AND THE NEW APARTMENT IS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!! I truly did not want to leave for work this morning just because I wanted to continue to work on the apartment.
It's such a huge change from the old apartment we had with Adam...Even our movers were like "Big change...Nice..."
A quick story about our movers: We bought a second TV this past weekend and it's a 27 inch tube TV, so it's pretty heavy. Darius had to lug it up to our old apartment and had a pretty tough time with it. When our movers came to move the TV, one of the movers PICKED UP THE TV AND PLACED IT ON HIS UPPER BACK/NECK to carry it. He then proceeded to pick up two lawn chairs and two patio chairs. He carried the TV on his neck down all of the stairs safely to the truck (for those of you who have been to our old apartment--you know there were lots of stairs!)....Darius and I were joking about it all day long...We were like, "Do you think he practices and like carries his dinner to the table that way?" I even tried to do it with an empty box and I couldn't even do that...Seriously--HOW DO YOU CARRY A TV WITH YOUR NECK AND NOT BREAK YOUR SPINAL CORD?!?!?!
Anyway, the unpacking is going really well. We've completely finished the kitchen, living room, and bathroom and just need to work on finishing the bedroom. We barely did anything in there because the AT&T guy came yesterday to install our cable/internet and was in there forever. We're pretty frustrated with AT&T right now because they're having problems with the wiring outside of our apartment, so we still don't have our cable/internet up and running. The only other frustration is that apparently we need to get some sort of converter plug for our dryer...The plug outlet has four prongs but our dryer's plug only has three prongs??? So we've gotta go to Home Depot today and try to find a converter.
Also--my family is coming to Austin tomorrow! I can't wait! That should be a ton of fun and I can't wait for them to see our new place...It's going to be a pretty noisy weekend!
Anyway...we'll have pictures and quite possibly a video posted in the next few days as soon as we've got everything set up.
-Nicole
Hey you guys, Darius here. Nicole is busy being lazy on the bed. So we had a pretty fun weekend so far, this last week seemed like it dragged on for us.
Last weekend we were in Richmond for Nicole's sister, Grace's Graduation and as boring as those can be we had a good time with the family. Nicole's dad entrusted me with his proven Blackjack strategy, so if you guys want to invest when I go to Vegas you can send the checks now. We also were entrusted a great drink recipe from Amy, Nicole's step-mom. It's called a Summer Lovin', good huh. Its got watermelon vodka, simple syrup made from jalapenos, lime juice and fresh mint. Mmmmm sweet summer flavor with a kick to the mouth, so good. All in all a great time.
This weekend we finally went to the Austin Farmer's Market (the largest certified in the state, yeah that's right). It was so fun, we got some good fresh veggies for the week, some fresh white truffle and sage ravioli, and we bought some rabbit loin from a Frenchmen. They had a lot good looking stuff there. Jess, they had a booth strictly with dog treats and cakes. Oh, plus I found my perfect tea, Hibiscus and Mint from a company in Austin.
Also, on Friday night we went to a fun restaurant downtown that had a good and very different menu for cheap prices. We had some beef marrow bones, all the rage now, so good on some toast and some raw Amberjack fish, plus a bunch of sides.
Now were just trying to get some preliminary packing done so that by the time the move gets here (July 1st) we will have things cleaned out and ready.
Oh here's two videos that have been entertaining us because they are both so funny and bad. One is intentionally this way, and the other is just a train wreck I can't stop watching.
The reason I'm so incredibly excited about this weekend is because Darius and I had one of the worst possible weekends last week--FOOD POISONING. In a rare moment of desperation and insanity, we decided that we didn't feel like cooking on Friday night, didn't feel like spending alot of money, and didn't feel like driving very far to get some much-needed grub. So...we settled on the dollar menu of McDonald's. Poor choice indeed. Perhaps my palate wanted to punish me by then forcing me to throw up seven times...? Perhaps it was a situation similar to Lucille Bluth's run-in with "pool food" a.k.a. a burger and curly fries (Arrested Development)? Perhaps it was all random chance and we were given bad meat or grease or something?
Whatever the reason, it was terrible. I spent two days sleeping on the floor of the bathroom. I basically wanted to die. Not to mention--when Darius and I are bored, almost everything we do revolves around food...Reading books about food preparation, looking through cookbooks, watching Food Network, trying out a new restaurant, creating new recipes of our own...So needless to say, it was also a very boring weekend.
