Demolition Day 2 - Worn Out!

Scott and the girls

We finished day two of the kitchen and floor demolition and I am worn out. It's been a long time since I've worked this hard. We got a lot done today and only have about an hour to do tomorrow to finish everything up. We got most of the wall removed; only two 2X4's left to remove from the ceiling and the hallway carpet, baseboards and tack boards. Beds were also delivered today so we get to sleep on a bed again. No more air mattress for awhile.

Working hard or hardly working?

The kitchen and wall are gone!

We ran a couple errands after the demo today. We needed to buy a light for the spare bedroom that we're staying in and then some odds and end stuff.

We met Mike and the girls out for dinner at Chino Bandino after and it was awesome, such a great hole in the wall restaurant. That was the first thing that Scott had eaten all day, he was starving.

Fun with Uncle Scott

After dinner we dropped the girls off at Jessica's and headed over to see Adam and Rachel. It was so great seeing Adam and meeting his fiancé. I'm glad that we're going to be in the Valley for the winter so that we can spend more time with both of them.

We got back to the condo and hit the sack. We we're able to rig an awesome set-up in the bedroom so that we can watch movies on the laptop. So we threw in a DVD and called it good for the night!

Demolition Day 1

Condo before demolition

Kitchen before demolition

We got a nice early start today on the condo but first things first; I needed cleaning supplies and a vacuum. We borrowed the vacuum from friends and bought cleaning supplies and a new lock for the front door.

I worked on cleaning the condo while Scott worked on tearing up the carpet. Between the two of us we cleaned both bathrooms, the hall closet and spare bedroom closet, as well as vacuumed the entire condo, pulled all of the tiles up from the kitchen floor and half of the carpet.

Tomorrow we should be able to finish the carpet removal and two beds will be delivered. We're both hoping that by the end of the week we'll have the entire kitchen out as well as the wall that separates the kitchen from the living room.

Taking up the tiles, demo day 1

Demo day 1 - taking up the carpet

I love demo, it is fun! The only bummer is that we're going to be living with bare bones in the condo until the kitchen is installed at the beginning of December. Oh well, I guess Scott will be doing a bunch of grilling!

Our Road trip is coming to an end

Our road trip is pretty much at the end with this past trip to Texas. We are still unaware with where we're going to end up. It's a toss up between Bend, OR and Prescott, AZ. We made the decision to stay in Phoenix for the winter to help my parents with their condo and to be with my side of the family for Christmas. At least we get to enjoy Phoenix at the best time of the year!

We both fly back to IN on Monday to visit our families since we will be in AZ for the holidays. It will also give us a chance to get some of our clothes and necessities that we need for the winter and then we will drive one of my parents cars back.

My parents are in the process of remodeling their condo and Scott and I are doing some of the work. I will continue to blog as we make progress with the condo and anything exciting that we do over the winter. We're both looking for 6 month contract jobs for the winter and are planning on hitting the road to either Oregon or Northern AZ come April or May. I guess we now have plenty of time to make our decision!

In the next few days I'm going to do a quick summary of our trip. I'm excited to actually look back and read all of the posts again. Look for more from us in the future!

On the road again

We left Austin this morning at 7:15. The drive was uneventful again; nothing too exciting. I think I slept for half the trip! I must have been worn out from the last few nights.

We're staying at my parent's condo now. When we got there we turned the air on and made a quick trip to Walgreens for water and disinfectant wipes. I gave all of the counters and toilets a quick once over before getting ready for bed.

We're sleeping on an air mattress for the next couple of nights until the beds are delivered which is no biggie... until the huge roach crawled across the floor! Yikes!! At this point it's almost 10pm and both Scott and I are thinking that there's no way we're sleeping on the floor with roaches so we quickly jumped into the truck and headed over to Lowes to buy bug spray. Thankfully there was a Target closer and Scott made it through the doors with about 2 minutes to spare. Once we were back at the condo Scott sprayed for bugs and made me feel a bit more at ease. I don't think I'll truly feel comfortable until the beds arrive!

Otherwise, we had a relaxing night playing two handed euchre.

Last day in Austin

Taking Ume on a walk

We finally got up at a decent time today and decided to take the dogs on a nice long walk since they didn't get much of one yesterday. We headed over to Lady Bird Lake, a place where Laura takes the dogs often.

There was a nice dirt trail along the lake that many jobbers, walkers, and bikers use. It was nice and thankfully shaded by the trees. We ended up walking our way to the place we went the first day with the dogs and let them go for a swim. There was such a cute lab puppy and a couple cute german shepherd puppies, it was fun. Ume does such a good job with his recent blindness you would hardly even know! It's also fun to watch Gaia swim. I think she was meant to live near water as much as she goes in it!

