The Fun Times Roll On

I imagine the questions that y'all are all thinking are along these lines: Where have you been, Stefanie? What have you been doing with Siobhan? Why haven't you blogged in WEEKS, Stefanie?

The answer is ALL OVER THE PLACE! Like, literally. We went to Houston, San Antonio AND Dallas, as well as just hanging out around Austin during the in-between times...

(Siobhan had never seen an ATM that you drive up to!)

We went to San Antonio,


where we hung out with Ally and Karynna, walked along the Riverwalk, ate at the Rainforest Cafe, and went to the Alamo. We also went bowling!

We celebrated Duncan's birthday with some pretty rockin' ribs and pavlova at Dad's in the afternoon, after having breakfast with the rest of the family .

We went to Houston and visited NASA



and spent the night in Galveston. We all stood with our feet in the water for what felt like hours - the gulf is so warm! Ally and Siobhan even dove in and swam around for a while.

We went to Inner Space Caverns and explored the caves that are north of Austin off of I35.



And we bought matching rings there! (They sell jewelry in their little gift shop... so we figured why not?)


We tried to watch the bats fly out from under the Congress bridge, but...


So we just sat with our feet in the water and took pretty pictures of the lake and the sunset!

We went to Dallas...


and saw Lady Gaga (no pictures of that, as they weren't allowed!) and had lunch with another woman named Kristen who writes Lord of the Rings fanfiction. (Her penname is Raider K, and she was just delightful to talk to. We sat in this little Tea House restaurant for hours just swapping ideas and opinions and generally being dorks. I can't wait to do it again!)


Siobhan loves Dallas. Or she loves windows... who really knows?

On the way back, it rained a little...

We bought Siobhan her very own pair of cowboy boots!

We sat in Barnes and Noble, Starbucks and Borders and wrote, wrote, wrote.


(I was a little frustrated with the pen. It's not my favorite.)


(I finished a story!)


(Starbucks can't spell either of our names correctly!)


We sat at my kitchen table and wrote. We wrote while we were on the road (well, Siobhan wrote. I drove the car!) We got a lot done with our stories, and when we weren't writing, we talked about everything, and we grew closer as friends.

I had the BEST time with Siobhan out here, and I can't wait for her to come back! At the moment, I'm sitting in my room, which for the last three weeks has had a whole other body living it... and now it's empty. Because I am moving out soon, I'm starting to deconstruct my room and move away from this fabulous apartment, and the empty space feels even more empty without one of my best friends to fill it.

It's the first time she visited Texas, but if I have anything to say about it, it won't be her last! I can't wait to see you again, Siobhan. Next time you visit, we'll keep the fun times rolling.

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To see the whole collection of photos, I've uploaded them onto photobucket, since not ALL of you have facebook!