A Day in the Life...: January 2013

We have been SO busy! This past weekend, Laura, a WorldTeach volunteer who worked with James came in to visit us. She is from Finland, but studies in New York. Anyway, we had many adventures with Laura. When she got into town, we went to the Chimes where James used to Bar Tend. We had fun letting her try all of the southern food! The next day, we went to the Myrtles. We had lunch there and also took a haunted tour of the plantation. On Saturday, Laura, Andre', and I spent the day in New Orleans. We went to the Insectarium, the IMAX, the Aquarium, got Beignets, and walked in the quarter. We also took a streetcar ride. On Sunday, we had brunch at the Cheesecake Bistro. It was super delicious. I think that she enjoyed her time here with us! We sure enjoyed having her here.

Today was a long day full of fun in Round Rock! We started the day with a 12:15 daily mass at St. William Church. Before Mass, we got information about the Parish and local schools. We learned that St. William is the parish that does not have a school attached, but rather a 1-5 early childhood center. I can't say enough about how beautiful this Church Parish is! They are so welcoming and seem to be a very involved parish! After Mass, we went to Water 2 Wine for a wine tasting and to make custom labels! The wines that we tried we all very good. It was hard to choose which one we wanted our custom label on, but Jon and I final agreed that we liked the White Cranberry Whisper. It was fun to take our picture at the winery and put it on the bottle! We even got to match the color of the font to Jon's shirt color. After she printed the label, we got to choose the foil color. We of course chose purple to go with Jon's shirt and the font color. It was so cool to see the process! After, We went to Round Rock Doughnuts! Jon's most anticipated part of the trip! He was just SO excited to get his hands on a Texas sized doughnut! Round Rock Doughnuts was on the Travel channel and on the Food channel and we just had to see what the BIG deal was! We ordered the BIGGEST doughnut I have EVER seen! It was a dozen doughnuts crammed into one! Weighing in at about a pound of fluffy, glazy, chocolaty deliciousness, Jon finished about 3/4 of the thing! He said it was VERY worth the $5! After doughnuts, we set out on an adventure to find "The Round Rock"! We found it fairly quickly because it just happened to be near the doughnut shop! It is quite literally a round rock and it is located in a stream! To be adventurous, Jon, Jess, and I all went and stood on top of the rock! Somebody suggested that we go to a gas station BBQ place called Ruby's. So before we headed back to Austin for the night, we stopped in... after looking for it for about 20 min! It was SO delicious! The way they serve you was pretty cool too! you order meat by the quarter pound and they slice it fresh right in front of you! We ordered a half pound of Turkey and a half pound of brisket. Then, they give you half of a loaf of sandwich bread so that you can make sandwiches with your meat. They had a special BBQ sauce that was to die for and a table of fixin's! It really was so good! After we got back to the hotel it didn't take long for us to shower and get in our PJ's! We watched TV and ate ice cream from the carton! It was such a busy and fun day!