Everything's Bigger in Texas

   YES, y'all are getting two post within a week of each other. I know I've posted like a billion pictures on Facebook lately, but we have done A LOT of sight-seeing and wandering here. I strongly believe that the reason they say "everything's bigger in Texas" is because the state itself is huge. Since we are in Central Texas, we're right smack in the middle of all the major cities, BUT that does't mean they are close by. Austin and Dallas are both at least two hours away, then San Antonio and Houston are a bit further. We went to SXSW in March, but since then we've found all kinds of neat stuff events that are out here.

    One weekend we went cliff jumping and swimming in the nearby lakes with some guys from Joel's company. We then learned of a neat/odd little event in the nearby town of Copperas Cove called RabbitFest. It was the first time Joel had been to a carnival and so we rode a lot of the crickety, look like they are going to break while on them carnival rides. It was so much fun, other than the fact that I had not been on any of those sorts of rides in ages and they are apparently not as fun as I remember. We came home that night feeling sick to our stomaches because we had spun way to fast on one of the rides, but it was completely worth all the fun we had. 

Joel at the lake.

Ferris wheel

   The next weekend was Memorial Day weekend. We had a four day, decided to look up somethings to do, and found RedFest, held at Circuit of the Americas in Austin. Jeff Foxworthy put on the entire event for the weekend, and gave out over 6,000 tickets to soldiers and their families. Thankfully, I was able to find who had extra tickets and we got in for free on Saturday & Sunday! There were so many great performances by wonderful artists. Saturday night we saw Kip Moore and (the other love of my life) Tim McGraw, then Sunday morning we got up early to see Phil Robertson of Duck Commander and his son Alan preach. Joel & I were as red as tomatoes from an hour of sitting in the sun that morning, so we went to the nearest tent to hear all the music before going back to amphitheater to hear Jeff Foxworthy and the Florida Georgia Line. 

Meeting Bruce from Swamp People

Suburnt afternoon. 

Waiting for FLGA Line.

   A few weeks later, some of Joel's family came to visit us for a few days. It was fun having a house full of people, and made me miss the hectic crazy family of mine back home. After all the girls left, Joel's brother Jon stayed over the weekend to spend time with him before he left for Hawaii. Joel left for the field and I drove Jon to the airport in Austin with both dogs. When Joel got back and had his next four day we took a trip to San Antonio. We kicked off the trip by going to SeaWorld. It was so very crowded, but we made the most of it and enjoyed it. Although, Joel kept referencing Blackfish and hoping the beluga whales would eat the trainers. Afterwards Joel wanted to see the Alamo, so we went to downtown. It was so pretty, but again crowded. Then, we walked across the street to the Ripley's Believe It or Not! and the wax museum, which were pretty neat. We decided to walk a couple of blocks down to the RiverWalk to get dinner after a long day of sight-seeing.  The atmosphere at the RiverWalk is amazing, pretty crowded, but gorgeous. I was really hoping to eat at Rainforest Cafe, but there was an hour and a half wait, so we put our names on the wait list, and then went down across the river to Hard Rock to get on the wait list there. We decided to see which one would have an opening first and waited it out. Which means we ended up at Hard Rock.

   Joel has been in the field for the last week and a half, so he will be home just in time for a four day weekend and my favorite holiday. We haven't really decided what adventure we'll going on, but it looks like we need to explore the major city of Dallas.