We made it!

We are now officially done with the daily 8 hour car rides! It feels great! We are the the Fullerton's house, Aunt Laura's parents. We ate some home made chili and brownies, and sat the the table talking. Oh and there are dogs here! It's nice to be back in a home instead of a hotel room.

Yesterday we left Amarillo and it was sooooo cold! Made us all miss the warmth of Austin. Before leaving we decided to stop by the Cadillac Ranch, a piece of roadside art that consists of several half buried old Cadillacs.
People come to visit them and paint them. There were spray paint cans everywhere and we were able to find a few with paint still in them, so we decorated the cars ourselves! It is perfectly legal.





























After that we hit the road, finally leaving Texas, through New Mexico and then into Colorado. Here are some pictures of the scenery.



At one point I woke up from a nap in the back seat and this is what we saw. I had to do a video to capture the craziness of it.


So today we will go off and search for a place to live! We have 5 appointments with apartment complexes today, and a few houses to see tomorrow. I just home my car isn't frozen solid....

Texas...the never ending state

(I have internet! So I've put all of our pictures together and added more photos to older posts, go back and check it out!)

Ok, ok, so we did actually make it to Austin. On our way to Austin we stopped in Houston to have lunch with Jasmine's Aunt Teresa! She gave us a tour of her house and she showed us her train room. She has the whole room decorated as a train station. The bed comforter was painted as a train with a cow pusher on the front and there was a ticket counter she created in the room that had a painting on the wall that looked like a window looking out into the city. There was a cd player that played train sounds and the bed even shook along with the sound! Very artistic!

We ate dinner at the second original Carrabbas, started by the mother of the Carrabba's family! The food was excellent and we were all glad we went.




Then we were off to Austin! We dropped off our things, picked up Alex (Daniel and Stef's mom's cousin's son) and went to The Broken Spoke, a true Texas honky tonk dance hall. It was everything I could have every wanted, old cowboys with huge belt buckles and long thick mustaches and boots, huge juicy steaks and a live Texas country band.


Daniel and I watched a couple dance and eventually tried two stepping... it wasn't pretty, more like really slow sloppy meringue, but I think we pulled it off. Stef taped it on Daniel's phone...not sure how it will come out.






At the honky tonk







Alex took us on a turn of Austin, including the UT campus and stadium. This is for Evan.



Alex took us to the Whole Foods where all the hipsters shop, and they have charging stations for electric cars... my little red car doesn;t quite work on electricity




More Austin...


After that we went to Alex's house and talked and looked at his roommates pet rats, who were strangely cute for rats.


We went back to the hotel and passed out. We then dragged ourselves out of bed and ate the hotel breakfast...with TEXAS SHAPED WAFFLES!!!



While Stef and Daniel got ready I went walking down 6th st, which is dead during the day but still interesting to look at. Then we went to Alex's apartment to see his mother Ines.


Then we were on the road again.

Today was a strange drive, western Texas hill country. I drove for the first 4 hours, and it was a refreshing change from I-10. Out there around every turn and hill there was a new farm to look at, or jagged huge rock or creek. Stef sat in the front to keep we company and I kept making references to massacre movies that the area reminded me of, including The Hills Have Eyes and No Country For Old Men. Stef politely asked me to stop.Anyway, it's beautiful, but the type of place you wouldn't want to break down. After several long hours of driving we have finally made it to Amarillo, thank goodness, we were all getting sick of the car.

Daniel, doing our new favorite thing, laying in the hotel with a cold washcloth on our heads, recovering from long hours in the car.



Tomorrow we are off to Denver! Almost there!!!

New Orleans!

