#annietakestexas

When I was younger, I thought people who met other people on the internet were really strange and probably had social disorders. Those perceptions were only perpetuated by stereotypes of online dating serial killers and pedophiles. 

Well, I was totally wrong. Blogging has led me to some very real friendships with girls I would have never met otherwise (and who aren't crazy!). These girls encourage and pray for me, discuss current events and life lessons, and send mail to brighten my day. One of these awesome ladies is Annie from What She Saw. We "met" through the Girl Behind the Blog link-up last year, and have been following through social media ever since. We discovered that we both hold English degrees with no desire to teach English and graduated early from college! We met in person for the first time at the Influence Conference in October, where we were roommates with Erin, L and Margaret. This past week, Annie flew from Michigan to Texas to visit friends and tour the Lone Star State. Here are some highlights from our time together! 

Fort Worth
visited the Titanic exhibit at the Fort Worth Science and History Museum
(she also majored in history ;)

Stopped by the exhibit on the history of cattle ranching in Texas! 

Showed Annie the Fort Worth Food Park- where I work! Got a delicious Red Jett Sweets cupcake and pasta from Pompeii Italian truck!

We also enjoyed dinner at Uncle Julio's recommended by Jen (where a whole crazy scenario went down), had dessert and coffee at Brewed, and watched lots of Revenge on Netflix. 

Dallas

Sunday we went to church and then headed over to Dallas to visit Casey and Crystal- one of Annie's friends from high school.

Austin

Monday we drove to Austin! We stopped along the way to meet Elizabeth for lunch at Chick Fil A (Annie's first time!). It was so fun getting to meet Elizabeth in person- she has such a beautiful heart for serving the Lord and loving others! Definitely check out her blog if you haven't before! 

There were so many things that I wanted to show Annie while we were in Austin. I absolutely love this city. We hit some highlights, trying to keep our costs minimized! Took a tour of the state capitol (which is awesome, btw)

Took a stroll through the University of Texas campus- and posed by some of my favorite street art! 

DKR Football Stadium. Where my love of college football was born. 

Then we headed over to Threadgill's (one of my absolute faves- so many menu items chicken fried, and side dishes get free refills!) for dinner with Ruthie! We seriously spent three hours eating fried pickles and talking about everything from reality TV to babies to Jesus. Ruthie is such an awesome lady- definitely go check out her blog!

Then we grabbed dessert, more specifically red velvet cheesecake, at Mozart's- one of my favorite places in Austin. 

We also visited the Texas History Museum- I hadn't been since I was in elementary school so it was fun to brush up on the six flags of Texas. They were shooting SYTYCD promos outside when we arrived- pretty cool!

San Antonio

After lunch at Texas Land and Cattle, we drove on down to San Antonio! It was an absolutely beautiful day so we strolled down the riverwalk...

  

... explored the Alamo and its grounds

... did some shopping at the Rivercenter mall, went on a riverboat tour of the city, and took in the San Antonio city lights from the Tower of the Americas. 

there was a fun, silly 4D movie about Texas there!

On the way back to Austin we picked up some Whataburger (another first for Annie), because what's better at midnight than a honey butter chicken biscuit??

Austin

Wednesday was our last day together so we slept in and grabbed brunch at Walton's Fancy and Staple- owned by Sandra Bullock! (I sighted Ms Bullock there last year on a food tour!) I got a chocolate croissant, Parisian macarons, and an iced latte. It was definitely a well balanced meal.  

We then did some exploring in the funky and fantastic shops on South Congress Avenue. Monkey See Monkey Do is a crazy toy store for adults (think wooden stir spoons with drum stick ends), Big Top Candy Shop (I took some of my college senior photos there), and Uncommon Objects were just a few of the stops. 

this corner had Jesus, a skeleton and a boudoir calendar 

a unicycle hanging from the ceiling

made some necessary stops on Annie St

another spot from my senior portraits!

And then we, sadly, had to head back to DFW to get Annie to the airport. We did, of course, stop in West for some authentic Czech kolaches at my favorite rest stop!

I had so much fun getting to just hang out with Annie in person again, but also getting to show off my home state and all these cities that I love! Thank you, love, for flying across the country to visit!