Home Slice Pizza

After our hike in the dry riverbed, we were STARVING. We went to South Congress Avenue in Austin and decided to finally, finally try Home Slice Pizza.

Every time we go to Austin, Home Slice Pizza has at LEAST an hour wait. This time, we decided it was worth it. We put our names in, then sat on their back patio and had a drink. 45 minutes later, we had our table.

 

Those are some hungry people.

Appetizers!

For our appetizers, we had their garlic knots, which come with house-made tomato sauce for dipping, and a walnut, pear, and gorgonzola salad with a very subtle vinaigrette; I'm forgetting what it had in it. Sorry guys. 

Then there was the pizza. We got a margherita pizza, which was phenomenal. They DID NOT skimp on the garlic. This pizza was drenched in garlic. The basil and tomatoes were fresh and bright, the cheese was melted to perfection.

I haven't had pizza this good in a very long time.

Brandon got a calzone. It had spinach and ricotta cheese inside, and more marinara sauce for dipping. Normally, ricotta is an expensive cheese and restaurants use it sparingly. This calzone was stuffed to capacity with perfectly melted ricotta.

They clearly made their dough in-house. It was fresh, warm, doughy... And the marinara sauce was clearly just roma tomatoes blended to oblivion, with a lovely blend of herbs thrown in. Again, fresh, bright flavor.

The crowd at Home Slice is definitely very hipster. People hang out on the back patio drinking beer and playing ping-pong. Most of the staff are covered in tattoos. But a lot of these hipsters are parents now, so there were a lot of kids there. We noticed that at tables that had children, the waiter brought some pizza dough for the child to play with. I felt it was somewhat of a waste of food, but every child there was thrilled (and well-behaved), so I suppose it was worth it.

If you're ever in Austin, just know that Home Slice is worth the wait.

Adventures with Melissa!

Brandon's parents left, but now we have Brandon's sister! She is crashing on our couch, and we are having a great many adventures.

Over the weekend, we went to Austin and did some hiking. First hiking trail was short, and the only major focal point was a tiny cave, surrounded by a rock wall to keep people from falling in. So naturally, we hopped the wall to check out the cave.

Siblings on the rock wall.

It was less of a cave and more of a tiny hole in the ground.

Up-close pictures made it look more cave-like.

Oh yeah, I was there too!

It was so hot out. So, for our second hike we decided on a trail that supposedly lead to a lovely little swimming hole under a tiny waterfall. We soon found out that "the dry season" means just that. 

This is the riverbed. We are standing in it.

So we walked along the riverbed for a while!

...Until we came to the famed waterfall and swimming hole.

We sat in the shade for a bit,

Melissa saw her first Texas lizard!

And then, naturally, we decided to climb the waterfall.

And chill out on the rocks.

After regaining my energy, I got in on the action too!

Upstream, Brandon found a plaque in what would be the middle of the river.

The rock formations were really pretty. Everything was very smooth.

We climbed around for a bit,

Cooled off,

And hung out. 

 After a while, we had our fill, and went back to Austin for a bite to eat...

TO BE CONTINUED!

Family!

Apparently I give just enough hints on my Facebook as to what I'm doing to be annoying, but not enough details to satiate my mother's appetite for information. She insists - no, DEMANDS! - more photos of Brandon's family. And here they are.

We went to the Alamo!

And hung out in the courtyard!

We went to a flea market!

There were silly hats!

And action figures!

... One of which, Brandon bought!

We went to Rudy's BBQ!

Brandon's sister arrived!
Then we went to Mi Tierra's downtown!

Reading the menu!

Dos-rita!

Mariachi bros!

Attempts at getting photos of the whole table!

Crazy decorations!

The whole gang!

Next week, on Texas blog: More Texas!

Gini and Will Visited!

I apologize for the delay. It's been a crazy week. Let me finish telling you about the second half of Gini and Will's visit!

On Saturday, we went to the San Antonio Zoo and the Japanese Tea Gardens. Brandon had our camera at the zoo and took approximately 8 billion photos, so I'm just going to pick a handful here, and I'll consider posting the rest on facebook. But seriously, it's a lot.

Gini and I both used our umbrellas all day. It was so very hot out.

Komodo dragon!

Sea horses are such crazy animals. I stood at this tank and stared at them for a good 10 minutes, just mesmerized.

We spent forever in the reptile house. Brandon turns into an 8-year-old boy around lizards.

There were a ton of photos of lizards and snakes,

... but I'll spare you. If you want to see more, I can post them on Facebook.

Everywhere we went, Gini and Will had to do the "turn your penny into a thing" thing. They apparently collect them. It's a really affordable souvenir that doesn't take up a lot of space!

GIANT HIPPOS! TAKING AN UNDERWATER NAP!

Pictures of people.

Pictures of people.

Gini: "Notice we are in the Africa section of the park, and yet these are Asian elephants!"

Most of the animals were hiding in the shade.

This is an okapi. Gini bought a stuffed version in the gift shop, and named it "Okapi the okapi."

I think the heat robbed the kangaroos of all their boingaboinga.

Quick photo opp by the cacti.

They had fans in the gift shop, so I indulged.

Then, dinner! Mexican food again, of course.

One quick shot of the Japanese Tea Gardens, then our camera ran out of battery.

On Sunday and Monday, we went to Schlitterbahn! We brought a waterproof disposable camera with us and took turns carrying it and taking photos, so we actually got quite a few pictures of everyone:

Picture in front of the castle.

Everybody say "Water sliiiiiide!"

Trying not to fall off the crocodile.

The whole group.

Ready? Set, GOOOOOO!

Super pumped. 

Thumbs up action shot!

 Rawk on action shot!

 

In front of the castle... lots of sun in our eyes.

Honestly, Schlitterbahn was AMAZING. It was exhausting, but super duper fun. Back home, my summer tradition is to go to Cedar Point every summer. I've been going since I was 3. Being that Cedar Point is one of the best roller coaster parks in the world, my new summer tradition had big shoes to fill. Conveniently, Schlitterbahn is less than half an hour away from us, and it happens to be one of the best water parks in the world. So, an apt replacement, to say the least.

Seeing Gini and Will again was really nice. Now they need to tell everyone in Kzoo how much fun San Antonio is, so the rest of you guys will come visit us! ^_^