Josh visits Texas!
April 2012

First, we had my Mom's visit which was very fun.  She had her own room and bathroom at my house (Finally, Yay!) and we had a few fun days in Oakland with Josh and I showing her around and enjoying some of our local amazing eats.  Then Mom and I drove up to Calistoga for wine tasting, dining, shopping and our main purpose, the zen experience known as the volcanic mud baths at Indian Springs Resort.  LOVE.  My second favorite thing about that place is the pre bedtime dip in the heated mineral pool... heaven.  A few posts ago I was the guest of this experience thanks to my great friend Cari Cohorn and had to share with my Mom for an early birthday celebration.

Unfortunately the fun had a small kink as we came back to Oakland, I severely threw out my back on the way in the front door.  This has been my problem for years :(  That night I could barely pack my things as Josh and I had scheduled to be on the same flight back to Austin with my Mom the next day.  I could not be more thankful that it was all 3 of us going to the airport since I could not even carry my purse I was in so much pain!   We got there nice and early since we had no idea how long it would take me to shuffle about and after a giant long island iced tea and a muscle relaxer, I was on the plane and watching a movie with Josh feelin Pretty Good.

We did so much.  I feel bad that there was so much driving and going going going... but I only go home once a year and typically at Christmas to just hang with family,  I had so much regular fun stuff I wanted Josh to see and do and more importantly, eat!  Trey took several days off work to join in our visit, it was the sweetest thing and we had a lot of fun together.  I gave Josh the driving tour of my hometown, Round Rock and we stopped by to visit my childhood neighbor and long time friend, Mr. Born who still lives in the house right behind my old one.  In Austin we took Josh to stand in line at 9:30am for Franklin's BBQ - he understands my judgemental nature towards anything referred to as BBQ now.  We showed him downtown, the capital, a little bit of the UT campus, then Trey & I met up with friends for my favorite Tex-Mex at Guerro's and then out for some drinks on 4th street ending up on a rooftop lounge til nearly 2am, it was a perfect Austin night!

Our last day with Mom, Auntie Elaine joined us for a day in Gruene, where we started off with margaritas at the Grist Mill under the shade trees (that was very difficult to move on from) and then hit the big antique store after which we all had to pee so of course we hopped over to the wine shop to graciously taste wine and buy more drinks in order to use their facilities and finished those out under the shade trees as well.  Seriously, this is vacation.  After putzing around some other stores, we headed over to New Braunfels to have dinner at Huisache.  I was very disappointed and a little embarrassed, since I think everyone would have loved to go back and eat at the Grist Mill but I insisted on my all time fave Huisache.   I'll just say... I cannot believe they changed/modified their flan.  wtf.  There were other disappointments as well, but that says it all for me.  I don't think I can go back. :(

Trey took Josh and I on to Boerne from there and Elaine joined Mom for the drive back to Austin.  We had a great time staying at Trey's place, watching Friday Night Lights for the first time and drinking and talking on his patio and met a few of his friends, it was really nice.  The next day we went into San Antonio starting with a quick visit to see my dear friend Allison and her new baby girl Olivia!  It was just warm enough to feel like we were in Texas but it was still not "hot" so this was a perfect River Walk tour day, lunch outdoors at La Margarita day and oops I didn't know the Alamo closed so early so my boyfriend didn't get to go inside day.  Such a bad girlfriend!  I didn't realize he'd be so bummed since I think the inside is kinda boring :(.  


The next day we had coffee and checked out the wine tasting room (it's never too early, vacation!), some of the cool shops in town and enjoyed one of Trey's favorite drinking holes (over 100 beers on tap, nice) then Trey drove us to San Marcos to meet up with Dad & Donna.

We said goodbye to Trey and headed on to Flatonia where we showed Josh the awesome country sites: Smithville - Dad's birth place, home of the movies Hope Floats and Tree of Life, Shiner TX - home of yummy beer, Luling - the BEST BBQ in my humble opinion and Josh with his limited taste test did agree and of course the best spring of wild flowers I'd ever known!

Wow, seriously good job Texas on the first impression for Josh!