Ladybugs, Lions & Lizards! Oh My!

L Day started off early with breakfast. 

When D was heading to the table, I told him that he was going to have a special breakfast for L Day, to which he replied, "A special breakfast? I so excited!" Have I mentioned that my son is awesome? But unlike the caterpillar snack from yesterday, he dove right into his lion waffle*.

*It was a waffle, mandarin oranges, banana slices and two chocolate chips in the eyes. You'd think I was a gourmet chef from his happy reaction.

Confessions activity

Since breakfast was such a hit, Dylan was ready to immediately dive into L Day activities. He wanted to do a L puzzle. Okay, I know that the upper/lower sorting game isn't a puzzle, but he didn't argue. He is getting to be a pro at sorting his letters. He did this one quickly without any help or any hesitation. I was pretty excited...and proud.

Confessions activity

Next, we did the letter search. There were so many Ls in there! He is really good at finding the ones at the beginning of words, but finding ones in the middle was a little harder. This was definitely his most challenging letter search so far.

One of our afternoon crafts that we were both excited about was building a L Lizard. Dylan had a little example picture and I cut out all the pieces. I was on glue duty and he put everything in its place. It turned out really cute!

Placing the head

The L Lizard!

We took the L hunt into Dylan's room looking for more L stuff. He ran straight to his bed and pointed out the L in his name.

And there is a lion picture on the wall!

Our last craft of the day (after doing his L Dot sheet) was creating a ladybug. I showed him how to use the glue stick on the back of the dots and he concentrated SO hard. It was really cute to watch.

The movie of the night was The Lion King. I love watching the opening sequence with Dylan because he gets so excited seeing all the animals. When the baby and adult giraffe came onto the screen (as the song says, "...and blinking step into the sun") Dylan said, "Awww! A baby and mama giraffe. Dats so cute!" What a nut!

A Quick Bahrain Recap

I know it’s been forever since I wrote anything – this summer has been complete madness. Even though we’ve all been very busy, Dylan and I have been talking to Josh as often as possible. Lately, he has been putting in ridiculous work hours to help get his boat in working order. Between our busy summer, Josh’s work schedule, and the 8 hour time difference, it has been challenging. But we manage to Skype 2-3 times a week.

But don’t think that Josh is only working and not having any fun. 

He (not surprisingly) has joined up playing on a Softball team. I’m not sure how those guys tolerate sweating all day in their uniforms and then voluntarily going back out there in the evenings to sweat some more. I guess the playoffs started this week, so I'm sure they're having fun.

He has also purchased a bike for getting around over there. It's a must faster commute to the base from his apartment. He’s also gone on some day trips with some friends.

He's even getting some travel time. He headed to Kuwait on a 4-day trip last month.

On a fun side note, Josh has been enjoying the local cuisine. 

About a week before he was deployed, we went to see The Avengers. If you stayed until the very end and saw the clip after the credits, you saw the Shwarma scene. A Shawarma is a fast-food staple in the Middle East. I told him that he had to take a photo of his first one once he got over there.

While he was in his hotel room during his first week there he took the photo for me. Yay!

Eating My Way Through Austin, TX

When I went to Austin I didn’t really know what to expect. I knew there would be music and I expected to have a taco or 12. What I didn’t know was that I would end up wanting to eat my way through the city and not have enough time to do it.

THURSDAY

The feasting began the first night we were there. Andrew decided to cookout for everyone at his house. I had just arrived around five in the evening, so I had a lot of catching up to do with the rest of the crew. Everyone else had already been tubing and drinking all day, so some needed to nap, some needed to shower, and some were ready to start all over again.

I got to hang out with my boys. All that was missing was my husband. 

Drew, B-ry & Matt

This photo is of Andrew, Bryan, and Matt hanging out in Drew’s backyard and chowing down on some fresh mango slices. There is a walking path just outside Andrew & Holly’s fence in the backyard. I think we saw at least two dozen dogs taking their owners for their evening walks.

Andrew was our grill master for the night. He prepared beer can chicken, mangos, corn on the cob, and ribs. I did manage to get him to let me help marinate the ribs and prepare the corn. I was feeling the need to help out with the feast.

It was a beautiful night (aside from a couple rain drops) so we were all sitting out on the deck enjoying our time together, and the smell of the food grilling. 

