really wanted to go swimming and soak up some rays, but I went swimming with my friend Jacquee & her cutie patutie, Claire, yesterday and am still nursing along a slight sunburn - you gotta start somewhere for a nice tan, right?!

Jordan is really enjoying his internship. He says whatever stress comes with working hard is soooo worth it because of all the really great & talented people he is surrounded by. He cannot believe how nice everyone is and he has been really impressed with his boss. The other 3 interns he works with are also really friendly. He likes them so much he is setting up for us to hang out with them this weekend. If all goes according to plan we will be headed to The Salt Lick (supposedly the BEST BBQ in Austin).

I have been enjoying my days (minus today) hanging out at home, making dinner, swimming, doing laundry, & catching up on some t.v. shows. Jordan was impressed when I came up with this delectable dessert...Blackberry Bread Pudding. It was really, really, really tasty.

I have also really enjoyed catching up with all the people who have called to make sure we made it here okay. I have not spent so much time on the phone since Jordan & I were engaged & Jordan was at BYU while I was in Mesa. I have felt very popular & very loved. Thank you for all your thoughts. We are having a wonderful time & taking great care of each other.

♥ Love from Austin ♥
P.S. After posting this, I noticed the date, May 27. It was 4 years ago today that Jordan & I went on our 1st date.

Ahww!!!

LOST Without You

I do not know what the rest of the world thinks, but I personally ♥ the series finale.

I did not learn anything, but I am okay with that. LOST has been one of my favorite shows. Definitly one of a kind. I will miss watching it. I found this clever note on our Aunt's blog:

How to make a sandwich on the island:

Jack

1. Gather ingredients

2. Point the gun at ingredients and shout "HOW DO I MAKE A SANDWICH OUT OF YOU?!?!?!
3. Breathe heavily through your nose as though you were about to hit ingredients.

4. Give up and make the sandwich yourself, and eat it bitterly

Kate

1. Make separate sandwiches, one with peanut butter and one with jelly

2. Take a bite of the peanut butter sandwich, declaring it the best

3. Take a bite of the jelly sandwich, declaring it the best

4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 ad infinitum

5. Follow peanut butter or jelly sandwich into grave danger

Sawyer

1. Throw the jar of jelly at the wall, sneering "I don't need no sandwich"

2. Call the mascot on the jar of peanut butter lots of clever nicknames

3. Huff and puff and stomp around and grumble a lot

4. When no one's looking, make perfect, even, symmetrical peanut butter and jelly sandwich and sit in a corner, enjoying every bite

Locke

1. Sit idly by, believing that the ingredients will find a way to make a sandwich out of themselves

2. Lose faith and make the sandwich anyway

3. Realize that you were the instrument by which the ingredients chose to make a sandwich after all

4. Run around the room and grab everyone's knives, insisiting that their sandwiches will do the same in time

Hurley

1. Make sandwich

2. Eat sandwich

3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 ad infinitum

Sayid

1. Procure 23 milligrams of uranium-20

2. Set hadron supercollider to eight megajoules

3. Program a sandwich-making macro using Cobol or Visual Basic

4. Act all tough-like

Desmond

1. Eat sandwich

2. Call the sandwich "brother"

3. Place peanut butter slice over jelly slice

4. Spread jelly on the other slice

5. Spread peanut butter on one slice

6. Take two slices of bread, a jar of peanut butter and a jar of jelly

Ben

1. Steal someone else's sandwich

2. Claim you coerced them into making the sandwich for you all along

3. Say you'll tell them everything if they make you another sandwich

4. Stare a them all creepy-like

Libby

1. Lay out plans for one of the most intricate, fascinating, and delicious sandwiches of all time

2. Just as you start making it, get shot

Danielle

1. Apply peanut butter

2. Disappear for eight months

3. Apply jelly

4. Disappear for eight months

5. Eat sandwich

Claire

1. Mmmmmmmm, peanut butter

Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse

1. Make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich

2. Have someone take a bite, then tell them it's a baloney sandwich

3. Make up a whole bunch of other crap, then say you had planned it all along

4. Buy a few yachts

I am going to miss these guys.

