Where has the time gone?

To facebook games my friend. Tis sad but true. I have become, what is the saying?, exactly what I hate. Obsessed with games. But hey, I am back, and have regained control over my life...at least enough to write you a little update. Let's review the past couple weeks...

Friday the 31st we drove down to DFW to surprise Ben for his birthday. It wasn't much of a surprise as he told us he was expecting it. Well poo. We had a fantastic weekend staying at Ben and Mer's which was awesome. It was so fun to be around them all day and get to have a sleepover with Syd and Malla. They are such great kids and we miss them so much. Thanks so much to Ben and Mer for letting us crash at your home and feed us all weekend. We had a great time and can't wait for future slumber parties.

That Monday, my brother and I headed into downtown Austin for the Counting Crows concert. It was our birthday presents to each other since we both love the CC's. It was a really fun concert at a great place. I have lower back issues and can't stand that long so I made my brother give up our great standing places to head up stairs so I could sit down. Getting old is hard :) It was a fun night and another reason why I love being in Austin. I get lots more quality time with my bro, whom I've grown to love as we've gotten older. Fun times!

Two weeks later we headed back down to DFW to celebrate my dad's birthday (and Kami's :) ). My brother aslo bought his first new car at the same dealership we got our CR-V. We also went to a Rangers game for my dad's b-day and just had a blast hanging out with my family. We sadly didn't get to see Ben, Mer and the girls, but maybe it's a good thing considering they were all sick :).

Nothing much has been going on. Just getting ready for Heath to start school next week and just putting the little things away in the apartment from moving. I'm hoping to have pictures soon, so stay tuned for the good stuff. Everything is going well and we are still loving being here. Hope all is good with you!

The New Adventures of Xhaxhi and Halla

Okay, okay I know everyone is on the edge of their seats waiting for an update. All three of you at least :). We are officially Austinites, and it feels great (minus the whole missing everyone is DFW part). But honestly, we are enjoying being here so far, and if you haven't heard from us much, it is because we are trying not to focus on all that we miss back in Fort Worth. Not to mention, we are still unpacking. So the trip down was pretty uneventful with a few hiccups and highlights. Thanks to a lot of great help Friday we got everything into the truck and were ready to go Saturday morning.

Saturday morning we shifted a few things so we could fit all the people (and pets!) into my mom's convertible (brilliant I know). So during this overhaul of the moving truck my mom manages to misplace the keys to her car-you know the one parked in front of the driveway, the one we were driving down to Austin, and the one that doesn't have another set because a long time ago they hid them from us and now can't find them. Hehe. Luckily my dad had a valet key so we were able to use that, and so later than expected we started our trek down to Austin. About 5 minutes on the road my mom says in her best worried voice "Oh my gosh, the truck is open" and starts pounding on the horn to warn my dad. I look at her puzzled and say "Are you talking about the picture....that is PAINTED on the back of the truck?" She calms down, realizes her mistake, and we laugh...a lot. In fact, many times on the trip we continue to laugh about that, and will for many years I am sure. Hehe love yah mom.

We got there and started unloading, and unloaded, and unpacked, and unpacked some more. And we are still unpacking. But things are coming together and we really love the apartment. Mom and Dad helped so much and we are really grateful for all they have done for us this move. Thanks for your hard work and for your contributions to making our apartment feel like home. Love you guys.

So that's pretty much it. We are just getting settled in and enjoying getting to know our new area. We miss you guys and hope all is well! Come visit soon!

Oh, and in case you were wondering, we found the keys, in the truck, as we were unloading. :)

The Good and the Bad

The Good:
Farewell Parties! Mer and Mom threw us a great party to set us off on our new adventure. We had lots of people show up, ate lots of good food, and had lots of fun. We also got some great gifts (which were not needed), but the best one had to be this scrapbook that Tami made me. We have been friends since 7th grade, and she made this great book of all our memories throughout the years. It was awesome and made me teary eyed. It was so nice to sit with some of our favorite people and visit before we leave this weekend. My aunt and grandma even came from like 3 hours away. Very nice. Thanks Mer and Mom for such a great night. We love you.

The Bad:
My internet decided to go out TWO days before I was done using it. This normally wouldn't be a problem because I could live without blogging and facebook for two days, but now I work from home and this pretty much ruined my day. Stupid ATT morons. They were going to expediate my service repair to Thursday around noon. I would pretty much be done with working for the week by then. Again, MORONS. So we just took my work station to my parent's and I will be camping over there for the next two days working. Bah, stupid, stupid ATT. As you can see, I'm not quite over the incompetence that is ATT internet. I will NEVER, EVER, EVER give them another chance. EVER.

So anyways. We are almost all packed. We have some wonderful friends and volunteers coming on Friday to help, and Saturday we will be living in Austin. Crazy. I don't think it's hit me yet that this is it. No more DFW. Yikes. Time for new adventures!

