I read the Zombie Survival Guide, did you?

Rob and I took a short trip to Vegas to celebrate our anniversary. The Vegas was fun, as always, but I came back tired and then had stress at work. The end result has been me sitting in bed all day nursing a cold by reading a lot and playing Monopoly on my iPhone. I just saw this on Austinist, though, and felt compelled to warn you in case the virus has spread to me. Remember, you have to destroy the brain. Also, don't trust Thomas. I've already decided on making him my zombie kitteh in command.

8 years

When Rob and I decided to get married, we had a lot of things going against us: We were wayyy too young (I was 21, he was 20), he was still in the Army, and I was getting ready to get out of college to do... something. Nonetheless, we were in love, and our parents just went along for the ride. We planned a wedding for June 9, 2001. I bought a dress, we booked a gorgeous ceremony/reception site in the hills overlooking Austin, and we struggled to figure out how far our meager honeymoon budget would get us. In early January 2001, Robert received orders to deploy to South Korea for a year. He was set to leave in May, one month before our wedding. We tried in vain to find a way to move the wedding, but family restrictions and Rob's hard to predict Army schedule made it seem impossible. We talked a bit about eloping since I was never the little girl that dreams about being a bride. My biggest fear, ironically, was disappointing my mom by not having the wedding. My mom is amazing though, and one day when I was complaining about the rescheduling problems, she asked why we didn't just go to the courthouse. Well, that was all the fuel I needed. I called Rob at work and had this conversation:

Me: So, are you going to be on guard duty this weekend?

Rob: No

Me: Are you absolutely, positively sure?

Rob: Yes, why, what's going on?

Me: Do you want to get married on Saturday?

We went to the courthouse for our marriage license on Friday, and had to stick around to get a judge's permission to waive the normal 48 hour waiting period. I remember Rob being terrified while sitting in the courtroom waiting for our turn. He said he felt as though he'd done something wrong just by being there. Luckily for us, the judge was very nice and immediately approved our waiver and wished us luck. 

I called my mom and my best friend, Angelica, and let them in on the plan. Somehow in all the craziness, I forgot to call Nathan (he will never let me forget this). My mom got the news to him before I did. This led Nathan to the awkward situation of calling his boss to tell him "I need tomorrow off for my sister's wedding, and no, I did not know about this until now". In the end my parents and my brother drove up from Houston to attend the ceremony. Angelica took me shopping that morning and bought me a wedding present of a more courthouse appropriate dress - a simple blue sheath. 

We met at the courthouse. Rob had brought me flowers to carry. The Justice of the Peace that married us took us aside beforehand and asked if there was anything particular we wanted him to say. Rob and I were both focused on being married when it was over and weren't too concerned with how we got there. I guess I had also assumed that a civil ceremony would be almost business-like instead of romantic. Maybe it is sometimes, but we got very lucky in the Justice of the Peace that married us. He said many sweet things about marriage, but the one that always sticks in my mind is: "Now your hand will never be cold because your spouse will be there to hold it". Seriously, I'm tearing up here again just thinking about it. I am a world class sap. 

My parents booked a room for us at the Driskill Hotel, which is still the most beautiful hotel I've stayed in. It was only a one night honeymoon because I had to work the next day. The trouble with last minute plans is convincing other people they're important.

Since that day we made it through a year and a half deployment to South Korea, during which we saw each other only twice. We moved to California and Rob put up with me going to law school (which I actually think was harder than Korea in some ways). We moved back to Texas, and eventually made our way back to Austin. It has been tough on several occasions, and there are definitely times when we barely like each other. We still have a lot of fun, though, so here's hoping I'm still putting up with this crazy fool in another eight years. 

Austin for visitors

I've been thinking about collaborating some of my ideas for entertaining out-of-towners to share with whoever may be interested, and also to serve as a reminder to me so I'm not re-creating this list every time someone new comes to town. Here is what I've come up with so far:

Places to see / Things to do:

1. Texas State Capitol - Beautiful grounds, knowledgeable docents, and a building taller than the national capitol because that's how we do things in Texas.

2. Downtown Austin - Have a look at 6th Street (by night if you like to drink, by day if you just want to check it out), or take a silly tour ... or a really silly tour. Definitely get out of your car.

3. Lady Bird Lake and Zilker Park - Take a hike on the trail circling the river, see what's happening at Auditorium Shores, take a ride with the kids on the Zilker Zephyr, go for a swim in Barton Springs Pool, or check out the small, but pretty botanical garden. All of this is right next to downtown.

4. Texas State History Museum

5. University of Texas - A beautiful campus to visit (not that I'm biased at all)

6. Alamo Drafthouse - See a first-run movie or one of the many imaginative special events. Super tasty food and drinks are served in the theatre. Downtown location is on 6th and has a liquor license for the dedicated boozing.

7. Barton Creek Greenbelt - Strap on your hiking boots and prepare yourself to experience how quickly it can feel as though you're far from town. Eight miles of hiking and swimming spots.

8. Wildflower Center - Best in springtime, this is a whole park dedicated to flowers. Lots of people seem to enjoy it, but it's my inner romantic that most definitely approves.

