Texas living

Sorry to have left you hanging after that last post where we jumped in the car to head east and then were never heard from again. We made it to Austin and have been busy getting settled here in our corporate housing. Which is a shame since they kick us out next week! But anyway it has been an eventful month and so far Texas is treating us just fine.


The trip from SF to Austin took three days, with stops in Flagstaff, Amarillo and Dallas. Highlights were eating at the Red Lobster and the Olive Garden...sadly we weren't able to make it to a Chili's to complete the trifecta.



Greg was our modern day welcome wagon, escorting us directly to the nearest Mexican food restaurant for margaritas and queso.



After all of about 12 hours in Austin we hopped in the car to head to Louisiana for Clay's cousin Caroline's wedding, which was just beautiful. Here are Clay and his brother Chris, coordinating wonderfully with their wedding gifts.

We also got to visit Lawson in New Orleans and eat at Restaurant August, which was amazing. If you go to NOLA, eat there. Seriously.



Once we'd logged 3,000 miles onto the odometer it was time to settle in and send Clay off to work. Here he is the morning of his first day.



And here he is that evening, officially a corporate citizen.



Like a good little Austinite I went right over to the DMV and got new Texas plates. No of course we haven't put them on the car yet but that's not the point.



We also got to visit all of our things which are in storage.



Apparently we have four crates, and they seem huge until you think about how your sofa, bed, table, etc. etc. are all crammed in.



And lastly, on Monday Clay uploaded his thesis and now he is officially done with school! Everything has been written, signed off on, updated, uploaded and sent off into some special, special place at Stanford where they keep their most prized works of art. It was actually really, really exciting and everyone is very pleased with his work, so well done Clay!

Hump party

And so, after all of the moving chaos we found ourselves with one last afternoon in San Francisco, a bunch of friends that we wanted to see before we left, a 30-pack of Miller Lite, a small bag of Fritos, a box of kosher salt, a bottle of soy sauce, a bottle of balsamic vinegar and some Corn Flakes. Our apartment was almost completely empty but luckily for our guests there is a window seat type thingy, known as "the hump", that runs the entire length of the apartment, so no one had to sit on the floor. Everyone came over to help us out with the Miller Lite situation and a nice time was had by all.

Simon came first and this gave us time to argue about whether or not the hump was intended as a style element or if it actually hides pipes or something.


Kim and Jim brought a back of SunChips, which was super appreciated by all as apparently our spread of Fritos and Corn Flakes was a bit underwhelming.


Kerry and Tim, cute as ever!


Liz W. was tempted to adopt the bottle of balsamic vinegar and it looked like it was going to be a great match, but Pete was about to take her out for her birthday and in the end she decided she didn't want to be lugging around a bottle of vinegar on her romantic birthday evening. Somehow I managed to not get a photo of Pete and Liz, but as luck would have it we have this older photo of them posing in front of the hump! Pay no attention to the bunny ears in the background...


Liz P. and Bart stretched out and made good use of the hump space in the living room. Liz, btw, declined to adopt the soy sauce or Fritos because of high sodium, but then agreed to take the box of salt. I know, right? And worst of all she forgot it and the salt ended up in the trash the next morning with everything else. May that rest on your conscious forever, Liz!


And here we are! For the record we did finish the Miller Lite, and only then allowed everyone to head up to the pub up the street for some real food. And then the next morning we piled into the Xterra and headed east...

Moving

Before


During


After