Change of Plans

So we received a call yesterday offering us a deal on another apartment we had looked at a couple blocks away from the one we were planning on renting. They offered us 50% off the rent for 9 months. That brought the rent down to 373 a month!! 373! We couldn't believe it either. So we are going to take it, but there was a stipulation. We have to move July 18th instead of in August. That is next week! So needless to say we are going crazy packing and hopefully everything will pull together and it will be a smooth transition. It stinks that we have to leave early, but it will be nice to get an early start on getting used to living in a new place. I think we are just really excited about being on our own for once and not so dependent on the people around us. We love, I mean LOVE having family near by, but I think we'll do a lot of growing up as a couple out in Austin. I am excited for the change and the new doors this will open, and sad for the loved ones we will leave behind. I will miss watching Sydney and Mallory grow each day. They brighten my life, and it will be hard not to be near them. I will miss teasing Ben and my talks with Mer. I will miss dropping by my parent's and spending time with them. And I will definately miss all my friends here, because really friends are my life and they bring me such joy. But hopefully I will find all these things in Austin and we will be just as happy. I can't believe it is coming so soon. The apartment is almost all packed (thanks to Mom and Heath!). The days are speeding by. Soon we will be in Austin. I hope everyone knows how much we will miss them and appreciate what they have meant to us these past couple years!

Adventures in Austin Land

This weekend we headed down to Austin for a little fun and some move prep. We left Friday to spend the night with my brother in the good ol' Bastrop. He showed us a good time by taking us to Big Mouth's for some delicious food and then Cindy's (Heath's second bar ever) for some free Shuffleboard and to watch the Longhorns weasle their way into the College World Series (I say weasle because they made some stupid moves and didn't deserve to win, but hey I'm glad they did). Then after a long night of "partying" with Mateo we had to get some rest to wake up early to meet with our apartment locater.

Which brings us to Saturday. The worst day EVER. At least for me. It was so stressful working with this guy and trying to find something that fit our criteria in Austin. The prices are outrageous, the amenties are scant, and new is a relative term when it involves being near campus. Before we even left the locator's office I was almost in tears. He was saying we would be lucky if we got W/D connections, lucky if we even got a 1b/1b with a study, and lucky if we got into anything built after the 80's. Ugh. We were leaving this beautiful spacious apartment in DFW for what seemed like a rat hole in Austin. Each place we went to got a little better, but man it was horrible. My parents made it in town right before I had a total meltdown. We finally found a place we loved and really thought we'd end up there. So we left the locater and headed off to eat. I was feeling sick and itchy, but chopped it down to a long day of walking around the Austin heat stressed out about crap apartments. So we hit up the local HEB (grocery store) and got some snacks for the hotel. My mom took one look at me a gave me this worried look. I said "What?" She asked why I was breakng out. I looked down. I was covered in hives. Haha I had literally stressed my self out into hives! Who does that? Me and my worrying problems apparently. So we snatched some Benadryl off the shelf and some water and I downed two pills and started to feel better.

Too bad the Benadryl worked TOO well. I slept the rest of the day and night. I missed my brother's friend's band, Paperwork ,rock it out on 6th street (which made me really sad). Hopefully I'll catch them in August! Heath had a great time though and ended up staying on 6th street with my dad and brother until 2 AM. Crazy stuff.

I'll fast forward you through the rest. We ended up finding the perfect apartment and will be moving in on August 15th. We got our Season Tickets for Football (priorities right?!). We took care of a financial aid problem. We drove home. And now we are closer to getting everything together for the move. Phewh. ONE LONG WEEKEND, but fun. Here is a pic of the new apartments.

New Car!

This is so random but yes we have a new car. A lot of craziness has happened this week and it is only Wednesday. We have been thinking for awhile now that if Heath got into UT that we would downsize to one car because we just wouldn't need two there with the public transportation and all. So yesterday we made two cars turn into one. We have been looking at small SUV's/Crossovers for a couple years now. So we had it narrowed down to the Honda CR-V and the Saturn VUE. We just loved everything about the CR-V and decided to get it. The great news is that we are now unleashed from the horrible lease we were in with the Corolla and they paid it all off and gave us money for the Camry which is pretty awesome! We also get to have WAY cheaper insurance which is great. It was a little sad saying goodbye to my first car (the Camry my dad bought me) and our first car as a couple (the Corolla), but we are excited about the new car and think it is perfect for us. We love it more everytime we see it, and it is just one more step to make the move to Austin a little easier!

Bittersweet

So I'll start with the sweet. We FINALLY heard from UT and Heath is happy to announce he is now a true Longhorn! We will be heading down to start school this Fall and couldn't be happier about it. Heath worked really hard for this (and had no faith in himself!-silly Heath) and I am just so happy he is going where he really wanted to be. We will be heading down to Austin sometime mid-August. So now we can finally plan and pick out a place to live. The only problem- there are a million apartment complexes there! Luckily my brother has been living in the area for like 8 years so we should get some tips from him. So that is the good news.

The bitter part is leaving. Leaving friends. Leaving family (my parents and of course Ben, Mer and my sweet nieces Syd and Malla). Leaving this place we know so well to go somewhere new. And most of all bitter, the decision to not purchase the puppy. With all the new fees about to come our way, we have just decided it would not be wise to add onto that financial burden with adding in another dog. I am so sad about this, but know it is the right decision. Bah, but not my favorite. So we are very excited and can't wait to experience all the new fun that Austin will provide for us. Thanks for everyones prayers and well wishes! Hook em Horns!