Fry Sauce, Games, and Other Adventures

This week has been a fun one. Saturday we decided to get French fries at Five Guys which is one of Daniel's and my favorite places to get burgers and fries. I decided to finally try out their Cajun fries, and Daniel decided to ask and see if they had any fry sauce. Of course, it being Texas and all, they didn't have any, but after some asking from the girl at the cash register the cook offered to mix up some mayo and barbecue sauce for him. He was pretty close to describing what we would consider "real" fry sauce, so we didn't correct him. In fact, we were amazed that he even had any idea what might go into fry sauce!  My Cajun fries were like having fries with seasoning salt and a small, metaphorical,  flame on them! They had a great taste and then your mouth was on fire! We also love to call up my Dad to tell him where the potatoes came from to make the french fries. Though he won't do it, we always hope a little that Call Farms will make the board some day. Then everyone will know that the potatoes that made their fries were Famous Call Farm's potatoes!

Then we went to a game night put on my Daniel's work manager. We played blokus and lost to an 8 year old. (One of Daniel's co-worker's kids who came to the beginning of the party). They we played a couple of rounds of Bang followed by a quick round of Apple to Apples. It was fun to meet Daniel's work people, and to have a group to play games with. It was a good time!

Earlier in the day on Saturday we helped with an eagle scout project. The scout had collect supplies  to fill 1000 backpacks.  Each backpack had a blanket, two small snack items, a small package of wet wipes, tooth brush, tooth paste, deodorant, and a comb. Basically it was a little hygiene kit for those in need. It was set up really well so you just grabbed a backpack and walked around in a circle past stations where you put on of each item in your bag. There were lots of volunteers so it didn't take too long to finish the whole project. Daniel and I each filled up 8 or so backpacks each. It was good to see people in the ward and talk to them. It was also fun to help out!

A Girl's Week

This week was an eventful week, but most of the events (at least for us) revolved around me and my activities. It did seem to rain for most of the weekend, but we need rain to stop the drought, so we will take all the rain we can get! Daniel didn't have too many interesting things happen this week. (That we can remember, anyway), but he was productive at work testing his project.

Friday night and Saturday morning was our regional women's conference. We have 3 or 4 stakes worth of women in our Austin building and then several other stakes watched remotely around Central Texas. If you wanted a parking spot or a decent seat, you had to be really early! Anyway, we had Sister. Julie B. Beck come and our main speaker during the event. It was kind of cool because on Friday night she took 6 questions from people in the audience. Saturday she gave us more of her thoughts and impressions. Daniel went in the evening to fold up the chairs that they had set up in the gym behind the chapel.

Sunday we ended up sitting on the stand during sacrament meeting because our ward is so big!  Most weeks people end up standing in the foyer because the few seats that are available are hard to find and they are embarrassed to search for them during the middle of the meeting. So the bishop asked those who could and were able to sit on the stand to allow more seats for family that might otherwise have to stand in the foyer. This week we took him up on his offer. It was kind of weird, but not totally bad. We might do it again next week!

Last night I hosted book club for the first time! We read the Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis. (It is about an imaginary bus ride from Hell to Heaven). It is a really great read! (obviously I have to say that because I did pick it out to read for book club!) In a very C.S. Lewis style it is allegorical, but it isn't too long! It makes you think about yourself and the things that you might be choosing that are keeping you from becoming better. Only a few people made it to book club, which is probably good because our apartment is only so big! Anyway, we had a good time!

Two and a Half Years

It's crazy to think that as of yesterday we've been married for 2 1/2 years. It's been amazing! On our first Valentine's Day we realized that our half-year anniversary was the day after, so we figured we'd celebrate our "Halfiversary" instead -- anything we would buy would be a whole lot cheaper. Anyway, this year we decided to take a day off work, and head to the Temple for an endowment session. We did some other fun things too -- like eating out at Olive Garden (it was Elissa's first time there). I think that was really the highlight of the week. Here's a bit about the rest of the week though:

This last weekend I hosted my first candidate for NI (National Instruments). For those of you who aren't familiar, they fly their candidates down for a weekend and have 3 interviews on Friday (so the candidate can show they're worth hiring) and the host shows them around town and answers questions (so NI can show they're worth moving to). Hosting definitely has some perks -- like free dinner, but it is a drain on free time and can be stressful. Sometimes candidates are married and I would get to bring Elissa with me to dinner. Anyway, it was pretty fun. The guy who came down to interview was a BYU student who came from Beijing and is majoring in computer science. Lucky for me he was a nerd, so we had things to talk about.

I don't really know what else to talk about this week, but know that we're alive and happy down here in Texas.

A Good and Busy Weekend.

This weekend was a busy weekend. My parents flew in Thursday evening and I went and picked them up. In fact, this weekend I've done more driving than I have probably they whole time we've lived here. I did get to drive in the day which is a lot easier than driving at night --when I usually drive. So the first thing that happened was that we found out that one of our headlights was out! So Dad and Daniel went to the automotive store to get a new bulb. They come home with a new bulb (already replaced in the car) and some headlight cleaner. It really did make our headlights a lot brighter!

