Texas Ya'll

I had every intention of having a post up before this but I have been sick which is a bummer! I was knocked out with the flu for a whole day, had achy muscles, head ache and a runny nose for a few days after and now I just have a pesky cough I'm trying to get rid of. It's been 10 days with this cough people, I'm pretty tired of it. I think I've done enough damage to my liver and teeth for the amount of dayquil, nyquil, sudafed and cough drops I've consumed. I've gone through 2.5 bags of cough drops, 1 bag of throat lozenges, almost a whole box of nyquil/dayquil and a half of box of sudafed. I lost my voice for two days and have just sounded like a man for the rest of the time. After I talk all day my voice gets reduced to nothing but vocal fry by the evenings. It sounds hilarious. Anyways, this sickness lasted way longer than I thought but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

The first week we were here was spent organizing, cleaning, unpacking and doing all the logistics; registering the cars, safety check for the cars, getting our keys and codes for the apt, switching our car insurance, finding a credit union, getting new license plates and getting new licenses! It was nice to have all that time during the week to get everything done.

Also, the DMV here was the best DMV experience of my life! You put yourself in the line from online and it'll text you updates when you'll be called. You can text back if you need for time and it'll push you back or you can leave the line. You don't have to sit there forever at the DMV! We waited for like 5 minutes maybe, it was glorious.

Starbucks saved my life the first Saturday I was there! I had to do homework and we had no internet

Gas prices are AWESOME. This is even old because it was taken last week. I can fill up at Kroger for $2.69 I didn't know prices like that even existed anymore!

We live in Haltom City - here is our water tower

One thing that is unique to Texas is that every town has a water tower. A big, prominent, in your face water tower. Now I get what people mean when they say you can navigate by water tower. They're like temples or church buildings in Utah; you stand in one place and you can see 5.

Our cars are all Texas-ed up! Plates and tags are done.

One of my favorite things that we have done was definitely the Texas State Fair! It was so amazing and I want to go back. The fair is huge and it runs for three weeks. It's really well organized and there's so much to do and look at! We used a GPS to get down there and happened upon a random road of houses where people were charging to park on their land. We thought sure, why not! But really we had no idea where we were. We asked him which way to the fair and we went up a hill and there is was, like 50 ft from our car. What a score that we didn't even plan. Easiest parking of my life.

This is Boris. He was HUGE!

We were just aimlessly walking around and we found a horse I could meet. I love horses!

Then we stumbled into an arena and it looked like a show was going to start so we sat down. Just my luck it was a dog show! I was so happy! They did all sorts of tricks for us.

We were told to get Fletcher corn dogs and I'm so glad we did. It was the best corn dog I've ever had. It was fried right there when you order it but it wasn't heavy or overly greasy. It had a nice thick crust and it was just awesome. It was obviously the hot spot to go because there about 6 different Fletcher stands all over the fair and they always had a line. Worth it though!

This hot tub was the biggest hot tub I've ever seen. It was as tall as me but I couldn't even fit the whole thing in the picture. It was like a mini boat.

You can find anything fried there. Twinkies, oreos, pic, ice cream, magaritas, butter, bacon, turkey legs. But this one was the weirdest. Fried bacon cinnamon roll. No, I did not try it.

I don't remember what this dude's name was or why he was there, but he's been there for ever and is kind of a big deal. Every 20 minutes he talks too!

Sports Museum - Dan's fav

I thought it was funny, good advertising!

Oh my goodness, these were the best! They're just fried onion straws but yum!

The fair was awesome. There were tons of ride, attractions, shops, food, free stuff and things to see. After the fair we drove up to Ikea because we were out that way already. I love Ikea even though it can be exhausting. We made some good purchases and got 4 furniture items for under $100. I'm in love with what we got and I'll eventually post pictures of our place.

