Home Sweet Home

Russ and I moved into our humble abode the first part of December and although it has nearly been a year that we've lived here, we have yet to share some pictures of our place. And I know there are literally only a couple people (you know who you are) who have a desire to see this, I still say to grab a bag of chips, a drink, get comfortable and enjoy this mini episode of MTV Cribs (minus the fancy reverse and fast forward camera tricks they do.)

The front of our house. Try not to be too distracted by our sweet car and amazing landscaping.

This is the entry hall that leads to our living room/kitchen area. To the right are two little bedrooms (one is being used as our office) and a bathroom.

Our living room.

More living room.

Our kitchen.

Our dining area in the kitchen.

We just painted our bedroom and so once we get it all set up I'll post some pictures of that and our other two rooms. We've had so much fun decorating and painting. And we have even had fun doing little home "repairs." (and by "we" I mean "Russ" of course.) We love it...and if you're ever in Texas you can now stay at "Casa de Brown."

In other news. Russ and I just celebrated our 3rd anniversary! Can't believe it has already been three years. We didn't do anything too big, just went out to dinner at a super good seafood restaurant we had never been to in downtown Austin. We usually don't explore any of the trendy downtown Austin eateries, we feel like we aren't cool enough, or I guess in Austin's case, aren't weird enough to go to them but our anniversary was a good excuse to try out a new one.

1.  Where Russ and I ate way too much seafood...and realized how little we know about proper dinner etiquette...and how to act like we totally knew we were ordering something with raw quail egg. 

2. And the night wasn't complete without some Mexican Vanilla ice cream with strawberries from Amy's Ice Cream. One of Russ' favorites.

3. The flowers sweet Russ got me. 

4. I feel like we rarely take pictures of us together so here is our attempt of a self-timer picture. 

We're holding up 3 fingers because we've been married 3 years. Brilliant idea huh? 

Anyways I love that guy and am excited for a lifetime of anniversaries together...with the only guy I know who would eat my raw quail eggs...now that's true love.

From Ordinary to Egg-traordinary

Happy belated Easter to everyone! In honor of this great holiday, on Saturday Russ and I decided to dye some Easter Eggs. I don't know how we've known each other for 5 years and this is the first time we've done it. It was a lot of fun! I think having your fingers turn blue and orange from craft projects is something you never outgrow. Although I hope when we shook people's hands at church and they were fluorescent colored, they felt the same way.

Our top of the line egg dying kits and carton of eggs. 

The master at work. 

Us dying both our eggs and fingers. 

Here they are. Since we both had incredible vision that was somehow difficult to translate with a wax crayon and tiny, wire egg holder I'll tell you what they each are.  For the one person who has any interest in knowing. 

Back Left: Polka Dot, Back Middle: Two-toned (I think it looks like a Nerf football though.), Back Right: Bowling Ball

Front Left: Grassy Field with Sky, Front Middle: Sparkly Sun,  Front Right: Tiger Stripes

The final product. 

Us and our masterpieces. (You like how I somehow looked surprised I'm getting my picture taken?) 

Happy Easter everyone!

This Ain't My First Rodeo

Well the Rodeo came to Austin once again this year. When I heard Gavin DeGraw was going to be one of the performers I told Russ, not thinking anything of it. Well Russ, being the sweetheart he is, surprised me with tickets for my birthday! So last night we got to go to Rodeo Austin for the second year in a row!  Which allowed me the opportunity to use the expression "This ain't my first rodeo" literally, for the first time in my life...and probably more times than Russ enjoyed. 

 There's a small fair surrounding the rodeo. And even though both of us are pretty incredibly leery of rides at traveling fairs, it was still fun to walk around, and see all the bright lights. 

Russ has fond memories of eating turkey legs at Disney World when he was a kid, and all that walking got us hungry, so naturally that's just what he got. And what would you wash down a turkey leg with? An over sized, ridiculous, souvenir cup full of lemonade, that's what. It was very tasty.

Russ doing his best Henry VIII impression. 

After dinner we decided to play some games before the show. If you ever want to throw money straight down the drain. I recommend Midway Games at fairs, or carnivals. Because they make it so much fun! This is Russ trying his hand at a basketball game. 

 There was a ring toss game, where you could get a bowl of 50 rings. And if you made one ring on to one of the bottles you won. We thought surely we could do that. Well 50 rings later, we found out our hunch was wrong. But it was fun!

Then we headed into the expo center. We got to see some genuine cowboys do bull riding, barrel racing and some adorable kids do some "Mutton Bustin'." Then it was time for the concert! We got incredible seats since it was such a small venue and Gavin was so close! This picture doesn't do it justice. And we were so close that I'm pretty sure he was pointing right at Russ when he sung the line, "...not over you." He was great in concert and we had such a fun time! We've been listening to his songs ever since. Thanks again Russ! P.S. That is Gavin in the spotlight, in case you couldn't tell in this horrible picture.

The "Light" in the "City of Light"

I'll be honest, I have no idea why they call Paris the City of Light. I'm guessing it probably has nothing to do with the Eiffel Tower...but it should. Although they're a little overdue here are some pictures we took of the Eiffel Tower. It was crazy because just about every time we passed by the tower it looked completely different, whether it was the time of day, or the weather. We also have a litte video of the light show they do each evening. It was so cool! Enjoy!

Planes, Trains and...Europe

So I realize it was last year since we last posted! I don't mean in the clever way that it's the first part of 2012 and our last post was the end of 2011. I mean it's been a considerable length of time. Since our last post a lot has happened. Russ has been working for a local audit firm and really enjoying it. I've been working on photography. We bought our first house! We got to meet Mitt Romney! And we went to Europe! I'll post pictures of the others soon but this is our Europe post.