Ü

The Lone Star State

We could not be happier last week is behind us.
What.A.Week!

We had a lot to get done & there just were not enough hours in the day.

On Monday we moved most of our belongings into storage (Thank you, thank you to everyone who helped).

The rest of the week included cleaning up & painting our apartment back to white [BORING!!! My colors were way better.]

I told my fabulous sister

last week that I was not one to ask for help, but that I would be needing it throughout the coming week & this will probably be the only time I ask.

She went above & beyond the call of duty & arranged a "Paint Party" at 8 p.m. on Wednesday night. Such busy little working bees.Tim helped take down my cute chandelier

& replaced it with one found at Saver's for $8.00 [Go Mom & Tim]!!!Be Jealous of how much fun we had.What every Paint Party needs to top off the evening...Dumpster Diving!!!

(We did not do this just because we thought it would be fun, we ended up needing something Jordan threw away (no need to mention I told him to throw it away, right?). Thankfully with all of our willing help we were able to get all of the painting done that night. On Thursday we finished packing up & did some more cleaning.

Our final mountain to climb before we could put on our cowboy hats was loading up the car. I had a lot I wanted to take with us & the challenge seemed impossible, but thanks to the skills I must have acquired from my father of packing as much into any given space, we did it! Behold!!! - a ghetto car getting even more ghetto...look closely.Saying goodbye was a little harder than I had anticipated. I mean just look at 1 of many cute little kids I am not going to see for 3 months.We [Jordan] drove 10 hours on Friday to Fort Stockton. We did not eat all day & were excited to get a nice dinner once we had reached the final destination of the day. But, did you know Texas is 2 hours ahead of Arizona?! It was 11 p.m. when we got there & everything was closed. We did find a Sonic, thank the heavens there was a Sonic. Also thank the heavens, Mom & Dad prepared a large breakfast for us before we left that morning.

The next day we woke up early & drove the rest of the way to Austin (6 hours). Here is a picture I took when we were approaching our [temporary] new home. Downtown Austin is on the left where the skyscrapers are located.We are staying in an apartment that is payed for by DELL. It is nice & clean & I am really liking the layout. We were invited to dinner Sunday night by a friend of mine who actually only lives about 3 miles away from us. I am excited to have a friend close by, especially one that is willing to feed us (Thank you Jacquee & Danny). Today Jordan started the first day of his internship. I am excited to hear about his day. He sent me this picture to me via picture message.I am so proud of him & so excited for this summer. So far we are loving it here.

Missing our loved ones, but at least I have the cute boy in the picture above.

XOXO - Megan

P.S. The following is a real life experience of how they do things here in Austin:

You know when you are on the off ramp of the freeway & there are people begging for $?

In Arizona I've only ever seen $ given away.

In Austin yesterday, Jordan & I witnessed a LITER of beer being given to a man with a sign that read "25 cents." He was a lot happier to have gotten the beer, I think, than if he had gotten 25 cents. It was a little bit amusing and a lot a bit ghetto. We fit right in.

P.S.S. Surprisingly, pleasantly surprisingly, the car performed perfectly without any sort of mishap. I underestimated its capabilities.

Adventure

Today was my last day at work.

Bittersweet.

I will miss my friends there.

I will not necessarily miss cleaning up others' drool.

Yesterday SSE sent me off in fashion. Lunch from Olive Garden, cupcakes, & way too many parting gifts. The party was Texas themed & included things in honor of my exciting, adventurous summer coming up. I received a Cowboy hat, yellow Bandanna, play guns & Sheriff badge, the most adorable stuffed Armadillo, Toy Story PEZ & stickers (Jordan's Woody & I am Jessie...on second thought...I just realized I should actually be Little Bo Peep...yeah, it's final, I will be Little Bo Peep). They gave me a book & a gift card to Barnes & Noble since I will be doing a lot of reading over the summer. One of my favorite gifts is actually very surprising - first you should know the history behind it.

