How to Gain Five Pounds in Three Hours, State Fair Edition

Save for a few TX/OU games, this was my first time going to the fair as an adult. It was also the first time Joe, James, and Kristin went to the fair. Overall we had a fantastic time. Great weather, great transportation (the DART), great food, and great company. I will let the pictures do most of the explaining.

Our friendship has survived Austin, Spain, and now the State Fair of Texas!

First order of business: fried avocado fries. (Yes that is redundant.) Beer too!

Official winner of best fried food: Fried Thanksgiving Dinner

Somehow we did not fall victim to the red velvet funnel cake. There's always next year!

Fried "Awesome Nutella." Sadly, not as awesome as it sounded. 

James and I love ferris wheels so so so much! Joe and Kristin? Yeah, they totallly love them too...

View of the Midway from the Texas Star

Someone loved the Ferris Wheel!

Fried cakeballs. Good, but nowhere near the awesomeness that Meredith can produce.

Pig Races! My money was on Forrest Grunt and Elvis Hogsly. Oink Oink. 

Fried red velvet cupcakes are near! And giant tractors!

This happened. Hands down the best thing we ate.

And with that, I am now in a complete sugar-fried coma. Was it worth it? Absolutely!

I think I need a juice detox now. Fried smoothie anyone?

Life in Dallas: First Two Weeks

Once I uploaded the following pictures, I realized there is a theme to the pictures. Let's just ignore the beverages and focus on the people, cool?

My first weekend was spent hanging out with my parents and friends. Activities included dinner at Flying Fish with my parents, a run on the Katy Trail with my dad, dinner with James and Kristen at Komali, another run on the Katie trail with Natalia, and a Rangers game with my dad.

The Rangers won the last game of their season, which meant they played an additional game against Tampa Bay for a wildcard spot.  My company decided to rent a box for the game, which meant I returned to the Ballpark in Arlington on Monday night for more baseball. Admittedly I felt bad that I went without my dad considering he is a giant Rangers fan... but since they lost I didn't feel too bad.

This past weekend was awesome because Joe came to visit me! We planned to go to the fair yesterday, but thanks to some rain and cold weather we opted to postpone the fair until today. Instead we went to the Cottonwood Art Festival before picking up my parents and eating lunch at Hattie's in the Bishop Arts District. It was fun to explore Bishop Arts, especially because it feels like a little piece of Austin inside Dallas.  Neither Joe nor I were up for doing much else, so we stayed in that evening and joined my dad in a beer tasting. (Having a dad in the the beer/wine industry is pretty great!)

It's been a fun two weeks, and I must admit that I am really enjoying Dallas! Of course, it's much better when Joe comes to visit, but even so it's a pretty cool city.