Friday Daniel went to work for a shortened day. (He had extra time from Thursday because he had to wait for me to pick him up.) We got to go see his cubicle and his office during the afternoon. We played some games and had dinner. Saturday we visited Fry's Electronics and went to our favorite Chinese restaurant.

Dad spent most of the weekend trying to figure out Daniel's rubix cube. They now both have a better understand of how to solve the cube than I do. Monday Daniel went to work, and I drove my parents downtown (ish) to see the Lyndon B. Johnson Museum. It was pretty cool, even a second time. It is my first time driving anywhere near down town too. We managed to find the parking lot after doing a quick turn around the block. Tuesday morning I took my parents to the airport. It was a short busy visit!

Parents in Town!

This week has been a pretty slow week for us. We did finally take our pile of things to give away to the Goodwill store. It was good to finally get that pile of stuff out of our extra room and to people who might need it! This event finally came about because we were cleaning up the house in preparation for my parents coming to visit us down in Texas!

Anyway, the flew in yesterday evening, and I went to go pick them up. Unfortunately I got in the wrong lane and had to go back around the airport a couple of times before I got to the pick up spot. They didn't seem too mad that it took me a really long time to finally get around to pick them up. Unfortunately, it seems like the weather is not cooperating because it is supposed to be raining for most of the weekend and cold for the rest. We'll still find a way to have some fun though!

This morning my mom opened up the barber shop/ salon in my kitchen. She cut my dad's hair, and then she gave me a hair cut too. My hair didn't change much; she just cut a few inches off of the bottom. (It was getting really long!) Later this afternoon we are going for a tour of Daniel's work,and that should be a lot of fun!

Lazy Week and a Late Post

This week hasn't been too busy. We really have just been lazy. We watched episodes -- mostly Star Trek Voyager, and Merlin. We played lots of rounds of Pandemic. (For all of you who don't know, Pandemic is a cooperative game Daniel and I got for Christmas.) We finally got off of "entry mode" this week, but then we ended up losing a lot of games in a row on this new level.  After all those losing all those rounds, We decided to play one more round, and we finally didn't loose! Hooray!

We did go visit a park earlier this week to get outside because the weather was nice outside. We played some frisbee and went for a walk. It was a nice park, and we had a good time. The next day the weather turned crazy! We got 2" of rain, but some parts of the area got 5" of rain in one night. A different part of the city had a very small tornado! For us personally, the thunder was so loud that it set off car alarms in our parking lot! 

I did make some good food for dinners this week. We made tacos with fresh tortillas, but I realized, Sunday night, that I didn't have any taco seasoning for my ground beef. Fortunately, the Internet was able to give me an idea of what to mix up for a taco seasoning substitute. I'm not sure I will be using this new recipe for my taco meat forever, but it did add a good flavor to my ground beef this time! I also made meat loaf with Grandma Call's recipe. That is a sure fire recipe for meat loaf. It turned out great! I was excited that I didn't ruin it.

This week Daniel has been busy working on his project at work. Mostly it seems like he is doing testing on parts and his project. (I'm never quite sure what is going on at work, but I know he is working really hard!) He also played in Elders' basketball again this week. I got to see him make a three pointer! Hooray!

Basketball and a Bathroom idea!

This week has been a less busy (read: less exciting) week. This is partly because Daniel borrowed a really long book from the library onto his kindle, but he only has a couple of weeks to read it! So he has been busy reading his book on his kindle, and I have been busy pretending to not be a distracting person. So far, Daniel has been very successful, and I have been less so.

This week Daniel played his first game of basketball for the Shoal Creek B team. (He kind of volunteered and kind of got roped into it.) Our ward is so big that they decided to make two Elders' Quorum basketball teams. As Daniel puts it: there is an A team consisting of talented and hard playing basketball players who play to win and a B team for people who just want to have fun and hang out with people. He feels like he is on the team he would prefer.

This week I tried to come up with stuff to do around the apartment so I would get really bored. I ended up reading Daughters In My Kingdom. (Our ward is supposed to have it read by the time Sis. Beck comes in the middle of February.)

Hanging bathroom stuff

I also had an epiphany one morning as I was cleaning our second bathroom. Since we moved to our new apartment, we haven't had any need for the metal shower caddy we bought to use in our old apartment. This apartment has places as a part of the edges of the shower, but that means the I had a shower caddy hanging in my second shower that never gets used.

Beautifully empty counter

Then, epiphany! Why not hang it in my regular bathroom and get all the stuff off of my counter! Free easy storage!

So it was really easy for everyone out there who just doesn't have enough room on the counter for all their stuff, or for people who just really don't like yucky rings on their counter this was so simple. Conveniently, I had a space right above my outlet!