Once we were done re-living our college years (the good and the not so good, aka the next day…), we headed from Fayetteville to Dallas, our former place of residence, to reunite with a few of our friends.

We were warmly welcomed by the smell of delicious brisket barbecue and some sour beers from one of our favorite Dallas/Fort-Worth breweries, Martin House! We were finally able to meet the Rollow’s newest addition, Ginny, who is extremely adorable and full of curiosity and excitement. They also introduced us to their chickens, one of which, met an unfortunate end, or so we thought. The next morning when Radu was helping to take out the trash, he was very surprised to hear a “ba-gawk!”. It turns out, the chicken was indeed alive and well (maybe a little dazed and confused…) A real bonafide zombie chicken!!

After some seriously delicious pastries (courtesy of La Casita Bakeshop in Richardson), we said goodbye to Lex, Mitch, Ginny, and Dallas and headed to Austin.

When in Austin, in addition to seeing friends, we tried to do as many of our favorite things as we could possibly squeeze in, some of those included:

• Eating more BBQ (homemade, curtesy of the Rodgers)
• Float trip on the San Marcos river 🛟
• Tacos, and then more tacos (some of the best we’ve had, at Paprika) 🌮
• Playing board games at one of Austin’s (several) board game cafes
• Delicious dinner with fun new cocktails (thank you McDonald family!)
• Trivia, election addition 🗳️ (don’t forget to vote!)

While this trip to Austin didn’t involve any religions starting with bags of wine on the river or being surrounded by live music or hopping from food tasting to wine tasting at a food and wine festival, we had an amazing time visiting so many great friends in Austin. It will aways be one of our favorite cities in Texas and remains difficult to say goodbye to. Until next time Austin, off to Houston!

We headed straight for Houston, the home of NASA Johnson Space Center, the largest livestock show in the world, and more importantly Radu’s best friend from College. After eating some of the best (and spiciest) Thai food we’ve ever had at Street to Kitchen, highly recommend the Thai iced tea cocktail (that also helps with the heat), we spent the week relaxing and enjoying hanging out our friends and their families. You can’t be bored when there are four+ kids and three energetic dogs keeping things interesting!

We are so glad we could spend time with so many of our friends on this trip, you all are the best ❤️

On to Louisiana and Alabama!