Visitors Thrice

School started for teachers about 2 weeks ago and the kids came back yesterday.  Life has been busy with lesson plans, moving my classroom around, sweeping and mopping up crickets (have I mentioned the cricket problem we have in Austin?).  Luckily Dave came with me one day and spent 4 hours helping me clean ALL the cricket (parts) up.  I guess that's the price I pay for teaching at a school with portables. I almost took a picture of the pile we had swept up, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.  So for now, you'll have to just imagine. 

Now on to more lovely things...

Before school started, we had some wonderful guests in town, 3 times over!

First Dave's youngest brother Bryan came for a visit.  He had a wedding to attend in Dallas and made the extra trip out to see us in Austin for a few days.  We took him out to eat at some of the yummiest eateries in town (Chuy's and Rudy's were included of course).

He also helped Dave put together our new bed:

Don't you think they look alike?  It was so fun to have Bryan here (and not just for his crazy good bed-putting-together skills).

So Bryan headed out for the wedding, we tossed the sheets and towels in the washer, and were lucky to have my good friend from high school and college, Natalie in town with her family.  Granted, most of the time we just ooo'ed and aww'ed over her adorable 1.5 year old son Owen. At first he wasn't too sure about us, but then we let him play with Dave's PlayStation remote and all was well.

On Sunday afternoon we "hiked" up Mount Bonnell (on the day that it was 104 outside of course).

At the top of Mount Bonnell: Natalie, Soren, and Baby Owen

We also spent some time at a local water park, went outlet mall shopping, and spent some time at IKEA!  We had such a fun time with them.  Each night we were so exhausted from being out in the heat, so we just ended up making some kind of yummy dessert (i.e. Soren's famous brownies) and watched a movie after putting Owen to bed.

Just look at his cuteness though:

                          

Ok now on to guest #3.  We had Dave's friend from high school/college Jake in town!  We took him to our ultimate most yummy favorite delectable Indian restaurant, The Clay Pit.  It is this cool place in downtown Austin that used to be an old mansion and was restored and turned into a restaurant.

                                

We rented movies, showed him some more favorite local spots to eat, and ate Blue Bell ice cream. :)  Our favorite.  Try the homemade vanilla if you have Blue Bell in your city.

It was such a fun couple of weeks.  When everyone left the house felt a little empty, but we didn't take long to jump back in to remodeling!  We just ordered a new couch yesterday and Dave started ripping up the baseboards in the entry and living room.  We are replacing them with nice tall ones.  Pictures to follow!