Small Town Loving

"Gruene, Texas is the place to be!"

(sung to the tune of the Green Acres theme song)

* this song is amazingly appropriate for our visit to Gruene *

My husband and I are sort of in love with Gruene, Texas. The first time we visited Gruene (pronounced like the color green) was last year in the spring. Little did we know at that time, we would visit the small town again within the next year. Our first trip to Gruene began the little love affair that we now have with the small German-settled Texas town that's located between Austin and New Braunfels.

* our favorite coffee shop in Gruene *

This trip to Gruene was very spur of the moment, and it worked out perfectly to stay the night so we could enjoy the town for the evening. Our first stop while driving through town was the Gruene Coffee Haus. Last year there was a really sweet young woman working at the counter who had a conversation with us like we were quick friends, and she left such a good impression on us (amazing what a little customer service can do) that we made sure to stop by again this time. We enjoyed our drinks, used their free wi-fi to access Hotwire and book another discounted hotel room, and then we walked into town so I could take some pictures! Not much has changed in the year since we visited last, and that's very refreshing going from the city to the small town.

* I still need to buy some Fickle Pickles *

After I captured some pictures around town, we noticed big groups of people heading into the famous Gruene Hall (Texas' oldest dance hall), and we decided we could not pass it up this time. Check out this list of very impressive musicians that have played at Gruene Hall. Upon entering the dance hall, we ordered ourselves a couple of beers and found some open seats in the back of the building. The band playing for the evening was a local Austin band called Stonehoney, and we listened to their music for a few songs. My husband and I enjoyed the live music, felt sort of like we were in a scene from Sweet Home Alabama (city kids returning to small town living), and enjoyed every second spent together around a bunch of happy and fun-loving people. With that being said, we're looking forward to our next visit to Gruene Hall.

* Stonehoney playing at Gruene hall *

* Enjoying some brews and tunes *

After leaving Gruene Hall, we walked to Adobe Verde for dinner and, not surprisingly, more live music! Last year a really great musician, Mark Monaco, played while we ate dinner on the covered porch. This time there was a small band playing in the outdoor dining area. While eating dinner, we looked around at the families enjoying their evening out and had such a great feeling of being at peace with the moment. Needless to day, I am sure we'll visit again.

* music at Adobe Verde *

After our short but sweet time spent in Gruene, we hope to visit again. It's really one of our favorite places, even though we have visited few, in Texas. It sort of feels like home, and that's a good thing.

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Have you ever visited a place that immediately felt like 'home' to you?

Second Day in Texas

On our second day/night in Texas, we ended up staying in downtown Austin. This is the way to go if you're visiting for fun and have never been to town before. Staying right downtown enables you to walk to so many things that Austin has to offer! As I mentioned yesterday, we stayed at the Intercontinental hotel on N. Congress Ave. and 5th Street. The location was great for us, and I would definitely encourage staying downtown at least one night if you get a chance. (Again, check Hotwire and Priceline for good deals). Do it.

Before the sun went down on our second night in town, we found ourselves browsing the food carts/trailers on South Congress (aka SoCo). Among the trailers you can find an amazing assortment of foods, snacks, and desserts. We splurged on cupcakes, because we had already eaten lunch and were still somewhat full from that... but not too full for dessert of course! The 'Hey Cupcake!' trailer was a really awesome Airstream with a cupcake on top.

* Airstream with a Cupcake on top *

* The 'Hey Cupcake!' food trailer *

After eating cupcakes, I spent some time photographing the area. I could not have asked for better light or a more interesting place to get some quality shots of Austin. The menus and selections made me a little sad that we had not spent our afternoon eating our way down South Congress, but it will give us something to do next time we visit Austin! If you have not experienced SoCo in Austin, I suggest that you get yourself down there and check it out.

* South Congress Cowboys *

We saw a couple of cowboys riding their horses down the side of S. Congress, and they rode off into the sunset (sort of). I am not sure that it gets any more 'Texas' than that.

After taking some time to enjoy South Congress, we checked into our hotel downtown and walked around 6th Street and the Warehouse District before finally spending some time at Six Lounge in the Warehouse District of Austin. The band playing on the rooftop deck lured us up there to see what the place was all about, and we found that it was a great place to relax for the night. Deuce Coupe played some really great music that they describe, on their website, as 'rockabilly'. It was a perfect evening listening to live music on a rooftop deck in Austin. Sometimes the best discoveries are those made without expectations.

