Thanksgiving

Bryce and I weren't able to go home to Utah for Thanksgiving, so instead we ate with friends from our new ward. My friend Tania and her husband Jared live literally on Lake Austin in a guest house and it is just beautiful. The weather was perfect so we ate outside and watched boats go by. The houses on Lake Austin are so awesome, most of them have boats docked to their back yard. Unfortunately I didn't take very many pictures but you can kind of get an idea of what our day was like.


This is all the food minus dessert. Tania made the turkey, stuffing, and gravy and I made rolls, green bean casserole, and mashed potatoes.
This is all the boys trying to figure out how to take the turkey leg off the turkey. They got it off, eventually.
After ingesting all that food, Bryce took a nap. He's so cute.

This pic gives you a little bit of an idea of the view from the water. Plus, tree swings are cool.

This is our cute hostess, Tania. After dinner and playing the most spiteful game of croquet ever, we made a fire and roasted some 'mallos. mmmmm.... I smelled so bad by the end of the night. Worth it!Of course Thanksgiving would be Thanksgiving without my mom's famous 10-layer jello. Count 'em, all 10 layers are there.

I really have so much to be thankful for this year. I won't bore you and list them all, but it's very humbling to think of how blessed I really am.

In other news, we're coming to Utah in 2 weeks!!!

Halloween Happenings

This year for Halloween I resurrected my Rainbow Brite costume from two years ago. I wore it first to my ward trunk or treat two weeks ago, and then last week on Halloween for my friend Jen's ward trunk or treat. It's a great costume and I always get a lot of good comments on it.

Jen has a 6 month old little girl with the most amazing natural mohawk you've ever seen. With hair like that you can't make her a pumpkin or a pea in a pod, you get pink gel and make her a punk rocker, duh! The shoes made the outfit, they had skulls on them. She was so cute. Best baby costume ever.



After the trunk or treat, we went to a friend of Jen's house to hang out. Bryce was on his way from California but I figured I had a few more hours before he would be arriving in town. But he made great time and pulled into Austin while I was still at the party. So we gave him directions and had him come over. Jen snuck outside and took pictures of our joyous reunion.


I'd say I had a pretty great Halloween. I'm so glad to have my husband with me all the time now. It's so wonderful.

Yoga

When I lived in Santa Barbara, my good friend Meredith got me hooked on Bikram Yoga during my junior year. For those of you who aren't familiar with Bikram Yoga, it's a 90 minute, 26 posture series practiced in a room heated to 105 degrees. Once I got married, I couldn't really afford to go anymore, so I haven't been in about 9 months. Well there's a studio here by my apartment and they have an introductory special that's 30 days unlimited for $28. I recently made friends with a couple girls in my ward and they wanted to start going! I do much better with exercise when I have someone doing it with me. I went this morning at 6 AM and it was great! It was very early, and hot, but I'm going to fall in love with it again.

In other news, Bryce graduated! He starts his trek to Texas tomorrow!!!!!!!

Let the Countdown Begin

I absolutely cannot wait to see his face in person. 10 days.

Things I Miss

1. Bryce
2. Angie and Maren
3. My parents
4. Fall in Ogden
5. Being able to hear the ocean from my apartment
6. Reading my textbooks on the beach
7. Riding my bike to school
8. My dog
9. Watching SYTYCD with Melinda
10. Tennis
11. Amber and Rosie
12. Yoga
13. Photo adventures
14. Playing with friends until all hours
15. Silvergreens
16. Blenders (not the appliance)
17. State Street
18. Movies at the Arlington
19. Temple Square
20. Jakes over the top
21. Temari
22. Sitting in front of the fireplace at my parents' house
23. Driving down the 101
24. Mountains
25. Family dinners

This list isn't complete. But as you can see, I miss California and Utah. A lot. *sigh*

Dear Austin...

Dear Austin Weather,

Please decide whether you would like to be 100 degrees and humid, raining so hard my windshield wipers can't go fast enough, overcast and 60 degrees, foggy, or 75 and perfectly pleasant. I would really appreciate it if you would take your bipolar medication, it would help everyone out.

Sincerely,

Alison

Maren!

My big sister Maren came out to Austin last week to play with me. We had a lot of fun! We did a lot of eating, watching chick flicks, and shopping!!! If you ever come to Austin you MUST go to the outlet mall in San Marcos. It's ridiculously huge. Over 200 stores. We kept thinking we reached the end of the mall to discover tons more stores. We shopped for six hours and barely scratched the surface. Guess that means she has to come back??? There were some awesome deals. So much fun. I didn't take that many pictures and the ones I did take need a little bit of explaination. hahahaha.

She will probably kill me for this, but oh well. So when Maren got here the first night, we went out to dinner and then came home to watch Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (disappointing). Maren took off her shoes, which were Mary Janes to reveal that her feet had totally swollen up! I was dying I was laughing so hard. It was so funny. She had to ice them to get the swelling to go down. We figured it was from travelling?


I should have taken a before picture of this but I didn't think that far ahead. This is my beloved pink beach cruiser that I rode to school in Santa Barbara for 4 years. After that much time on the coast, my poor bike was looking a little sad. The handle bars were seriously rusted, my basket was starting to rust, and it just needed some cleaning up. Cue Maren. We went to the hardware store and bought some paint and while I was at school, Maren made it look like new! It's just so cute.


I love this picture. Maren's favorite holiday is Halloween and Target was full of awesome decorations and costumes. We found this sweet mask in the dollar bins. I don't know why she didn't buy it. It looks amazing. Oh Mer.


Miss you already!

Visitors

I haven't been completely alone all the time here. My dad helped me move out here and my mom came a week after that to set up house. Then Bryce was able to come out for a whole week for our anniversary! It was so wonderful to have him here. I got him tickets to a Texas football game and it was so much fun. I've never seen so much orange in my life. I can't wait til he's here for good. How long til Halloween???

Giving in...

So I've always been kind of anti-blog and swore I wouldn't get one at least until I have kids. But I find myself all alone and bored at night so in order to not go crazy, I have created a blog. I moved to Austin a month ago and started school a few weeks ago. So far I am loving my program. It's intense, for sure, but I'm learning a lot and working hard. I just love working with good musicians and being in awesome ensembles. Bryce is still in Santa Barbara finishing up school at the Brooks Institute and I miss him like crazy. I can't wait until he's done at the end of October and joins me out here. I'm slowly making friends, but I'm really shy when it comes to meeting people so it's taking me a little bit of time to come out of my shell. I have a job teaching private lessons at a local high school. It's perfect because I can set whatever hours I want and I teach (mostly) during their band classes. So far it's working out pretty well. If they would actually practice it would be even better.

So here goes. Bear with me. I don't really know what I'm doing.