Everything's Bigger (and BETTER!) In Texas.

Let's see, where did I leave off in our story...? Ah yes! We had just touched down in Austin. Well, let me back up a bit. First thing I have to say is that Texans are extremely friendly and good people. Andrew and I were separated before we could board the plane, because his ticket let him board way before me for some odd reason. So in line, I began talking to the people around me. I told them it would be my first real visit to TX (I once had a layover in the Dallas airport, but that doesn't really count), so everyone around me immediately gave me all kinds of advice...

"Oh you have to see the bats!"
"Drive down to San Antonio and go to the River Walk Mall and see the Alamo too!"
"Visit the state capitol."
"You gotta go to Rudy's"
and "Make him take you to the Salt Lick."  ...were all things I heard over and over again. Those Texans are so chatty! People wanted to get to know us and hear our story and tell us theirs. It was incredible! Never have I ever talked to so many kind and happy people in an airport! Especially not so late at night!

By the time we finally landed and got out luggage (it was probably about midnight), we were pretty exhausted. Jeff was kind enough to drive out and pick us up, so on the way home we chatted with him about what Andrew had missed while he was in California, and we told him about all of the fun stuff we did there.

If you missed that post, here's the link for it: http://meganandrewmossman.blogspot.com/2011/10/i-left-my-heart-in-san-francsico.html

When we got to Andrew's parents' house it was pretty late. His younger brother, Zach was already in bed; but his Mom and Jeff (obviously) were still awake, so we gave them their gifts from California (sourdough bread from the Boudin factory and an assortment of chocolates from Ghirardelli Square), told them a little bit about the trip, and just chatted a bit until we were all too tired to talk another second. Andrew and his Mom showed me the guest room where I'd be staying. Waiting for me on the bed was a stuffed Bevo (the mascot for UT) that Zach got for me to welcome me to Austin. I thought that was really sweet.

The next day Andrew and I made a deal to be ready to go for the day by 8. Ha! As I recall, things did not go quite according to plan. I woke up about that time and Andrew was still snoozin' away, so I took a shower and woke him up when I was done. When he was finally ready ("I can be ready in 20 minutes" my foot! Ha ha) we headed out for the adventures of day #1 in Texas. IT WAS GREAT!!

We started the day off right with a trip to the much-lauded Round Rock Doughnuts. Andrew had told me so much about this place- about how the doughnuts are as big as your head and they're the best things you've ever eaten, blah blah blah. I figured he was exaggerating as he tends to do that; but surprisingly he wasn't! Not even a little bit! See for yourself:

Where the tasty DO-NUTTY action happens.

This sort of gives you an idea of how big that donut is in relation to my head.

Normal donut, Round Rock donut. SO HUGE!

After donuts, we saw the sights of Austin and Round Rock, including:

• Andrew's old house.
• His high school, which I must say resembled a penitentiary. It was HUGE too! It's supposed to accommodate 4,000 students!
• We went to meet the Murdocks.
• We drove through the hills.
• Andrew took me to Rudy's for lunch. PS: In case you're not from around there, Rudy's is a BBQ joint. RUDY stands for "Ridiculoudly Uh-mazing & Dang Yummy.
• We went to downtown Austin and saw the Capital, the University of TX campus, and some sweet sweet architecture.

After our long tour day, we met up with Jenny and went to this little place called "The Penalty Box," which is this little sports bar with the best burgers I have ever had! Seriously. They were that good. We had planned to see the bats that night, but by the time we finished eating we had missed them, so we went back to the house and played Wii games.
And that night I met Jared, Juliette, Payton, and Madison- Andrew's brother, sister-in-law and nieces.


The next day we took Andrew's new car down to Round Rock Muffler to have the oil changed before we left. We planned to spend only half an hour or so there; but (to make a LONG story short) we wound up staying there for about 4.5 hours. This is not an exaggeration, I promise. I wish it were. When we were finally free, we headed out to Hutto, TX to see "the Hutto Hippos." As we were posing with the different hippos I heard some construction workers laughing and saying, "They must be from out of town!" Har har har. Then we went to visit Sister Hatch, a beloved former teacher of Andrew. Then we came back to the house and began the packing process, which considering we were bringing all of Andrew's stuff back to Rexburg with us, took a while. Then Jared and Juliette came over with Emerson, Payton, and Madison. Jenny and Juliette had made fajitas for dinner, and they were SOO good. We had Juliette's white-chocolate and raspberry cake for dessert and it was dee-licious. Emerson pulled a hilarious prank on Jenny by putting sour cream on a spoon and presenting it to her as the frosting form the cake. Ha ha ha! Ohh that was a good one! After the clean-up we just kinda hung out until the kids had to go to bed, and then Andrew and I got back to the business of packin'. It took a really long time, and poor Andrew had to do the bulk of the work himself because I passed out around midnight.

We left out the next morning bright and early, and drove ALL. DAY. LONG. Until we finally reached our destination of Las Cruces, NM. ..which if you've been following this blog, you have already read about. So I won't bore you with the story all over again. 


We had a BLAST in Texas! I officially have the greatest "in-laws" on the face of this Earth. I really enjoyed all the time we spent with Andrew's family and can't wait to see them again in December :)