Fast Food Tour - who's with me?

Usually when Pam101 comes to her favorite city of Austin, we hit up our local favs, like Juan's, Chuy's, Kerbey, Magnolia. The last time she was here, I introduced her to Sonic (cue in Heavenly music), and she loved it, naturally. So the next time she comes, I decided to take her to all the fast food joints that they don't have on the East Coast - and I have an excuse to eat this much because of the little alien.

Here's the lineup so far for Fast Food Tour 09 (in no particular order):

You can't beat their half-off all apps from 4-7 EVERY day. This includes their famous seasoned curly fries (which are now waffle fries) with queso. Yummo!

Everyone should try a Sourdough Jack once in their life, and let's not forget 2 deep fried tacos for 99 cents.

Beyond having famous fried chicken, we may stop by Top Notch for the mere fact that one of Pam101's favorite actors was here once filming Dazed and Confused. Can you guess who???

Gravy and 24-hour goodness. Enough said.

So this last one might be purely selfish of me bc I love kolaches. But Pam101 has never had one, and seriously, who doesn't like a hot dog!?

The list can go on and on. If you're wondering why I didn't include Taco Cabana, it's because she actually has been there on one of her trips...

Send any suggestions!

Cougars Unite!

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My ACL lineup includes...

Phoenix - 1901
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Let the renovations begin!

I'm so ready to get started on the remodel of our house. I think we're almost at a point where we can take on bids from different contractors. We have:

Financing - check!

First born to put down as collateral for financing - due November 30!

A great design - check!

The photo below is only one view of the new kitchen, den, dining room and office. But as you can see it really opens up the space in our house, adding about 400 square feet to the back (I think).



Cross your fingers that this plan will work and that it will be done in time for the alien. If not, Mom and Dad, if you're reading this, be prepared to make room in your house come November :)

Now, we just have to convince Dax to get us a pool in the backyard. :)

Go out and buy this!

Played this game for 2 hours last night with my vball team - SOOOO fun! It's sort of like charades with words. DO IT!

Meet the Watsons

These are my people. Lisa and Daryl took Dax and I in when we first moved to DC and the Watsons quickly became our surrogate family. We were so happy to host them finally in our home state!

From the left, Bryce (middle child), Hunter (eldest), Lisa, yours truly, Daryl, and on the floor, little Collin who used to fit in a kitchen drawer when we first met him, and of course, little Lizzie.

Pregnant Phat or Pregnant Fat?

At Barton Springs the other day, this little girl comes up to me and says, "are you pregnant?" With a big, proud smile on my face I reply, "Yes I am."

Little Girl: "I knew it. That's why I told them (her friends) that it was OK you were fat. Because you are pregnant fat."

Me: "You son of a...."

Ok, I didn't really cuss her out after that. But I was mortified! I had to practice my calming technique to stop from spanking her - something I will need to perfect before my alien gets here.

Expanding

Dax and I have been looking into a new addition to the house to make room for the alien in my expanding belly. We had a designer over here yesterday to take a look at our plans and start working on something that the engineers can work with once we choose a contractor.

The guy was nice enough - we asked him to come in at 8:00 to talk and we ended up hiring him and he stayed for a few hours to work on his design. In true Laura style, when it came time to hand over the dough, I asked him if we needed a contract. See, at the beginning, he mentioned his hourly rate in the context of clients constantly changing their designs and that he needed to be fair and charge for his hours of iterations. He said we didn't need a contract and that I could fire him whenever I wanted. Fair enough.

So, I finally ask how much I owe him. His answer: "Well, I was here for 5 hours, that would be $375," to which I reply, "Well technically, you WERE here at 8 a.m., but my husband and I didn't actually hire you until 8:30 and you worked until 1 pm." And it's true, he talked for about 30 minutes about his life story and why we should hire him. I did not mention to him that he took about 5 smoke breaks in between work on MY TIME.

His reply, "Well if it makes you feel better you can give me $337.50."

YES that does make me feel better, thank you very much. If he's padding time right under my nose, I can't imagine what our bill will be like when we get the final design.

I just died and went to geek heaven

Dorks Unite! There is a new Ren-Faire in Texas! We passed a teaser sign on the way to Houston last week.

http://www.sherwoodforestfaire.com/

Live Blog - as boo would call it - from P street NW

Just hopped off the bus to work and started walking when I realized I got caught up in the commuters' rush and started walking waaaaaay too fast for myself. I normally walk at a snail's pace - much to Dax's chagrin - in what I call the Austin pace.

Note of advice to the gayborhood where Pam lives and my office is located: slow the eff down and enjoy your stroll to the office! You know you won't take time to get fresh air at lunch!
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The Joys of eating... and cooking... and working with my team

CulinAerie cooking class was awesome. I hated the cooking but loved the eating ;) I burnt butter twice. How does that even happen!?

Days in DC

I Love Love Love pretending to be a DC commuter. If that's what you can even call it - Pam lives about 10 blocks away from my office here (nevermind that I took the bus for 5 of them. I had to, it's too muggy out.) I'm here for the whole week to work at the office before I can't travel anymore this year.

Highlights from my trip so far:
- I get to dress up and work in a real office with real people. I love my kitty and puppy who normally keep me company during the day but this is really refreshing.

- I've eaten about 10 cupcakes in 2 days! This always happens when I'm in DC. Chocolate with white icing, funfetti with chocolate icing and funfetti with whipped icing.

- Office threw me a shower which included cups with customized Twilight stickers and Rock Band! Baby got tons of presents!



- I woke up this morning at 8 a.m., got dressed and headed to Starbucks for coffee and a croissant. DELISH! (Note: Croissants in the US are 4 times bigger than Buenos Aires! No wonder we Americans are fat.) I loved sitting by the window watching and feeling the energy around me: the buses, taxis and commuters smelly from the hot air outside. Always wanted to live in the city while in DC.

- Watching Twilight 2 nights in a row at Pam's house. On the 2nd night, we decided to write our own sequel to the first book. Stay tuned!


Today, we are doing a day-long communications planning meeting with a break in between for a team building exercise. We are headed to cooking class at Culinaerie!

Ta Ta for now!

Headed to my "surprise" baby shower at the office featuring cupcakes from @pamcakes101 and Rock Band!!!!!