Good morning!! How are you this morning? Moving through July, one of the big highlights was my older sister, Andrea, visiting me in Austin. It’s rare we get to hang out just the two of us outside of holidays, so this was really special!

On July 9th, I had the day off clinical. I ran to get my eyebrows waxed because they were in desperate need of help. Well y’all, I didn’t think about the fact that I use an over-the-counter product with a small bit of retinol in it, and the skin under my eyebrows came right off. It almost looked like I was wearing pink eyeshadow under them. It was painful more than anything, but easy to cover up with makeup and healed quickly with aloe and moisturizer- but I learned my lesson!

Little did I know I had more lessons to be learned that day…

Andi’s flight from Colorado was scheduled to arrive around 7 pm. Unfortunately, it was delayed, but fortunately, only slightly. When she did arrive, I could not find her anywhere at the airport pick-up. We kept exchanging land marks and nothing was linking up. Another passenger mentioned to my sister that they were in an entirely different terminal about 15 minutes from the regular airport- I didn’t even know this terminal existed! So learn from my mistake pro-tip- apparently Frontier and Allegiant fly in and out of the South Terminal if you are ever picking someone up. Even after knowing about the terminal, I could not find it even after entering it into my GPS for at least 30 mins. My GPS just kept taking me in circles. We had a reservation for dinner at 9 pm, so we decided it may be best for her to grab an Uber and meet at the restaurant.

I entered the restaurant into my GPS and only a couple minutes into the route I passed a huge sign that said “South Terminal”, naturally. I frantically called my sister to let her know I was there and luckily she hadn’t called a ride yet. I zoomed in, picked her up, and we booked it to the restaurant.

On the way I realized I didn’t blow out a candle thinking we would be right back to the apartment from the airport before dinner. Aba was really close to our apartment, so I parked in the back lot and sprinted up 6 flights of stairs to put out the candle (my calves were sore the next day). Note taken- always put the candle out before leaving.

We were 15 minutes late to the reservation, but the staff was super understanding when we called to let them know we were on the way!

We finally made it!!

Aba is fairly new to Austin, and it can be tough to get a dinner reservation. I think I had to make ours a solid two months in advance. Shout out to my sister-in-law, Laura, for recommending it!!

Sista sista!This is easily one of the most beautiful restaurants I have ever been to. The decoration was breathtaking. We couldn’t stop commenting how gorgeous it was- these pics could not possibly capture how stunning it was in person!

Not only was it one of the most beautiful restaurants I’ve been to, but it was one of the best meals I had in Austin (which y’all know is saying something because that city knows good food!).We started with a couple of their dips- the hummus and whipped feta. We concluded after trying them that the hummus was spectacular, but the whipped feta was possibly…yes I will go there… life-changing. Gosh, I crave that stuff somethin’ fierce. Also- we ate the hummus and feta with veggies, pita and gluten free crackers (my sis eats gluten free). I tried one of the gluten-free crackers and may have liked them even better than the fluffy pita! The crackers had this wonderful rosemary flavor. Also, they have a full gluten free menu, so if you are gluten free, this is a really solid dinner choice in Austin.

We also tried the side of potatoes and the waiter suggested we dip them in the whipped feta- heaven I tell ya.

And it doesn’t even stop there. Next we tried the squid- which was divine. I am talking melt-in-your-mouth. 

After saying how good the food was about 24908509 times, we walked down South Congress. At this point in the evening (I think it was probably 10:30ish), SoCo was pretty empty. It was fun seeing it this late at night like that- It felt like we had the road to ourselves (and not in the eerie way like early on in the pandemic).

After a nice walk, we drove back to the apartment. My sister’s bday is in late July, but we rarely ever have the chance to celebrate in person, so we deemed this her bday night! I went to Mr. Natural’s in town (where Kevin got the AWESOME vegan muffins for the Baustin Weekend). They also had a wide array of gluten free options- so I grabbed a few for us to enjoy! We could not believe how good they were.

On July 10th we were all carb loaded and ready to do Orange Theory!

We had an excellent workout and after just walked around the South Lamar square for a while admiring the artwork.

After, we zipped over to South Congress again for some post-workout fuel. I had a hankerin’ for some coffee & Andi said a smoothie from Amy’s sounded great! I quickly grabbed an iced coffee from Jo’s.  I can’t believe I hadn’t tried this sooner. This is easily some of the best coffee in Austin. Top 3 favorite coffee shops without a doubt!

Andi loved her smoothie from Amy’s too!

We went back to the apartment, got cleaned up, relaxed for a bit and then walked across the bridge to Cooper’s BBQ in downtown Austin.

Even though I don’t eat meat, these BBQ spots have the best sides! My favorite is still Terry Black’s, but this was darn good. Their coleslaw and mac n’ cheese was my favorite.

If you didn’t use half a stack of napkins, did you even BBQ?!

We grabbed a quick picture of Mr. Cooper himself.

To top off a wonderful afternoon, Andi suggested we go to reflexology. I have never done reflexology before and wasn’t familiar with it. It was awesome though- it’s basically a long foot massage!

And that wraps up our first part of the weekend.

Much more to come in part two 🙂

Thanks for reading!