Overall, our day in Texas was a great learning experience. We found out the areas of Austin that we liked best, and we also spent some time listening to live music in the 'Live Music Capital of the World'. Thanks Austin, Texas for showing us a nice time.

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Stop by tomorrow for some pictures from the Capitol building in Austin and some good times in my favorite small town in Texas!

More of Our Texas Trip

You might already know that my husband is an airline pilot, so we get to fly for free, or very discounted, on quite a few airlines. This coupled with using Hotwire and Priceline for reserving hotel rooms made for a rather affordable quick trip to Texas. We went to scout out some neighborhoods, take a look at some possible rental properties, and just get a feel for Austin. Currently we live near Denver, Colorado and were/are thinking of moving. If anything, we learned more about where we would like to live, and we also had some fun while we were there!

* Austin, Texas Skyline from the Airplane *

The flights were pretty wide open for us, so we traveled back and forth between Denver and Austin very easily. We rented a car, grabbed ourselves a map, and took off to explore. The night before arriving in Austin, we had booked a 3 star hotel. (*Hotwire and Priceline give star ratings to hotels and they also tell you what type of hotel brands/names usually fall into that star rating, so you can get an idea of where you'll probably end up. You don't actually know the hotel until after you accept and pay for it, so it's kind of exciting... or disappointing.) On our first night in town, we actually arrived around 11pm and only stayed at the first hotel just to sleep that night. (Thankfully because it smelled 'weird' and was located behind a sort of 'sketchy' bar with billiards and lots of people smoking all over the place. Gross.) When booking hotel rooms using Hotwire and Priceline, we typically just book them for one night in case they aren't so nice. We did switch hotels each night, but I don't mind too much... because then I get to try a lot of different places. We also save money. Win, win! We ended up staying at a La Quinta Inn (which was not so great) north of Austin, the Intercontinental hotel in downtown Austin, and the Wingate by Wyndham (which was the cleanest and newest we stayed at during our trip) just north of New Braunfels. We used Priceline's name your own price feature for the Intercontinental and got more than 50% off the cost of a regular priced room. (I felt like we won the hotel lottery, but my husband said he felt sort of cheap... I still say we won). The moral of this story is, don't pay full price for a hotel if you're on a budget. If you would like to stay at a locally owned place they more than likely won't be on those websites, so don't use them in that case. Either way, we were able to visit Texas for a few days for relatively cheap by taking advantage of flight benefits and cheap/discounted hotel rooms.

* enjoying the sun and views of Lake Austin *

Thanks to Jenni @ Story of My Life and Alisha @ Alisha and Brandon  making me aware of a place on Lake Austin called Abel's on the Lake, we spent some time there enjoying lunch and a couple of local microbrew beers. We both had the fish tacos, which I hate to admit were a little disappointing after comparing them to our all time favorite fish tacos from the Gruene River Grill in Gruene, Texas. However, we did enjoy the atmosphere at Abel's, the drinks, the birds flying all around the place, and the views of Lake Austin. Fun time, but I think we're going to try the Hula Hut, which is located next door, on our next trip to Austin!

* we enjoyed some local brews *

After driving around many different areas of Austin, we found some that we liked... and some that we did not like much. The rental market is similar to Denver (the prices and availability are a lot alike), but the house prices seem to be lower in Texas (although Austin is higher than most of Texas) than they are in the Colorado front range. I had been browsing median incomes vs. housing prices between the two, and I found it really disturbing that the median income in Colorado was around 7k more than in the state of Texas... yet the median house price in Colorado is almost twice that of Texas. Not really sure what makes the prices so high here compared to what people make?!

Unfortunately, we're not ready to commit to buying a house or we could just go ahead and buy something somewhere. For now, I guess we'll just keep looking and continue renting. Even though we probably won't be moving to Austin any time soon, we did enjoy our time there and had fun exploring the area.

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In the next few days, I'll share more of our trip including:

* snapshots from South Congress and the food trailers
* some live music we heard while in Texas

* our brief but fun visit to Gruene

* a beautiful and historic church in New Braunfels

Also don't forget to check out my picture blog and my Flickr photostream for some more professional pictures of our trip!

Trip to Texas & Home Again

We literally just walked in the door, unpacked our bags, and now I'm writing a quick blog to recap a few things and let you know what I'll be blogging about for the next few days or so.

I also have some serious catching up to do when it comes to reading all of your latest blog posts... got a bit behind while we were gone!