We had a lazy afternoon but did pick up a couch for my parent's condo from one of Laura's clients. We also went to a frozen yogurt place for a quick afternoon treat.

Later in the evening we all played a couple rounds of dirty clubs and Laura cooked dinner. She made us lamb chops with butternut squash soup and sautéed arugula. The dinner was awesome!

We leave tomorrow, what a bummer, it's been so much fun here!

We've gone batty!



For the third day in a row we slept in past 10am...boy do we have it hard!

Today was a very low key day. We ate at a Tex - Mex place for brunch. Laura scored a free record player and speakers curbside and we went shopping!

After brunch we headed over to Lowes so that Laura and I could look at paint samples for our parent's condo. We dropped Scott off at the house and Laura and I headed to an outdoor mall in North Austin. The plan was to check out a gluten free bakery. The bakery was a huge disappointment! We were hoping for something similar to Sweet Freedom in Philly and it wasn't even close. We opted instead for a drink from Starbucks.

We then headed back to Whole Foods in downtown Austin. It was so much fun. Of course, we sampled more wine and bought a couple more bottles. It was fun to just walk around and enjoy the store. We also bought some gluten free chocolate pudding that we both shared before we left the store. It was so good.

Waiting for the Bats!

Austin is famous for their bats which reside each summer under the Congress St Bridge. At the height of the season there are over a million bats. Each night at dusk the bats leave the bridge to go looking for food. It is estimated that between 10,000 and 15,000 tons of insects are eaten each night. Neither Scott nor I had seen the bats and wanted to check them out. We sat in a grassy patch beneath the bridge with tons of other people. There were many families. It was fun sitting there because you could hear the bats but couldn't see them. As soon as dusk came, about 7:15, we could see what looked like a black cloud leaving the underside of the bridge. It was cool. We tried to get pics and took a video but it was too dark. They say that sometimes it takes over 45 minutes for all of the bats to leave. At the end of this month the bats will leave for the winter and head south.

View from the bats and people on the bridge.

For dinner Laura made halibut with a tomato sauce, green beans with almonds, and clove and orange zest rice. The meal was delicious!

Alamo Drafthouse

Hangar Lounge

Well, we slept in until 10am again today. I guess it doesn't help when we stay out late the night before.

Laura cooked us another delicious egg scramble. After breakfast we took the dogs on a nice long hike. Austin has a huge urban trail system. Many of the trails are right along water. The hike we did today was called The Greenbelt and should have been along water the entire way, but with the excessive heat and draught most of the water was dried up. We did find a huge pool of water for the dogs and it was fun to watch them swim. Ume did such a good job! Laura let him off leash and he did well following the trail, only a couple times he got confused or went off trail. We played fetch with both Ume and Gaia in the water. As long as we threw a large stick and Ume could hear it plop than most of the time he could find it (as long as Gaia didn't take it). For just going blind earlier this year, he's doing really good!

After the hike we went back to the house and quickly got cleaned up so that we could make it to a movie at the Alamo Drafthouse in downtown Austin. The Alamo is awesome and unlike any movie experience I've ever had. The theatre serves food, beer and liquor. Entering the Drafthouse everything is very rustic. The particular one that we went to only has two theaters. For each showing, people typically get there about 30-45 minutes early. You wait in line and are seated in a large group. The chars are about the same as in any other theatre but in front of the chairs there's a long table and then an aisle way which sits about a foot lower from where you're seated. There are menus located at each seat and to place your order you write it on a slip of paper and place it in a holder on the table anytime before or throughout the movie. There are two sets of previews for each of the movies as well. The first set, which lasts about a half hour, are short scenes from old and obscure movies that somehow relate to the movie you're going to watch. After these previews the feature film starts. A cool thing with the Drafthouse is that in addition to new releases they also play old movies. We were there to see a new release, The Thing, but they were also playing The Shinning as well. These theatres are a very cool concept and if you ever get a chance to visit one check it out. We went to a 5:10pm movie and it was only $7 and the food was very inexpensive! We spent the same amount at this theatre as we would have at a more mainstream place but had a full meal and drinks.

After the awesome movie, which by the way, completely scared Laura and me, we headed to 4th St. to check out another downtown Austin scene. We stopped at a bar called Hangar Lounge and it was awesome. There were three levels with a bar on the first floor, a lounge on the second floor and a rooftop bar. The drinks we're super cheap and the location was perfect for people watching below. Scott mentioned that if Austin had mountains he would want to move there. We also met up with one of Laura's friends, Jesse. After Hangar Lounge we headed over to 6th St. to check out the festivities. What a difference between 4th and 6th streets. Imagine 4th street as professionals and 6th St. as a college frat party. Honestly, I don't know which scene we liked better... LOL. The cool thing with 6th St. is that the whole street is shut down for a couple blocks so that you don't have to worry about traffic.

Another great and fun day in Austin.