Not a Texan

*Side note: This has been sitting in my drafts for  m o n t h s  now, so ignore the fact that it's all old news.

This post is going to be all over the place {literally}. Even though I don't have too many fond memories while living in Texas, I don't want to completely disregard the first 4 1/2 months of our married life... so here's the overview.

Our First Home

I'll admit, when we arrived I pretty much fell in love with our first little home {apartment}. I loved unpacking, organizing, decorating, and getting nice and settled. I especially liked the dark floors, the black appliances, and the huge walk-in closet. I was excited for this new chapter in our lives! It makes me sad that the dang cockroaches {which we started seeing about two weeks after moving in} ended up ruining that experience for me. Once the bugs moved in, I wanted to move-out BUT I don't want this post to be about that. All of the furniture we had was rented, which made moving a whole lot easier.

Our First Meal

I'm ashamed to say that the first meal I made as a wife was kraft mac & cheese... in an apartment with no furniture whatsoever. We went about a week before our rental furniture arrived so there was a lot of living room floor picnics, a lot of waking up on a deflated blow-up mattress, and a lot of laughs because we were the epitome of every newly married couple. I'm proud to say that I have since mastered some delicious crock pot recipes! I know Jason appreciates it ;)

Our Family & Friends

We were lucky enough to have some friends and family close enough to come visit us. Ryan and Karlie were living in Dallas at the time {which is only about a 3 hour drive from where we were} so they made a trip down to explore Austin with us and we made our way to Dallas to go on a five-couplet date with them. It is always such a fun time with those two!

We had a couple of dinner dates with some of Jason's cousins that lived in the area. It was seriously such a blessing to have so many familiar faces in such an unfamiliar place. Tiana {pictured above} was oh so kind and treated us to a fancy dinner one evening in downtown Austin. It was literally the fanciest, most expensive, and delicious restaurant either of us had ever eaten at. I so wish we got a picture of the three of us that night! She treated Jason to dinner another night while I was home sick. So sweet of her! 

We also went to this unique hot dog place called Franks with another one of Jason's cousins, Kayli. She told me that she fan-girled my Facebook and we instantly clicked. I love my new family!

About a week before we moved out of Texas, we met up with half the Billat clan for lunch as they passed though Austin. We went to Moonie's Burgers, mine and Jason's favorite local burger shop. The food was great, but the company was better. It was so fun spending time with my Texas framily!

 Our Dates

Some of our Austin outings included hiking Mount Bonnell, seeing Jurrassic World in IMAX 3-D {by mistake}, swimming while taking underwater pictures, exploring Zilker Park, mini golfing, driving all the way to the mall only to get a wetzel pretzel, watching fireworks on the 4th of July, along with lots of midnight taco bell and 7-11 slurpee runs when we were feeling the munchies.

The Last of Our First Car

Jason was sad to see his baby go, but even he will admit that selling his 2002 S-60 Volvo to the junk yard was the best option. We didn't have to worry about the car turning off every few minutes AND we were riding luxuriously blasting the A.C. on our 14 hour drive back to Colorado! You truly don't understand the blessing of A.C. until you've had to live a summer in Texas without it.

We picked up the rental car, dropped the Volvo off at the junk yard, packed up the remainder of our belongings {thankfully one of the guys Jason sold with had a truck and took over half of our stuff with him}, turned in our apartment keys, and left Austin for good. We were both so, so, so, so, so happy as we were driving away!

For those of you who haven't been, Austin is extremely lush and green-- no wonder the bugs love it here! The roads are lined with thousands and thousands of trees. It made for a very scenic drive home... but the views ain't enough to bring me back. So long Texas!!!