9. Lake Travis - Make friends with someone that owns a boat. There are also numerous parks with water access for swimming and such.

10. Hamilton Pool - The most beautiful place I've ever been. Seriously.

11. McKinney Falls State Park - More great hiking and swimming when the water level is up. Be sure to check out the old homestead if you're a history buff.

12. Mount Bonnell - Some of the best views in Austin are just a few stairs away. This is a great place to picnic and has been the site of many marriage proposals.

13. South Congress shopping - Eclectic shops and eateries line S. Congress just south of the river. The first Thursday of every month is celebrated with late store hours, street vendors, and parties.

14. 2nd Street shopping - Trendy boutiques. This is for the downtown fashionable crowd.

15. The Domain - I'm really not a fan of this place, but if you feel the need to pretend you're in Southern California, this is the way to do it.

Ok, I'll be back with some close to town trip ideas, and my very favorite - places to eat. Hope you enjoy!

Holiday Rewind

This may have been the longest Christmas ever. Not that good times weren't had by all, but good times were spread out over an inordinately long period of time. First, Rob's parents and grandmother came into town before Christmas for a week of visiting. This led to a lot of my favorite pastime - touring around Austin. It's always nice to have out-of-towners giving me an excuse to check out the touristy stuff I don't get to often, and sharing a few of my favorite hideouts. I tried to spend more time visiting than photographing this trip, but below are some shots from our trip down to Gruene. If you've never been to Gruene (sounds like Green), it's a beautiful old hill country town near San Marcos. It's quite touristy, but a great place to spend an afternoon shopping and taking in some riverfront scenery. Definitely eat at the Gristmill, and check out the Gruene Dance Hall - the oldest continuously running dance hall in Texas.

I had time off from work during the week of Christmas, but unfortunately Rob had to work - even on Christmas day (boo!). I spent the day baking an inordinate number of cookies and really giving my KitchenAid's motor a run through its paces. I made peanut butter blossoms, sugar cookies from a recipe I stole, and chocolate chip cookies with M&M's. Here's the thing about chocolate chip cookies - make them from the standard Toll House recipe, but replace the vanilla extract with almond extract. You will thank me.

After Rob got off work, Althea and Sunil came over to share Christmas dinner. I use the term "share" loosely as we essentially had two separate meals, but ate together. I am now referring to these friends as "The Vegans". Luckily, they did not have a problem with sharing a table with flesh eaters, so holiday happiness prevailed. Plus, they brought a really yummy salad to share so we did have some overlap. 

The weekend after Christmas, we hit the road to Houston for a second (third? fourth? where are we and who are you people?!) celebration. As per my usual routine at my parents' house, I did a lot of nothing and it was wonderful. I did get to see more recent sonogram pics of the nieces and/or nephews to be, which was good since there's nothing so much as a fuzzy picture that actually looks like a tiny foot to make me believe this isn't all some giant ploy of Nathan's to get more toys. He may have been ridiculously naive when we were kids, but somewhere along the way he's turned into a master schemer. I take some credit for this turnaround, for better or worse, since his early years were fraught with the often dangerous ideas I had for him to try out - to make sure they were safe for me, of course.

Ok, so where was I? Right, so New Year's Eve came 'round and we were once again without plans. Our wedding anniversary is in mid-January, so the idea of paying a premium to class it up on New Year's has always seemed a little dumb to me. I'm also a bit past any desire to start my new year with my head in a toilet. So what to do? Luckily, Austin has an annual celebration called "First Night" that is basically a giant street art festival on New Year's Eve. This year fit all of my requirements for a good time: it's free, it's guaranteed good people watching, and it's just far enough away from 6th Street to make me think no one will puke on my shoes. Oh, and they were planning to burn down a very large and very beautiful clock that people had stuffed with New Year resolutions. Excellent. Now, sadly my camera battery died right after we arrived due to what some people might call poor planning. Luckily, I have located a much better prepared photographer's documentation of the main event:

BURN BABY BURN! Oh pardon me... just had a small relapse there. Anyhoo, the clock burned around 8:30, but we stayed downtown to check out the other displays and listen to some music. We only caught the tail end of the aerial dancers in City Hall, but we were present for the child-genius who stepped up to the speak-your-mind-ish mic set up and simply said "Marco". An appropriate response was gained. We also added paper butterflies to the thousands already hanging from the oak trees outside City Hall. A side note on why I love this celebration, and Austin in general: We were watching a band around 10:30pm, downtown, and found ourselves in a crowd that included families with kids, people on their way to a club, and a guy dressed as Batman for reasons clear only to him.

We celebrated New Year's Day by joining the Vegans for lunch at Mother's Cafe. I've wanted to try out Mother's for some time, but wasn't sure if Rob could handle the meat-free menu. Well, it was super tasty and even Rob enjoyed himself. Add it to the list of restaurants I enjoy in a city meant for eating.

Now it's back to business as usual, with the exception of planning an anniversary trip soon. Hope you are all looking forward to great things in 2009!