 We've been trying new restaurants any time we can. This was my first taste of barbecue and it was delicious! We also tried this Mexican place that my coworkers (yes coworkers.. I'll get to that) recommended called Los Molcajetes and it was so darn good! I had some steak Tacos and it was one of the best things I've ever eaten. It's kind of like a tex-mex place. The steak I ordered was cooked 'Mexican style' I don't know what that means but it was bomb!

First day of school work!

Dan the Man has started his job as an Associate at Dixon Hughes Goodman. He is in the Audit department and so far he likes it. His first week was a lot of the meeting people, signing paper work, figuring out insurance, benefits and retirement, setting everything up and eating out. People took him our for lunch quite a bit and I'm jealous because he gets to try a bunch of new places! So far it seems to be going well and his commute isn't bad at all. He works in down town Fort Worth so it's about 20-30 minutes.

Look at this! Those are not just power lines... Those power lines are all filled with birds! They're everywhere! I guess when they fly south, Texas is a nice halfway point? I've asked the locals and they say they don't stay long. It's funny, at some intersections the birds are louder than the radio.

Now onto what I'm up to. I said coworkers above because yes, I found a job and have already started! Ha life comes at ya fast! I have been researching credit unions around to see where we'd want to bank and found one that we might like. When we went in to open accounts it happened to be the branch manager that was the only one available to help us. We got to talking and my work history came out and she asked me if I was looking for work. I said I might be, so I got a membership application and a job application on the same day! I thought about it for the weekend and told myself, well why not I can give it a shot. I took in my resume and application in on Monday and I had an impromptu interview right then and there. Luckily I was dressed for it and to be honest I wasn't nervous a bit! I was just so confident in my training at ICCU that I'm sure of my ability to succeed anywhere else! I rocked the interview and she called with the offer Tuesday. I wanted to talk to Dan first so I let her know Wednesday and I started Thursday! 

I work for Unity One Federal Credit Union and so far I like it. To be honest ICCU has a huge place in my heart and I don't know if I'll ever find a job and a team that I like better. But with that being said I'm trying not to compare and just trying to enjoy this new adventure. Unity One is a small credit union, very small. I work in the branch that is also headquarters. This is cool becuase I get to see all the heads of departments and interact with them everyday. On my first day I got in 'trouble' because I was sitting in the CEO's seat in the break room haha they were all so nice, just giving me a hard time. 

I really like the people that I work with, the tellers are mostly young like me so it's cool. They already got me tons of work gear ordered and I like new clothes so I'm down for that. I feel confident in my tellering abilities, it's just learning new rules, new regulations and new systems. Although I miss ICCU dearly I'm trying my best to make this experience great. It made me realize just how good of a job it was and how much it taught me.

We've been all around the valley lately! We like to go visit Dan's sister Jenny a lot. We're really good at just showing up unannounced :) it's fun to be able to see Alex and Sydney regularly now. I keep forgetting but I'll take for pictures of them because they're adorable! And for all my boise people, we were able to have dinner with the Conleys! They are amazing and I'm so happy we live close(ish) to them. They're kids are great and I can't believe how big they are! Gabe and Emma remembered me and Zeke thought Dan was the coolest thing. He was constantly showing Dan all his tricks and telling him all his stories. We had dinner and chatted for a while- it was so good to catch up with him. And I'm sure we'll be seeing them again soon!

We finally were able to buy a dining room set. I had been looking through this Facebook garage sell group and this lady was selling a table and six chairs for $100! That's a dang good price! We ended up buying it from her and when we showed up I was in awe. Her house was hugggee. They were quite wealthy. She even threw in another side table for free. Dan the Tetris man fit all of it into Jenny's Acura, it was super impressive. So her house was huge but driving by there was even another big one. This one was a castle, seriously a castle. It was the biggest house I've ever seen in person. Ever. I looked it up on Zillow. 2.3 MILLION DOLLARS. Wow.

Well I think that's all we've been up to lately! I hope I remembered everything :) We are really happy here so far and I just feel that we're being watched out for. I'm so lucky to have found a job already and I know God loves us and is aware of us!