Katsaridaphobia

I'm about to get real vulnerable here, but this post is my release. This hasn't been the easiest summer, and it definitely hasn't been the smoothest transition into married life. We moved to Austin, Texas so that Jason could work a summer sales job for Alterra. It's a pest control company, so obviously we moved to a high pest area. I've never liked bugs, but I've also never had much of a problem with them. Oh how that changed this summer! I found out {in the worst way possible} that I have a huge fear of cockroaches. I see one nearly everyday in our apartment. It doesn't matter how many Jason kills {I am too scared to kill them} because there's always always always more. We mainly find them in the kitchen and the bathroom, but I've seen some in every room of the apartment. I've gotten to the point where I don't leave our bedroom when Jason is out working. I haven't stepped foot in our kitchen in probably a month. If I have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night I wake Jason up to go with me. He has to check the bathroom before I get in the shower and right when I'm about to get out {I had an experience with a roach almost crawling into the shower with me so now I'm super paranoid every time I take a shower}. I get goosebumps all over my body every time I step out of our room and I've become the jumpiest person in the world. I am literally terrified to be in my own apartment! It's the worst possible way to live and I feel sooooo bad for how much Jason has to do for me because of it. I won't even get in to how I react whenever I come across one... let's just say Jason's become quite the comforter.

With all of that being said, however, I have come to learn just how sweet my husband is and how much he absolutely adores me. He will put himself through anything just to make sure that I am comfortable-- whether that's laying on the hard bathroom floor while I get ready at 6:30 in the morning or doing all the cooking & cleaning after he's been working in the hot sun all day. He does so much for me and not once has he complained or made me feel like the nuisance I know I'm being. I want so bad to serve and spoil my husband, but living here I feel restrained to and I can't stand it. I've told him over and over that I'm going to make it up to him in Rexburg, but he refuses to let me because he says I owe him nothing. He only wishes he could do more for me. I don't know how I got so lucky. I think it's safe to say that we will never be returning to Austin... or Texas for that matter.

My mom posted a picture to my Facebook the other day
with this saying on it. Ain't that the true!

While I'm on the subject of sweet things Jase does for me, I want to jot down a couple of moments from this week that made me feel extremely loved by him {this is really for my own memory's sake}. I've been stressing a lot lately. Like a lot, a lot. So much so that it's kept me up at night. We are now only days away from moving out of Texas {HALLELUJAH}, but with each day that passes the stress builds. Here's an idea as to why:

Our car is nearing the end of it's life. We've been dealing with major car issues all summer and it's been the biggest pain. On top of that, we haven't had working AC in the 100+ degree weather... ughhh! {And I don't know if you know this, but Austin traffic is  h o r r i b l e  which makes driving so dreadful} We've spent hundreds of dollars on "repairs", but the car condition was actually worse after we picked it up from the shop. Again, ughhh! Instead of putting more money into the so-not-worth-it car, we've decided to sell it to a junk yard. So there's one thing on our to-do list.

Since our only form of transportation is failing us, we've had to look for alternative ways to move back to Rexburg with all of our belongings. Next thing on the list... find and book a rental car on a budget.

The furniture we've been using while living here is all leased, so we need to call and schedule a pick up date for that.

Because of how Jason's job works, he gets paid completely off of sales commission {stress, stress, stress} & he only gets a percentage of the money up front. There are a lot of unknowns when it comes to the amount of money we'll be getting from his back-end checks and I hate, hate, hate not knowing.

Jason also has to hit a certain number of sales in order for us to get partial rent back and other bonuses, so he's needed to work harder than ever these past two weeks to reach that goal. {Which by the way, he has been killing it with almost 4 sales every day!! I am so proud of him!}

Then just needing to clean the apartment, do all the laundry, go to work, pack up everything etc, etc, I've just felt like I don't have the time or the motivation to get things done...

For the most part, all of these things are planned for and taken care of now, but at the beginning of this week none of them were. Jason knows all too well when I'm feeling overwhelmed so he was ready to step in. While I was at work on Wednesday I received this text from my love while he was on his lunch break: "The apartment is cleaned and vacuumed. Towels dried, folded and put away. Darks are in the dryer and whites in the wash. All the dishes are done, kitchen cleaned. Your bottoms are soaking in soap in the bathroom. All the clothes on the bed are clean. I love you baby!! Muah!" 

Oh my goshhhhh, I do not deserve him! He even called and got everything scheduled-- the car, the furniture pick-up, the move-out date. When he got home later that night he told me that he knew how stressed I was and he wanted to do all that he could to take some of that stress off of me. Then he ended the night by giving me a foot massage... He is unreal! I'm obsessed, so in love, and incredibly lucky to call him mine.