I've worked at SSE for 5 1/2 years and I've always worked on Friday. If you know anything about dentists, you know they are, for the most part, closed on Friday, not at SSE. They don't even close early on Fridays...one of my longest days was on a Friday...got off at like 8 o'clock...on a Friday!!! Anyway, I had to learn to love working Fridays. Another thing against Fridays was the Bee Gee's. Friday meant the Bee Gee's being blasted throughout the office & Dr. Hales singing at the top of his lungs to get him through the day. I did not like the Bee Gee's. I learned to like the Bee Gee's. Now I actually quite enjoy them. So it was appropriate Dr. Hales got me The Ultimate Bee Gee's Cd's. I plan on these being the soundtrack of our coming road trip. Jordan can learn to love the Bee Gee's.

So at the end of the day, I cleaned out my locker at work. I found lots of treasures hidden in there. In particular 2 cans of silly string...I came home & NICELY sprayed Jordan. He then took the can & went.to.town on me, so I grabbed the second can & we made a huge mess in our little apartment. It was so much fun - I plan on buying silly string on a regular basis now...just think of all the bad days that could be made right with a simple can of silly string.The pictures don't do the mess justice...it was everywhere.Now that I am done with work the next step is moving all of our things into storage. I have most everything packed up & the plan is to move the majority of things on Monday. Then clean up the rest of the week & we head out on Friday. The time has finally come & we are so excited. We are going to miss our loved ones over the summer, but it is only 3 months & then we will be back. Hopefully anyway.

Hopefully because who wants to take bets on whether or not this little beauty is going to make the 1,000 mile journey there AND the 1,000 mile journey back??? Any takers???

Jordan has faith, I do not.

So that's one to one.
What's your vote?
Do not let its pretty, shiny, just driven off the car lot paint on the outside trick you into believing it has a good ♥ on the inside. This car is evil. The bane of my existence. The sum of all fears. The pebble in the bottom of my shoe.
I truly cling to hope that I am wrong.
If you do not hear from me on Monday, May 24th...I was right (& probably stranded on the side of some lonely highway in the heartland of Texas, so please send help...& lots of silly string).

Mother - I Love You

I was doped up on cough syrup with codeine on Mother's Day so I did not get around to blogging about my fabulous Mother Dearest.

You know one of the many things I LOVE about my mom is she (& daddy of course) makes every holiday special. She always does something thoughtful & maybe even homemade for us on, you name it, Christmas, Valentine's Day, Easter, Mother's/Father's Day, Halloween, & Birthday's (kids & grandkids). For example, every Valentine's Day growing up she would sneak out a side door - leave presents on the doorstep - ring the doorbell - make it back inside & then act like nothing happened. We knew it was her & dad, but we still got excited every year. So even though it's HER day on Mother's Day she has gotten me a present every year since at least my teenage years (probably even before then). This year she picked out my favorite See's Chocolates [caramels & vanilla/chocolate truffles]. Thanks mom & dad. I ♥ You. Jordan & I spent Mother's Day weekend doing the following [I dare you to keep up]:

*packed up apartment for our Texas adventure - coming soon -

*shopped for our special Mothers

*attended special Adults Only Dinner with my family at Famous Dave's BBQ (yum!)

*Decided to go to Urgent Care at 9:30 Saturday night because annoying cough really started to get.on.my.nerves.

*Left Urgent Care with prescriptions at 11:30 p.m.

*Drove around until we found 24 hour pharmacy (located at Greenfield & Southern for anyone who needs one in the future)

*Waited...

*& Waited...(for prescriptions to be filled so I could GET SOME SLEEP!!!)

*Arrived home at 2 a.m.

*slept for first time in days

*slept in until 10:30 (only reason I did get up was to make cookies for our primary class)

*made cookies

*explained to Jordan I was really sorry, but I was not going to make it to church

*slept 4 more hours

*woke up (again, only reason I woke up was to see our Mothers)

*felt very strange, very doped up, very, very

*enjoyed delicious waffle dinner with Rogers clan [thanks dad]

*visited with both families

*watched Leap Year with my mom - very cute, rent it

*More sleep

T H E E N D

Happy Mother's Day