Austin in Review

Well, on Friday evening Jeremy and I returned from Austin. It was a great week. Here's a day-by-day playback:

Monday: We got to the hotel that evening around 8 or so and decided we would just walk somewhere for dinner. Well, we ended up at a fancy seafood place, where we were way under-dressed! In light of that, we decided to sit in the bar area rather than the actual restaurant. Then we saw the prices and decided to order an appetizer only...I'm sure our waitress loved us, but hey, Jeremy's food was being paid for by the state, and that budget is definitely not extravagant! Nonetheless, I did try my first raw oyster there! After dinner, we walked back to the hotel and went directly to the hotel restaurant to eat dessert . Chocolate brownie sundae...my favorite!

Tuesday: Jeremy left bright and early for his training class...I, on the other hand, slept in until 11 a.m. Then I met Jeremy for lunch and returned to the room to work on my dissertation until 5ish. It was a rainy day, so we decided not to drive to Steph's house that night. We walked over to an awesome Chinese restaurant that night for supper and later went to sit in the hot tub. Unfortunately, there were a ton of kids swimming (...and splashing!) in the adjacent pool, so we didn't stay long.

Wednesday: Again, Jeremy went to his class early, and I slept until 10ish. (At least I improved from 11 a.m.) Then Steph, Karroll, and Major picked me up. I went with them to one of Major's doctor's appointments. That was a crazy meeting....all this jibberish about certain levels of certain things in Major's body, but at least everyone else knew what was going on! Major would have nothing to do with me at this point! Then we grabbed some lunch, and they took me back to the hotel. I worked on my dissertation for several hours before Jeremy came back, and then we hopped in the car to head to Steph's house. Steph made Greg, June, me, and Jeremy some fabulous homemade enchiladas. Yummy! Actually, this was the first time Jeremy had met Karroll and Major! Anyway, after supper I played with Tay and Syd...a little hide-and-seek and then our own version of American Idol. Major even began to warm up to me and let me hold him. He's such a cutie!

Thursday: Same ol, same ol' this morning. I met Jeremy for lunch and then Steph picked me up after she taught her class. I went with her to eat lunch at a local "hole-in-the-wall" dive (No, I didn't eat again!). Then she took me to her clinic to meet her co-workers/friends. Later she dropped me back off at the hotel and guess what....I worked some more on my dissertation! (I know you're surprised! LOL) That night Jeremy and I ate a cool place where they dumped boiled seafood on our table on pieces of butcher paper. I've had similar food before, but I don't remember seeing the shrimp eyeballs staring at me! The shrimp, however, were indeed scrumptuous once Jeremy took their heads off for me...I did not venture to eat any of the oysters though! Once was enough as far as I'm concerned! Later that night we played some shuffleboard at a local joint near the hotel.

Friday: We slept in as long as we could, but the phone kept ringing off the hook! (Remember we were trying to take care of a lot of "house business" while we were there...banker, realtors, home insurance, insepctors, appraisers, etc...) We ate lunch at a fabulous Italian place and then headed to the mall to kill some time before the flight. We got home in time to drop some paperwork off at the realtor's office and then went to buy some packing boxes.

Since our return, we've gone to two baseball practices, signed paperwork with the banker, painted a bathroom, scheduled the movers, and packed...packed...packed! (We will close on our old AND new houses in a few weeks!) Oh yeah, and don't forget the Easter egg hunt tonight, but I'll post pics of that later this week. Whew....sorry for the long re-cap, but I guess I'm in a writing mode!