We made it to our first stop, New Orleans, with enough time to relax before heading out for dinner. Our hotel was only 3 blocks to Decatur St and Jackson Square. After walking past the same restaurants 3 times and being harassed by a homeless man who told Daniel he accepted plastic because we didn't have cash, we picked a place. It was good, no one was in there, and from our last trip I remember that was a bad sign. However, it was a Monday night, in December with near record low temps so no one was out eating. Our waitress sat at the table next to us and talked to us about our trip and New Orleans. We had red beans and rice with sausage, gumbo, clam chowder and gulf shrimp alfredo. We stuffed ourselves to the point where it was difficult to walk back to the hotel, but I had to stop at another place and get a bread pudding to go.
Our room was so warm, but then it was too warm and uncomfortable. The heater made this terrible banging noise and we had no way to turn it off. Other than that it was a really nice place.

New Orleans was very pretty, decorated for Christmas...



We got up really early this morning and walked to cafe du monde. Daniel mispronounced cafe au lait and I felt like everyone rolled their eyes at us. We walked to the river and sat for a few minutes.

Cafe Du Monde!!



Ordering at cafe du monde ( and not knowing someone was taking a picture)



Jackson Square



Drinking a cafe au lait by the Mississippi river

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Then back to the hotel, packed up and hit the road by 8. We will meet up with daniel's moms cousins son Alex who lives in Austin. Today's drive is about 8.5 hours, so I'm sure there will be more stories to come.

blogging from the road

I'm writing today from Daniels iPhone somewhere between panama city and penscola, so excuse the typos. We are on our way to the big easy! the main purpose of this stop is to show Stef the French quarter and EAT! Oysters, gumbo, mufulettas, beignettes, I'm so excited. We are stating at a cute little hotel in the center of the French quarter, it's going to be lovely!

In other news, Daniel graduated Friday, I graduated saturday. Our families came up and we went to lunch and then to david and laura's for cake and champagne. We will miss them so much!
Then back to our house for cooked wine and s'mores on the deck. It was Stef's first time making s'mores, I'm glad we could expose her a new way to eat sweets while playing with fire :)

Yesterday morning we had a professional mover come and evaluate our house and help us get everything ready to go, she also happened to be Daniels mom. So things will be much easier when moving day comes.

We got to spend some time with Gracie and Sean yesterday, eating Mexican food and telling knock knock jokes that were so funny no one understood them except Gracie. Hopefully everything will work out so we can see her again for new years, I'm not ready to say goodbye.
We stayed up way too late playing wii and talking to Sean. We talked so long that we almost convinced Sean to join us on our adventure.

I'm still learning how to use this blogger app, so here are some pictures from the road. We all bought christmas pants at Walmart lastnight and are wearing them now...









more pictures from the road

starting to say goodbye to Tallahassee

Until more of the Denver move develops, we are beginning to say goodbye to Tallahassee, our home for the past 5 1/2 years. It's a little sad, but we are trying to make the most of our last few days. Here are some pictures!

We finally visited the top of the capital building. We are trying to point to our house, it's in the general direction.



Water break on the 22nd floor



Daniel, looking out longly at our school.



Jingle Bell Run!



Guapa saying goodbye/'I want to kill you' to her kitty boyfriend



Christmas cookies, me ice skating, Daniel with a tie for his new job, and Guapa!



Our house is currently being taken apart in preparation for the big move, and Guapa likes playing in the chaos.



People who it will be very hard to say goodbye to... :(

Things are slowly falling into place...

Every 30 minuets Daniel and I stop, stare at each other, and say "Oh my god...we are really moving...to Denver, AHHHH!"
It's very very exciting, and stressful too. There is so much to do! So much to organize and plan and pack.
Daniel has officially taken a job with Raytheon, and I had my official interview with Denver Public schools today. They will let me know tomorrow!
We have to finish finals week, then graduate on Friday and Saturday, then drive to Denver on Monday.... there's a lot happening. We will keep updating as things happen!

p.s. I just got the countdown to our EPIC road trip to work, and realized we leave in 5 days....I'm going to need a miracle to have everything ready. But then, is anyone ever truly ready to drive half way across the country?