Anyway, this weekend should be fun. Tonight we're doing a bunch of laundry since we haven't done laundry for literally like three weeks. Tomorrow we'll be meeting up with Darius's parents probably around Johnson City or Fredericksburg. Hopefully we'll be able to have dinner at the restaurant at the Fredericksburg Herb Farm, because they make absolutely amazing food. Then on Sunday, we're planning to go to brunch at this place called Moonshine in Austin. I'm actually pretty excited for that, considering I usually loathe the very idea of a "brunch". To me, a typical brunch is nothing more than a bunch of uppity white people with highlights and Crocs sipping mimosas made with horribly cheap champagne while they munch on typical brunch fare consisting of running scrambled eggs, soggy French toast, and rubbery shrimp cocktail. As you can probably tell, I hate brunch. But when I saw Moonshine's website, the reviews and their menu looked too good to pass up. Buttermilk biscuits with chipotle cream gravy? Cinnamon sticky buns with an Amaretto glaze? Yes, please! Then later that day, we're going to the Austin Wine Festival, which is probably ridiculous considering we just went to several Texas wineries and purchased ten bottles of wine...but it will be tons of fun. Monday is up in the air because Darius has to work but I luckily have the day off.
Well...I think that's all I've got in me for today. Oh--I did want to let everyone know this--I AM INSANELY JEALOUS OF THE SCHEDULED SUNDAY DINNERS YOU GUYS ARE HAVING. I wish we could go SO bad because we are always looking for someoneto try our recipes on...Unfortunately, we witness Adam eat maybe twice a week and it's always either Ramen, jarred pasta sauce, or Papa John's pizza, so of course anything we make would be delicious to him. I want a tough critic and some good company.
That's all.
-Nicole
Here is an article about Alinea, the restaurant in Chicago that we went to. We both found it pretty interesting, even after going there recently. It's 10 pages, so a little beefy, but stick around for the last course. Nice... and yes this is Darius, who else.
Hey Guys sorry it took so long. Here are some birthday weekend photos.
Hey,
So as you know we went to Fredericksburg this weekend for an early birthday for me. It was such a good time and so relaxing. Nicole did a great job planning everything and we had so much fun. Even just the drive out there was so nice. We will definitely be going back sometime.
All the wineries we visited were lots of fun. Even though we've learned a lot we're still not wine connoisseurs or anything so most of the wine was very enjoyable. We brought back a lot of wine too (maybe too much), we figured it's rude to go for the tastings and not get at least a bottle. We got to do a little touring at a couple of them too. We had to drive out to one, going through Luckenbach, not seeing Willie, Waylon, or any of the boys. That one let us walk around were they store the wine in their barrels. Another one, Becker, third largest in Texas, also gave a tour and we got to ask questions.
Saturday, as part of my gift, we did a couples massage. I've never had one before and it was so good. The hour definitely went by too quick. We had some good food too. This one place we went, Fredericksburg Herb Farm, had some of the best food I've ever had. So Fresh. Mmmm. Plus the bed and breakfast we stayed at was run by this old country couple that have cookbooks out. The cabin itself was so fun, it was a restored 1850's cabin and had all handmade furnishings.
On the way back on Sunday we took a different route home (Dad must be rubbing off on me) and went to a Wildlife Safari Tour. It was so fun, we got to hand feed several species of deer, elk, gazelle, goats, rams, camels, buffalo, yaks, emus, ostriches and saw zebras and kangaroos and lemurs. We got licked by so many tongues and almost had our feed bucket stolen by a camel.
Our last stop before returning home was Opie's Barbeque. Just good ol'e Texas BBQ. It was sad to get home but now I can't wait until this weekend already cause Mat and Jess, and another Matt are coming to visit.
Thanks for reading if you made it this far,
Darius
Darius and I signed the paperwork for our new apartment yesterday. And they are actually condos, not apartments! WE ARE SOOOO EXCITED! It's off 360 about five/ten minutes away from our current apartment, but it's exactly in the middle of my work and Darius's work now. It's actually smack in the middle of a nature conservancy...You'll love this part, Jess: The company bought like 40 acres or something and they only built on like 4 of them and they designed all the buildings so that they wouldn't have to knock down any trees or anything. Green! We knew you'd love it! (Plus, they have onsite recycling...not many apartments have that).
Their website is www.nallewoods.com and our floorplan is A1. It's actually a little bit different than that because we got a corner unit, which actually increases the square footage to 820 and basically just opens up the bedroom more. And ours doesn't have a fireplace because it's on the first floor.
I'm really excited about this place. Alot of the apartments that we looked at were basically fancy just for the sake of being fancy; they were just showy and a bit too much. These apartments have quality stuff but seem much more laidback and relaxed instead of stuck-up...plus, they have all of the amenities that we really wanted/needed:
-Kitchen open to the living room & dining room
-Plenty of cabinet space (and nice looking real Maplewood cabinets)
-Real granite counters
-A gas stove (soooo important to me! I HAAAATE electric!)