The Lone Star State

One thing that we learned while in Texas is that Austin real estate and rental prices are pretty similar to those in Denver. (aka too expensive for us). However, I am pretty convinced that we could get a little more house in Austin for our money than we could in the front range of Colorado. (Too bad we are nowhere near ready to buy a house). We found some really nice neighborhoods in Austin that we liked and could imagine living... if we had a couple million to spare. We might have expensive taste when it comes to choosing a place to live. That being said, it looks like we are never going to get out of debt and are never moving anywhere. Only kidding... or am I? If anything, we learned a little and had fun doing it.

What I'll be blogging about these next few days:

* our time spent in Texas

* being a tourist in Austin

* feeling at home in Gruene, Texas

* the live music scene

Hopefully you'll join me these next few days as I share our trip to Texas with you! (:

Decisions, Decisions

One of the reasons that I started this blog was to try and get my voice out there and maybe share what it's like being married to a pilot. When I would feel lonely and confused about the unstable nature of my husband's career and our future, it was nice to get online and read about how other pilot wives deal with this unique life. I am thankful for everything that we have... and I would never ever want my husband to do anything other than what he loves to do. He also supports me in what I hope to do, and we share this crazy and ever-changing life! We're in it together, and that's something that I love about this 'adventurous' life we share.

this picture was from my drive across Nebraska

... I moved by myself from Michigan to Colorado.

Recently we've been putting a lot of thought into what/where we might move to next. I have really been gaining this strength within that keeps telling me that you lose so much more from not trying something than from trying something and 'failing'. What is a failure anyway? To me a failure is a learning experience and a chance to grow. So even when you fail... you win. What do we have to lose by possibly moving somewhere new?! Nothing that I can think of. We could always visit our families if we moved away. (I've been living in a different state than my parents live in for almost 5 years now. We're all surviving... and thriving). I seriously feel that our biggest loss would be not trying anything at all. If I had been too scared and never moved to Colorado, then I never would have met my husband (well maybe we would have been pulled together eventually) and who knows where I would be now. We have so much to gain by putting ourselves out there and trying for what our heart desires! I really think that we should just follow our heart... wonder where it will lead us to next?

The water?

 The desert?

The mountains?

... or the city?

On top of our thoughts of moving, in the back of my mind are the questions (I do my best to quiet them) that pop up when I think about my husband possibly getting hired at another airline in the near future. Will that require another move? Will he commute from wherever we live to wherever he needs to be? Will we want to move closer to wherever he is based so that we can spend more time together? Yikes!

Until now... I think I'll just try and focus on where we are moving when our lease here is up. What to do? Where to move?

Remembering Our Honeymoon

With our one year anniversary in our rear view mirror already, my husband and I are a little shocked that it's over so quickly. We don't get another 1st Anniversary, and it reminds us to make each second with loved ones count... because we don't get a redo. Crazy how time flies!

We stayed in Bonita Springs, Florida for our honeymoon last year. People wondered why we stayed there, and we chose it because it was located between the Ft. Myers/Sanibel area and Naples. We wanted to visit places and do things in both areas. It was convenient for the things that we did, and we were happy with our hotel (minus an accidental double charge to our debit card) and how close it was to everything that we needed.

The sandpipers at Barefoot Beach were so cute, and they appeared to effortlessly glide across the water. I could have watched them all day long! Has anyone else seen sandpipers on the beach?

* boat ride in Naples *

We took a boat ride out of Naples on a very sunny but windy and chilly day. The boat captain and other workers pointed out wild life and told us all about some of the owners of the mansions we rode by on Naples Bay. The wind was blowing too hard, and they were not able to take us out onto the Gulf during this trip. While cruising back to the dock, the captain spotted dolphins and they followed the boat wake almost all the way back in to the dock. The workers told us all that this was the most dolphins they have seen follow the boat at once. There were about 7 or 8 dolphins, and they played on each side of the boat for about 10 minutes. Seeing the dolphins jump and play in the wild made my day!

* Caution: the wind in this next video is loud... watch your volume level.

* Pardon my schoolgirl-like giggling. I was seriously excited to see these adorable dolphins leaping and playing. Have you ever seen dolphins in the wild before? 

Hopefully you're not tired of dolphins by now. I am sure that I'll never get sick of seeing them... ever! If these videos don't make you want to be a dolphin... then I don't know what will. This might sound really silly, but seeing these dolphins so carefree in the wild really served as a reminder to enjoy every second of life!

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Hope you're smiling as the sun sets...