At some point Shannon said, “Is something on fire?” We all responded with casual “No” answers. Not five minutes later, someone realized that something was, indeed, on fire. It was the beer can chicken. Not too worry, there were several ex-lifeguards on duty, and Matt’s quick thinking had him running into the kitchen to grab a towel and taking the chicken off the grill. Don't worry, the skin was charred, but the meat ended up still tasting great later.

Even with the small disaster, our dinner ended up being really nice. We stuffed ourselves and had a great time. Andrew gets major points for his grilling skills. And Holly made some kicking potatoes!

B-ry, Shannon, Rob, Drew, Elliot, Mike, Lisa & Holly (Clockwise)

FRIDAY

The next day, I spent the afternoon exploring the city with Shannon and Rob. Rob and I were newbies, but Shannon had been there a few times, so she took over as tour guide. We had a list of places to check out. And we did! If only we could have squeezed several meals in! My stomach just couldn't fit any more!

Our first stop was lunch at Hopdoddy Burger Bar. I absolutely love a good quality burger, so I was really excited to try out the local fare. Hopdoddy prides themselves on fresh/all-natural products. They grind their own meat, bake their own bread, and cut their own fries. They also have craft sodas instead of the traditional Pepsi or Coke products. We made our orders and waited at our table for our burger experience to begin.

Self portrait in our booth while waiting for our food

I ordered the Terlingua Burger and drank the Doppelganger soda. 

My burger was Angus beef, Chile con carne, Fritos, Tillamook Cheddar, and Sassy Sauce (Yes, you read that right. There were Fritos on my burger). They serve your food on a metal tray so it can catch all the delicious grease that runs down your fingers. The fries were great too - I dipped mine in chipotle ketchup. Yum!

Up the street from Hopdoddy was a parking lot full of food trucks. I was so stuffed from my epic burger that I couldn't even think about purchasing anything from the trucks...not even the cupcake truck. How disappointing?

Shannon, however, wanted to sample Home Slice Pizza. She only tasted our burgers so she could save room for some pizza by the slice. She ordered two slices to sample. She stuck with the basics and got one slice of cheese and one slice of pepperoni. They came out hot and tasty! (I snagged a quick bite off hers) It was pretty good NY style. Although, it wasn't really better than other by-the-slice places I've had in the past.

But, if you know anything about my husband, it's that he has an obsession with pizza by the slice. He has a radar for these joints when we travel anywhere. So, I had to take a photo of myself in Home Slice, just for him. I also had one of the pizza guys tell me about all the flavors in the window. I was very interested in the sausage + garlic pizza, but still way too full to even think about getting a slice. (They cut the sausage like pepperoni and sprinkled garlic all over the top! YUM!)

Later that night, we were off to the rehearsal dinner. (More about the party part later - right now it's all about the food!) It was a buffet style set-up with a long table of great smelling food. 

My two favorite items were the tilapia (you can see two pieces on the top right corner of my plate) and the ranch dressing. I know that sounds weird, but I like a really good quality ranch (not as much as Brittany does, but she wasn't there to critique it, so I had to take over as the resident ranch expert). I can't believe I had enough room after my huge burger earlier to eat the whole plate. But when it's good, it's good!

Bryan and Matt were ready to dig in!

               

The dessert bar had two kinds of cheesecake and an English Trifle with strawberries. Shannon was super excited about the Trifle.

               

SATURDAY

It was wedding day! But not until late in the evening, so we had all day to hang out with the groom and have some fun. He decided to lead us to a taco Food Truck for lunch. There was a huge group of us and we were hungry!

Waiting in line to order our tacos

Andrew gave us some advice on which ones were his favorites and how we go about ordering. Brittany and I decided to each order one of our own and then to order one more that we could share.

Matt, Britt, Me & Drew ready for tacos!

My tacos were AWESOME!

Fried Avocado on top, The Democrat on bottom

I ordered "The Democrat" for myself and the "Fried Avocado" taco to share with Britt. I actually liked the Avocado taco better, but they were both very good. I'm sure I could have stuffed another one in if it was on the plate. Food is dangerous when it tastes so amazing!

That night we enjoyed a dinner of Hors D'Oeuvres at the Wedding Reception. I took a photo of my and Brittany's plates before we dug in. There were lamb balls, southwest eggrolls, spicy hummus, au gratin potatoes (with an amazing cheese in them), and several dips. 

Photos don't do all these meals justice. But know that if you plan a trip to Austin,  you will be eating well! Now if you don't mind, I need to go fast for a few days to make up for the ridiculous amount of food I consumed last weekend. Thank you, Austin, for making my belly happy!