I love Pike.

Day 14- Jeremy was able to get off work early on Friday so we left around 3pm to try and beat traffic. We ate at Jeremy's favorite, Matt's El Rancho, with Amanda where there was no wait (seriously ever other time I have eaten there it's at least a 30 minute wait). Jeremy and I treated ourselves to some Amy's Ice Cream before retreating to our freezing cold hotel room (which I refused to complain about because at least there was a/c!).

Vat of queso!! Yum!

At Matt's El Rancho

Day 15- Saturday we slept in then met Sarah and Thomas at Thomas's tailgate - the food was incredible!! I love that smoker! :) The game was a great one to watch and once the sun went behind us, it was very pleasant. Jeremy can probably comment more on how UT played, but I know we played well, beating those stinky hogs 52-10. We had dinner at Moonshine with Jeremy's friend Zach and his wife Carrie, who just found out they're expecting their first baby in April! It is always fun to catch up with them, and we got to see their new house. We also saw the blonde drummer from Foo Fighters at Moonshine (I totally called it!). He sat down near us with his wife or girlfriend and their baby, but then they left 5 minutes later. Boo! Probably good though because I think Jeremy would have stared the whole time!

Day 16- Sunday we slept in again, ate lunch with Amanda at EZ's then headed back to reality. We returned home from Austin to find the wonderful crews from Pike in Georgia put new poles and transformers down our street and at 8pm, they turned our power back on! Many neighbors had gathered on our street and it was great to be able to witness the lights coming back on! We hugged and screamed when we saw our neighbor Matt's porch light come on! We were a little worried about our 30 year old a/c unit coming back to life after 16 days, but sure enough it kicked right on, as did all our lights, TV's and fridge. Our cable had been ripped from our house (I think really from Centerpoint cutting the tree off the lines in our backyard, not from the storm) but Jeremy was smart enough to contact Comcast last week to get that fixed, so we even had cable and internet up and running. It felt amazing to sleep in our own bed after 16 days, and to have all our clothes and stuff back in one place. I swore up and down I would not clean anything last night, I only wanted to bask in the glory of electricity, but I broke down and vaccuumed and Pledged all of our stuff in the living room. Other rooms will have to wait, but at least one is (fairly) clean and back in order. Today I'll pick up the dogs from the kennel and then I'll need to do some major grocery shopping since all we have left in our fridge is Coke Zero and beer.

Yes, our yard is trashed from tree removal.

Next up - planning our post-Ike block party!!