Russ' work requires like zero travel but they happen to have a client in Amsterdam that he happened to be assigned to. When he found out he was going they said he could bring me. Sooo that's what we did. We went a little early to go to Paris, spent about 5 days there and then took a train, how European is that, to Amsterdam. It was so incredible. Just like straight out of the movies. I'll quit blabbing and show you some pictures.

We first went out the "country" in Paris. Top Left: Our bathroom window at our hotel. It was like a boat window and we had a beautiful view! Bottom Left: These are what our hotel rooms looked like. Right: Can you believe there are just places that look like that there?!

 We went out to the country so we could go to Disneyland Paris. Russ and I had never been to Disneyland together. And we'd never been to a Disneyland in Europe so we thought why not. It was so much fun!

 Since it was Christmas time it would "snow" on Mainstreet every so often. And if there are two things I love it's snow and Disney. So I was pretty excited.

 Us in front of the castle.

Us and Mickey Mouse's French cousin.

It was really foggy quite a few times while we were there. And this doesn't capture how cool the castle looked, but trust me, it was awesome. 

Russ eating an actual French Baguette in France on our little "patio." Also, the stereotypes are kinda true everyone there really does eat baguettes all the time, smoke everywhere, and drink a lot of wine. In fact, while in line at Disneyland a mom pulled out not Goldfish, not a granola bar, not Cheerios but an actual baguette for her toddler to snack on. But sidenote: Everyone was nicer than expected. Sorry if I offended any French readers we may have. 

Then we went to the city. We stayed just a couple blocks away from the Eiffel Tower. I have some pictures and a video of the Eiffel Tower I'll post it next. In order to see everything we wanted we took a Bus Tour where you could stop and get off and on. Very touristy I know, but it worked out perfectly. We saw all we wanted. Like:

The Louvre

Notre Dame

(and no we didn't see any hunchbacks.)

The Opera House

The Arc de Triomph 

You like how the guy on the back right is actually posing and looking at the camera? 

It was also really cool because they had a bunch of cute little street vending areas. Some street vendors were not so cute and would walk around shaking huge rings full of eiffel tower keychains and get all up in our grill. But neither Russ nor I got anything stolen from us. Supposedly that happens quite a bit. 

Then we took the train to the Netherlands. I loved this picture of Russ because he was towards the end of "Movember" and his whole office had to grow a mustache for all of November. So he looks very European. Is it European? Maybe it's more like a predator of some sort. Either way the picture makes me smile. 

Ok, last thing I promise. So one of the craziest thing to me while we were there were their toilets. Top Left: This one was next to the actual toilet and it is virtually a sink, with a towel next to it, that looks like the towel is to be reused. Top Right: Two huge buttons, each with different amounts with waterflow. Bottom Left: This was the "hair dryer" at one of our hotels. I think it was an incredibly old vacuum in another life. Bottom Right: This one just had an enormous silver button, as seen above it. 

All in all the trip was amazing. And we knew the whole time we were having such a once in a lifetime experience. We're so glad we were able to do it together. I applaud you if you've made it to the end of this post and thank you for your time. 

God Speed & Hook Em Horns

This last weekend we were able to have a few exciting things happen. One thing is that my brother Josh and his wife Lauren had their second baby boy, named Ben. He is adorable and we're glad they're here so we can see him! Second thing is that Russ' parents came to visit us. It was a great trip and so fun to spend  time with them! The reason they came, brings me to the third thing, so Russ still has just a couple classes to take but we were able to celebrate his UT graduation from the Master of Professional Accounting program. It was a good ceremony with an incredible amount of UT love ("Hook Em Horns", Longhorn Hand Signs, etc.) So much in fact, that after the keynote speaker, the CEO of Southwest Airlines spoke, he ended his speech by saying, "God Speed and Hook Em Horns." We ended the ceremony by singing "The Eyes of Texas are Upon You" and I am embarrassed to admit, I got goose bumps watching everybody hold up the longhorn sign and sing. Anyways I am really proud of Russ and his big accomplishment! We're so excited for our future and can't wait for him to be officially done in July!

You should've seen Russ and I try to figure out his gown's sleeves and hood. You can see Russ modeling the mit-like sleeves the gown comes with. Russ will have to save the hood and gown and he can go as the Grim Reaper for Halloween. :) 

The famous UT Tower, just outside of where Russ graduated!

The cute, little scholar himself!

All the professors and advisors wanted to shake his hand and have him walk across the stage to recognize him for graduating...they also had everyone else in his graduating class do it too...but I think they liked him the best. (Also, is it just me or does the guy on the very right look like Count Dracula.)

The graduate and his sweet parents. (Thanks for the picture Julie!)

Hook em & cook em. Congrats Russ!

Conference, Catching Up & Cute Kids

We just got back home from a weekend in Utah. It is was a fun, whirlwind trip. (It always seems like vacations are never long enough.) We came into town to see General Conference and also to see this little guy...

...and his family. :) It was the first time Russ and I had met our little nephew and he is now 6 months old! He is such a cutie and we he had fun playing with him and just staring at him. We also got to see Russ' brother and sister who live in Utah and it was so great to catch up with them and get to see them! Plus, Russ' sister is the best cook and she made us dinner. :) We also got to catch up with friends we don't get to see near enough. Aside from the mini blizzard we were in...on our vacation...in April we had a wonderful trip seeing friends, family and General Conference.