Living the Texas Dream Part 1

Hi "ya'll". We've lived in Texas for almost a month now (time flies) and it is infinitely better than living in Provo. I know, I know, I lived there for 10 years and maybe it got a little boring. Well, I kinda had a hard time finding things to do when I first moved there. Granted, I miss the mountains and I feel myself get a little tinge of jealousy when I see that someone has gone camping in the beautiful pines. I suddenly start feeling a little homesick when I have to go to our new (and incredibly ghetto) pediatrician's office. Of course, I miss the Provo people. If I could bring them here, I would (the food is better anyway!) I may become a fat Texan after all because everything is too far away to walk to. Seriously, EVERYTHING is 20 minutes away.

With all that said. I LOVE it here. I don't have any friends yet. Our church is 20 minutes away (it's seriously Provo ward #2....transient and full of BYU students). We have bugs in our apartment all the time. We have neighbors at all angles and I don't love sharing walls. Our room squeaks when we're sleeping (we think maybe that our apartment is sinking a little and constantly adjusting). It's all just wonderful! I'm excited to be here and excited to make new friends. We've been busy playing and having a wonderful time. There is something just wonderful about being in a new place and having a new beginning. Change never tasted so good.

We have been b.u.s.y! After we got our stuff here and unpacked, we've been bombarded with all this wonderful company. Brian's family was here for a few days and his mom stayed for 10 days. We had good food, way too much ice cream, only one board game (which we'll work on next time), snuggling with my brand new and adorable nephew,  PLAYING WITH COUSINS!-a personal favorite that I'm sorely going to miss when they move, and too much fun. I'm sad to say that I don't think I took a single picture from that week - something else I'll work on next time.

We had a 3 day hiatus from company and I didn't even clean my house in time for Jason to come. Those three days were spent with fevers for both kids and multiple trips to different pediatricians. It was nothing except a fever for 5 days that turned into an ear infection (for Claire) a horrible cough and a terrible runny nose.

Jason arrived at the largest airport I have ever driven through! Sizeable enough to make note of it in this blog. Yes, I committed several traffic violations and got lost a couple of times. I'm still not sure how I made it out of there alive.

Friday we slept in, we were LAZY, and I was committed to getting Jason hooked on Sherlock (easy to do) so we watched an episode or 2 each day. We really did nothing all day except take Claire to the doctor for her ear infection. We got our beloved Boston pizza and ate it for dinner (for free because our take out order didn't go through and we had to wait an extra 10 minutes...can we say AWESOME!). Did some (very little) outlet shopping and loved every inch of that Banana Republic sales floor. Finally, some clothes that fit!

Saturday we went to the Northpark Mall and the Dallas Arboretum. First, the mall. What the what!? It was ENORMOUS! Four times the size of a normal mall and the nightmarish parking to match. Honestly, I'm terribly excited to go back and see it because we only saw Nordstrom. I'm sure that it will be a heavenly place to bask in it's air conditioning mid summer.

Jason was craving some humidity and Saturday brought it with a vengeance. We were wet just standing by the car. Oppressive. The gardens were beautiful, enormous, and amazing! And now....I have pictures. :)

Alice in Wonderland exhibit - beautiful!

Tea Party, anyone?

Someday I'm going to have an entire backyard filled with Crape Myrtle trees just like this!

Brian got me some macro lenses that I had fun testing out!

Look for the ant.

We went to Rudy's for dinner. Rudy's - where white trash means getting gas and eating exceptionally good BBQ. We will definitely be going back there again! Ending the evening with some board games and Sherlock, a successful day.