Joe's birthday! Sai visits!

Sai drove up from Austin to hang out with us for Joe's 30th birthday and Easter. We went out to a wine bar and then dinner on Friday night after Sai arrived. We then came home and played on our new Wii.

-eating nachos

-the monkey I bought for Joe to hold his bday balloons

Saturday we went to the 6th floor museum and walked around the grassy noll. After growing up listening to all these conspiracy theories that the shot was impossible from the window of the book depository, it was amazing to look out the window and make my own judgement, which is that anybody with some competancy at shooting would have no trouble shooting that short distance to the car. The museum was quite informative and done very well. I definitely recommend any future visitors to check it out if they're into history.

-the book depository, on the left

-close up of the window

-Sai listening to some of the conspiracy theorists

-Joe standing behind the fence on the grassy knoll

-reflection of the grassy knoll and Dealy Plaza in Joe's glasses

Jason & Rhian's wedding

Joe and I flew to Philly last weekend for Jason and Rhian's wedding. We've decided, after flying via Houston and being delayed, that it's worth paying more to fly directly to where you're going. Other than the delay, we had a great time at the wedding, well, the reception was awesome.... sitting through a sexist catholic wedding mass, wasn't so much fun. The priest totally dissed any married couple that didn't have a church based wedding!!

Anywho, here are some pictures from the wedding. Hopefully I'll get all of the pictures post-processed and up on flickr at some point in the next few months.

-Rhian coming down the aisle with her awesome Welsh dad...could her smile be any bigger!

-exchanging rings

-Jason & Rhian in the receiving line

-at the reception

-Joe & I at the reception

-Jason dancing with grandma

The Big Three-O!!!

Thank you to everybody who sent me birthday wishes, cards and presents!! It was so good to hear from everybody. I had a fun day. Spent the morning relaxing after Joe made me breakfast in bed.

Then I went shopping at Banana Republic for a dress to wear to Jason & Rhian's wedding. I swear I tried on 40 dresses and the last dress I put on was perfect.

Then Joe took me to dinner at a french/italian restaurant. it was really good and I can't wait to go back soon!!

-my cards and delphiniums

-on the phone with Linda after dinner

St Patrick's Day, Dallas style

We decided to watch the St. Patrick's Day parade over the weekend so we could check out a different area of the city since we've been complaining about how much Dallas sucks. The parade was a bit weak, but the various floats were entertaining. This was my favorite float because it has nothing to do with St. Patrick's Day:


We then walked a couple blocks down to the block party where the streets are blocked off and had a good time drinking beer on the street. On the way there, we saw this guy and his green Swiss Mountain Dog.



At the block party, the only place selling Guinness was a bar, and they wouldn't let you leave the premises with beers purchased there.... only cheap beer was being sold on the streets of Greenville Ave.... it seemed wrong that Joe was drink Dos XX at a St. Patrick's Day bash. At least he wasn't one of the many drinking margarita's!!

The people, at least, were all dressed up and it was fun to be around people our age. Here's a shot of the crowd listening to the band.

and us!:

visiting with Sai in Austin!

Joe and I made a relatively impromptu decision to drive the 3 hours down to Austin over the weekend to get out of Dallas and visit Sai. Austin, with it's walkability and rolling hills, was a welcome change to the concrete wasteland of Dallas. On Saturday afternoon we drove around UT's campus and then out to a restaurant/bar called Oasis. It was a really awesome location outside of Austin overlooking Lake Travis, but it gave me the feeling that I was on a cruise ship.


Sai then made us an Indian dinner and then we went out for the night with a guy (who's studying at UT) we met in Switzerland while he was working in Melody's lab for a study-abroad-like summer intership.

-Brandon, Sai & Joe

On our drive back to Dallas, we passed this awesome truck. If you can't read what the back of the truck says, click on the picture for a larger view.


Who knew there are racing pigs?!

Some apartment updates!

We've been slowly making improvements to the apartment decor over the last few weeks as the necessity arises.

First, we bought curtains for our bedroom:
Then we finally got a coupon to Bed Bath & Beyond in the Sunday paper and so we could finally buy a cover for our sofa. It's hard to spend money on temporary things, but the apartment looks much homier with the new couch cover and pillows:

And lastly, we found a coat rack to hang by the front door. I also finally got around to hanging up the Welcome sign my mom bought for me to hang in our new apartment:
That's all for now!

goings on....

so, life in Dallas continues. We've been slowly exploring areas of Dallas farther and farther from where we live. So far, Central Markets is the coolest store, especially because I can buy all of my favorite European cheeses. Last week while leaving Target, I noticed that the Texas Rangers plane was parked at Love Field... don't worry, I was waiting for the left turn light when I took the picture. And this lovely store is on the corner across from Central Markets.

Unfortunately, we missed Bushy's big trip to the hardware store down the street from us.

Our new apartment

Finally, after a week, we are nearly unpacked so I finally feel comfortable enough to take pictures of how things are arranged in the new apartment.

-Bedroom

-Bathroom

-Kitchen


- Living room and balcony


-Dining room

For now we're improvising with some of our non-essential furniture, but we'll get around to it in a couple weeks/months once we start getting paid regularly again.

And I must say that I absolutely love sleeping in my queen-size bed again.... no head-butt wake up calls in my future!

We're in Dallas!!

After a heart pounding Superbowl.... Go Steelers!!.....we moved into our apartment on Monday morning. The movers showed up around 12:30 with all of our stuff.

-View of the truck arriving from our balcony with a view of the Dallas skyline in the background

Slowly we're clearing out the boxes.....

-dinner day 1 between the boxes

-dinner day 2.... fewer boxes

We've unpacked a lot more today and I'll try and post more pictures tomorrow of the apartment as long as most of the remaining boxes are emptied!

Roadtrip continues....

Here are some more photos from the remainder of our trip to Dallas.....

We headed to Memphis after Nashville and were so excited that we didn't have to wear our winter parkas anymore!

-Graceland

-some of Elvis's gold records

-Drinking on Beale Street with Memphis's finest

We then left Tennessee and headed into Arkansas, which was absolutely desolate. It was just farm after farm after farm which was very boring in February when nothing is growing.

-heading into Arkansas

-our hotel and bathouse row in Hot Springs, AK

-at one of the outdoor hot springs

Go Steelers!!

Finally out of PA!

After being stuck in Pittsburgh for a few days due to the ice storm, Joe and I are finally in Nashville! Driving through Ohio today was a nightmare. Ohio has earned a D- for it's poor ability to clean the roads. We had to drive on this for all but about 40 miles!!

Even though Kentucky looked as if they got more ice due to the number of snapped trees, there roads were amazingly clear. They earn an A in my book!! Here are some photos of the ice destruction in Kentucky....

Then the sun came out as we entered Tennessee...

Then we took this cool little motorcycle taxi with Warren from our hotel into downtown Nashville for dinner and back again. Here's a view from inside the passenger cabin...