-Tons of natural light because there are windows all through the apartment
-A very big patio (so we can eat outside and barbecue and hopefully start a little herb garden)
I just really like the atmosphere there. We saw a couple of families when we were walking along and they were waving to the girl who signed us, Amanda, and saying hello. Everyone just seemed really geniune, even the signing lady Amanda. At other apartments we looked at, if we would say we liked a feature, like "Oh I like the pantry" or something, they would be really fake and say something like, "I KNOW. ISN'T IT JUST AMAZING???" That lady Amanda was just really upfront and honest. Like our apartment has this little cookbook shelf/wine rack above the fridge and we were like "Oh, wow, I like the little built-in wine rack" and she was like, "Actually, I'd recommend not keeping wine up there because it actually gets pretty hot from being by the fridge and can ruin the wine." I just liked how honest she was. She seemed genuinely excited that we loved the apartment and not just happy to get a commission or something.
Anyway, we move in July 1st. Take a look at the website and let us know what you guys think! We hope you'll all come visit once we move in!!!
In other news...Fredericksburg is this weekend! I can't wait to surprise Darius with everything I've planned and with his awesome presents!
Also... one of my credit card companies keeps track of my credit score every month and I've been working on building my credit for some time now. And my credit's up to a score of 699 now! I'm so excited! It seems like it takes soooo long for people to actually build good credit. Just thought I'd brag about that a little. I bet not many 21-year-olds have good credit or actually care!
-Nicole
So what's consuming our interest this week is Nintendo. I've found a rekindled love in my Gameboy and Nicole got herself a DS. I'm waiting to get this cool sounding Mario RPG game called Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga. Nicole has Brain Age, which is really fun cause you do a bunch of challenging training games to make me not no dummy. Plus it keeps track of each of our profiles so we get to compare and trash talk.
Well that's the story for now. Got to get back to throwing turnips at monsters.
Well Darius has been working every day since we got back from Chicago (last Friday) and he has Friday off (plus the whole weekend off)...So since I've got like 6 weeks of vacation time this year, I decided to take off too. So our weekend starts tonight! We're sooo ready for a relaxing weekend because we've been flying places or driving places every single weekend for like the past month or so. I'm hoping it will be pretty this weekend because I'd really like to play some tennis and do some geocaching..
Unfortunately, it's really rainy and ugly outside right now...which is very bad for Darius. The reason why is because his windshield wipers on his car don't work anymore! So if it rains, he can't drive, which means I have to wake up extra early to drive him to work and then leave work early to pick him up to get him to school on time...what a good fiancee I am!
I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow which I'm already scared for. I HATE doctors. I feel like they're so unpredictable or something... Anyway, remember how I tore that muscle in my back/neck when I was doing the fitness bootcamp? Well, it started getting better but now it's getting much worse again. It sucks so much because it's almost constantly a dull ache and it just feels like it needs to be massaged 24-7. Anyway, I'm going to a different doctor since the last one was a quack. Hopefully they'll give me some more muscle relaxants because that really seemed to help alot. I've also got to get my yearly "well woman exam" on Friday and that makes me want to throw up due to nervousness just thinking about it. I HATE THOSE.
In other news...Darius's birthday is in a little less than a month. On the weekend before his real birthday, I've planned a trip to Fredericksburg for the two of us. He knows we're going there, but everything else--where we stay, the activities, etc--is all a total surprise. I'm trying to make Darius love birthdays as much as I do! We'd really like if everyone came on the weekend of his real birthday to hang out. I'll cook a bunch of stuff and we can all hang out!
What else, what else??? I've finally started doing some of the accounting stuff here at work, which is really exciting. The lady whose stuff I took over doesn't seem to be too happy about it, so that made me feel kind of bad...When I talked to my boss about it, she was like, "Well she got horrible marks on the audit two years in a row and you're the only person that I can trust to be thorough and intelligent enough to do it", so that made me feel really good. My boss is so awesome and motivational! I do still feel kind of bad for the lady whose stuff I took over though, because the audit results actually said that she "lacked the skills and competency". YIKES!
One last thing--everyone should watch that show "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia"...We bought the first and second seasons on a whim one day and it is SOOOO hilarious! Since "Arrested Development" was cancelled, there haven't been any sitcoms that I've been crazy about until this one. Please watch it!
Anyway....that's my very long update! We've been out of the loop from all of this jet-setting we've been doing...ha. Hope everyone has a good weekend! I know we will!
-Nicole
Darius and I decided to make a fun meal since it's springtime and it's finally feeling warm and beautiful outside. Here's the menu: Citrus Fennel Seared Chicken, Corn on the Cob, and Fresh Herb Muffins.
Here's all that was left at the end:
Sounds cool. Cant wait to see some pics. read more
on Well, we've finally moved...