"My Favorite's Gouda" - A Farwell Austin Tour

What a wonderful girls weekend! S was invited but declined. I really don't know why he didn't want  to attend the Country Living Fair with Jess, Amanda, and me.

The first two times I hung out with Amanda I just wasn't really sure about her making the friend cut. Then she came out with us on Halloween and I decided she was alright. She's one of Jess' best friends so she must be pretty cool. I've been blog stalking her since December, so I was pretty excited about getting to spend more time with her. And after this weekend, I will officially consider her one of my friends...I hope she feels the same, otherwise this just got awkward because I know she sometimes reads my blog. (She also mentioned that when she reads my blog that it sounds like me. And I loved that!)

Friday morning I met Jess at the gym for a pre trip workout. We knew we had some less than healthy foods on the menu for the weekend (donuts, donuts, and cupcakes) so figured we'd do some pre work on that. A little after lunch we hit the road for Austin.

I did really good about not falling asleep! Yay me! (just ask Daniel, I'm not always a fun road tripper. When we made the 13hr drive home I slept almost the whole way...and had no trouble sleeping that night). We listened to the first BodyJam mix and chatted.

Amanda offered us this as soon as we arrived:

It was so good! And yes, it was the one she posted on her blog a while back...because I'm a blog stalker.

Our first stop to get this party started was Krispy Kreme! I was so excited! I hadn't had Krispy Kreme in over a year. It's the 2nd best thing to Donut Stop. We lucked out and came in right as the fresh donuts were coming off the rack. The girls were surprised when we each got a free one. (Ummm...am I the only one that's been here before? and happens to know the hours when the donuts are hot and fresh? errr, that's awkward.) When the kind donut lady gave me the donut you would have thought she was handing me my engagement ring with the love eyes I was giving it. I.die. There was a birthday party going on (I totally want to have my bday party there!) so we creeped on that for a while.

Next up: dinner! Well, kind of. We decided we didn't want to eat out for all of our meals so we headed to HEB to gather things for our snack plate dinner (a staple at BJ House). Cheese & crackers, Berries & cream, bad ass guac, and pizza (not pictured...obvs).

When Amanda said she needed bacon for the guac, I'm pretty sure I gave her the "Are you effing serious?" look..but it turned out to be delicious! (Can you please make some for us again asap?)

We had also stopped by Sephora and the girls found this black mask and managed to get us some samples.

It reminded me of Zoolander when he was in the coal mines and he painted himself black with the coal and jumped out at his Dad and Brothers (nice Vince Vaughn cameo) and yelled "Surprise!" Naturally we took pictures inspired by that, but Jess has those. The black also made your nose disappear, so I felt like Voldy.

We watched She's The Man - one of my faves! - then went to bed.

The next morning we hit up Gordoughs for some crazy donuts. Amanda (from work) had sent me a link with the top 10 donut places in America, and this was on it. They were delicious (not to be out done by Donut Stop). They were huge and tasted like a funnel cake with tons of different toppings on them. I got Heavenly Hash, and Cherry Bombs. When the guy came to the window he said, "You're lucky you're cute so I'll take your order." Ummmm...really? Actually, 1. You will take my order because I have $$. 2. YOU are lucky that I'm cute because you get to look at me. So You.Are.Welcome!

When they gave me one of the wrong donuts, but I figured I just ordered the wrong thing and the donut looked delish so I took it back to the table and ate the donut hole that was on top...just in time for an elder gentlemen to come up behind me because they gave him my donut. That was a little awkward when I had to apologize for eating his donut hole. Luckily he didn't seem to mind.

Heavenly Hash: Donut topped with marshmallow fluf, chocolate, chocolate chips, and a brownie bite.

Next up:

After many hours of that, watching some guy bake a cake and sings a song about Country Living, and witch lady not wanting to show Jes a ring because it was $600, we called it a day and decided to start checking off the rest of our list.

So we hit up the candy shop.

We also saw Oscar (from The Office) on the street!

Then we went to Hey Cupcake so I could break up with them. That was a surprise for both of us. My favorite cupcake combo is chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream icing. A classic. Last time they were sold out, this time they had discontinued that cupcake. WTF is that! It's not like I'm asking for some crazy flavor! Whatever. The lady tried to sub in chocolate cake with vanilla cream cheese icing and I told her "No thank you." What I really wanted to do was order it, then smash it upside down on the counter, but figured that might be a tad dramatic. So instead I had a snow cone. And it was awesome! Tigers Blood fo lyfe!

Jess had found two bars on pinterest for us to hit up.

We went behind the velvet curtain at Bar Congress. I told the waitress I wanted something sweet, fruity, and delicious like you would serve a child, but with alcohol." She pointed to something on the menu then immediately asked for my ID. haha. Oh, and the drink she suggested? Not sweet or fruity at all. I couldn't even be bothered to force it down. Oh well.

Dinner at Frank. It's all hot dogs and all delicious! Another great suggestion by Jess (not me, the other one.)

So true

Then we hit up Lustre Pearl. It was a pretty cool bar. It was in a house with a huge backyard.

Decided to stop branching out and stick to what I know: Cran Vodka. Their cran was super delish like a cherry pop ice.

It was all fun and games until the pin up girls next to us decided to bust out the hula hoop. They were doing this a little too close to our table for comfort, so after about 30 min of that Amanda stuck out her hand to hit the hoop. It was so funny!

We got home around midnight and I'm pretty sure I feel asleep before Jes even made it into our bed.

The next morning Amanda was busy packing for the big move while Jess and I cuddled in bed. I had a very balanced breakfast of cake and fruit.


This def helped me wake up and get jazzed for the day!

The first night when I busted this bad boy out, the girls looked really confused when the music started playing. I couldn't stop laughing.

We hit up the fair one last time. Then Jess and I hit the road.

We stopped in Bassdrop for a late lunch at Maxine's Cafe. On Sunday they have breakfast all day, so we shared the pancake and french toast. Turns out I actually really like french toast!

Then DQ for dessert. They even turned it upside down! I can't remember the last time DQ gave me ice cream that was frozen enough to do that. It was so cool!

When we got back Steven cooked us a delish steak dinner while Jess and I gave support from the couch.

This weekend has officially made the cut of Top 5 weekends of 2012. I had such a blast with the girls and I'm super glad that Amanda lives a lot closer.

I can't wait to hang out again (and by that I mean Amanda standing us up for our next antique show...foreshadowing?).