The Grand Tour

Jon's adorable family drove 6 hours to Austin to scope out apartments for us and they found us an absolute gem. Our new apartment is hands down the greatest place I have ever lived and definitely the best apartment Jon and I have had since we got married.

The Kitchen

I don't know if it's a girl thing or something that came with getting married or perhaps its something people in general love, but these pictures don't do justice to the glorious amounts of counter space I have in my new kitchen,

which also comes with a garbage can that is magically emptied if I leave it outside my door.

But my very favorite part is the dishwasher--I have lived without one for far too long. Whoever invented the dishwasher deserves a gold star and a lifetime supply of King Vitamin.

I pronounced kitchen officially unpacked when the owls were placed on the counter.

The Living Room

Mmmhmm. It's a living room alright.

Jon's Creative Nook

The living room is big enough that we got to make a little nook for Jon to unleash his creative genius on his artwork. This works perfect because Jon can focus on his comics and I can read on the couch.

Sometimes Jon uses Spidey for a little inspiration.

Jon put up these pictures of us the summer we met and I got a haircut that made me look like a little boy and he had the sweet grace to fall in love with me anyway.

Our bookcase got a little shorter during the move--Target Schmarget--so I ended up picking my favorites and packing the rest of my books until we get another one. That's Julio Huesos and Pumpkin Head hanging out on the top shelf.

And above the bookcase is this cool picture we inherited from Jon's sisters because they couldn't fit it in their car when they moved back to Texas.

The Bathroom

The Outside and Whatnot

Our apartment is on the third floor right behind the middle palm tree. For the first week we were living here it felt like we were on vacation or visiting someone else's life. If it wasn't for the heat, Austin would be an absolute paradise--it's so hot that I have pretty much become a vampire and only come out once the sun has gone down.

Texas: Fact vs. Fiction

My mental picture of Texas had pretty much been formed by Western movies and a mug my mom brought me back from Arizona.

I was surprised to see how green and beautiful Texas looks so I thought I'd give you a comparison of what I thought Texas would look like:

And what Texas actually looks like:






Silly Nicole. Texas isn't a wasteland at all.

THE long, long drive

Yep, it was a loooong drive--so I'll just give you the highlights.

We saw some windmills,


and a creepy cloud face watching over us (it's right above the semi).

It could have been a boring drive, but Jon and I came prepared with all the essentials of a good road trip (in addition to a car):

1 - Trail mix we ate so much of that it makes me a little sick to think about it.

2 - A mostly reliable co-pilot (that would be me--no road trip is genuine without at least 9 or 10 highway U-turns).

3 - And music. Well, we would have had music except someone had broken into our car and theifed the stereo a few months ago.

Good thing we actually like talking to each other. We ironed out our top 5 TV shows/childhood cartoons/anime series/animated movies lists and mapped the plot for several issues of the comic Jon has in the works. That got us all the way to New Mexico and then we talked about our favorite memories and moments with our favorite people. After that topic was exhausted, we'd made it to Texas and the sun was setting.


After a few hours of driving in the dark we passed a sign that said DO NOT PICK UP HITCH HIKERS PRISON FACILITY which made me think of this story I read in a magazine about a woman who becomes pen pals with an inmate and tricks herself into thinking he's a nice person because she's lonely but finds out he's this horrible person who murdered his wife and parents.

I told Jon about the story and immediately regretted it because it's dark and late and I get scared so easy that I already felt the paranoia fear setting in that the car was going to break down and we'd be invited into a mansion only to find out too late the owner likes to bath in the blood of young maidens.

Then Jon asked me if I made sure to lock my door every time I went into a gas station so that no one could get into the backseat of our car underneath all of our stuff.

You wouldn't think a guy with such a sweet face would ever say anything that would scare his wife so much but when he said that it made me so scared in my heart that there was some hairy man in plaid shirt crouching underneath all of our stuff in the backseat and he was going to reach out his dirty hands and kill us.

Since I was already scared it made me remember all the scary parts in movies I had seen and I started thinking about this one time me and my friends told scary stories (and by told I mean looked them up on the internet and then read them to each other) about skin-walkers--and, in short, I had really freaked myself out.

By this time it was around 1 a.m., we'd been driving since early in the morning, and Jon started seeing stuff on the road that wasn't really there--mostly raccoons. Raccoons are probably his spirit guide. He was getting pretty tired and needed to take a nap so I drove for a while but then I started having these hallucinations that there were these black shapes moving along side the road in my peripheral vision and the road would start looking like it was a mirage and then snap back to normal.

Around 3 a.m. we figured it was time to find a hotel and get some sleep. So we did.

We finished our drive to Austin the next day and we were so excited to finally see the Austin skyline that we just about made water in our pantaloons.

Goodbye SLC

After we finished packing, Jon and I said goodbye to some of our favorite places in Salt Lake. Like where we went on our first date:


I knew he was a keeper after he told me he'd seen The Last Unicorn which I watched over and over growing up (along with The Brave Little Toaster).

And our favorite restaurant:


And the most beautiful temple where we were married:


Unfortunately the weather was a little colder in January.


We've loved living in our apartment in the Avenues,


especially since we could walk to get groceries at the Smiths just up the street and walk to get delicious chocolates made down the street and over one block.

We've also loved how beautiful the Avenues are and all the cool houses:





Of course it wasn't until the last weekend we were there that we discovered an adorable park that looks out over the valley.


But it was still a nice surprise.

Hello Blog

I'm moving to Texas with that wonderful fellow I married so I figured I'd better start a blog since how else will I be able to keep in touch with everyone, I hear talking on the phone is the new 8-track. Also, now I can comment on all of the blogs I have read and stalked in secret.

I officially whereby and heretoforwith say: Hello Blog.

Or as I will soon say: Howdy Blog.