Posted on January 25, 2021
Posted on May 17, 2016
I realize some of you have no idea what the title to this blog is referencing. It has been awhile, folks. From my last post to today, there have been some changes!
First, I no longer work for Texas Tech University. It was time to move on and seek a different place of employment. I have so many great memories and have met the most amazing students while working at Texas Tech. I love my school, and I will always cherish the adventures and great times working for Tech, however, after 4 years I was looking for something different. I currently work at Texas Exes, the official Ex-Students Association for The University of Texas. Yup, I’m working with the big dogs and burnt orange. It has been a different environment, but I can say that it is going well. I’ll always bleed Red and Black don’t you worry! I still get to have student interaction and work for a great organization that is creating excellent opportunities for incoming students. I’ll talk more about my position on a post later.
Second, 11 days. Ahhhh Eleven Days. ELEVEN DAYS until I become MRS. CARO! Luis and I will be getting married on May 28th. It seems like we were engaged forever ago, now 10 months later, we are about to become husband and wife. I remember the days where I cried, screamed, prayed and bargained with God to bring me a nice man that I can spend the rest of my life with. He definitely brought me a great one. Most of my favorite moments in my life have been spent with him. He’s the one I can’t wait to see when I come home and the one I love talking to about everything. We have been blessed to go on some fun adventures, see some really awesome music, see almost every sports Austin has to offer, and most importantly, get to know each other and who we are. We have built a bond and foundation to always try and keep trying to make our relationship great. We don’t always see eye to eye, but at the end of the day, we know we love each other, and we know we are both all in to make it work. So, in eleven days we will make this a permanent adventure. I.Can’t.Wait.
Third, is that we are getting married, we had to have some photos taken. That’s right, I finally had to be in front of the camera instead of behind it. NERVES. This was something I was dreading and putting off until the last minute. We chose a fantastic photographer names J.Masciana Photography. She’s been putting up with my difficult and annoying requests. Fun fact, she has the same degree (Photocommunications) as I have except she graduated from a school in California. Totally Random! That pretty much sealed the deal for me. She’s been so great to us. Below are some photos from our shoot. I will have to say after the shoot, I was a wreck, I didn’t want to see the photos. Then, she sent us the link to the photos, I ugly cried with how great they turned out. We are so in love with them. I could not have asked for better photos.
Fourth, Speaking of photos and adventures… We decided for our honeymoon that we are going to SPAIN! We are going to spend 2 weeks exploring Spain. That means TONS of photos. TONS. I am super excited that I will be able to take my camera and photograph, photograph, photograph, and photograph some more. Luis and I love traveling together, and of course, you guys know I love photographing! When I moved into Luis’s house a little over a year ago, he had it remodeled before I moved in. We also purchased almost everything new because we were making it our home. So, when it came to figuring out registries for our wedding, we knew that we didn’t need a lot of things for the house. We decided on creating a HoneyFund to help make our dream vacation come to fruition. Hopefully, everyone will feel the same way about our idea!
I promise I will update more often! We went on an 8 day trip to California in September, and I’ll post those photos soon.
~ Jalys.
Posted on June 2, 2015
Day 3 of Denver Vacay was the most chill of the three days. It was rainy and foggy, not a lot to do. We drove out to a nature preserve so we could see some buffalo, elk and other creatures. We were unsuccessful and didn’t see anything other than a couple of deer.
After the nature preserve, we decided to go to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Â The whole city of Denver had the same idea, and the museum was packed. This was the least favorite part of our trip, but we got to see some nature and science. We kept hearing about this burger place in Denver called The Park. We decided to go there for a late lunch before we went to the airport. The burger was pretty good, while we were there, Luis mentioned that there was a brewery down the street that he forgot about. We still had about an hour until we needed to get to there airport, so we headed that way.
The brewery was called Epic Brewing, and it was EPIC! 🙂 This turned out to be our favorite brewery that we went to. The taproom was open with a cool bar area. One thing that Denver has over Austin is the cool taproom settings. We stayed there and enjoyed a few cold beers. Luis found his favorite beer on the planet. He’s still trying to find somewhere in Austin that carries that particular beer. After Epic Brewing, we returned the car and headed back to the airport. The flight home was pretty scary, we went through some heavy storms, and the turbulence was really shaky. All-in-all it was a great weekend! Here are the last of the photos from Day 3, I didn’t take a lot of photos this particular day.
That’s a wrap!
~ Jalys.
Posted on May 8, 2015
Finally, I have some time to sit down and finish editing and posting about our Denver Vacation. Day 2 was my absolute favorite day. After we finished walking around the zoo, we decided to go to The Great Divide Brewery. The place was PACKED! We enjoyed a short tour of the brewery, and then we walked over to Breckenridge.
As we were sitting at Breckenridge Brewery and Pub, we knew that doing another brewery would be a disaster, so I got on my phone and went to a trusty traveler site, TripAdvisor. I found out that a place called Mount Evans was the number one fun thing to do in Denver. Not knowing the area, we decided to just go with it and head that way. As we turned off the main interstate, there was a sign that said the road to Mount Evans was closed. Being that we just drove 30 miles to this point, we decided to take our chances and drive until we were told to turn around.
It was such a gorgeous drive. We started down the road, and there were cabins everywhere. Every so often we would see a little creek running alongside our road. As we continued to drive there would be patches of snow, and the scenery was breathtaking. We kept driving, and as we were driving up the mountain, it started to snow. We looked down, and all we saw were trees covered in snow. We came upon a frozen lake, and we definitely were not in Texas anymore! We decided that we would come back to the lake on our way back. About a mile up the road was the turnoff to Mount Evans, which was closed! Haha There was a place to park, and we saw some other cars there, so we decided to take a break and check out the scenery. I brought my camera along and photographed the area that we were in. Turns out we were in the Arapaho National Forest. It was sooooo gorgeous. The snow was really coming down, and we met a gentleman that was telling us about the area. He told us to continue down the road, and we will eventually get back to Denver.
We went back to the frozen lake, so I could photograph a little bit and then we continued on. The drive back was so gorgeous. Snow, trees, mountains… everything was excellent. We discussed plans to move there, it was so peaceful and stress-free. When we finally returned to Denver, we wanted to check out a couple more breweries before we turned in for the night. We went to Denver Beer Co, and the atmosphere was super chill. We felt like we were hanging out in Austin. There were plenty of tables and games for patrons to engage in. The beer was great. We agreed that we were going to purchase pint glasses at every brewery we stopped at. We came home with about 10 glasses! Haha. After Denver Beer Co we decided to head over to Prost Brewing, and that was our last brewery of the night.
After we finished our beer at Prost, it was getting late. We wanted to eat before we went back to the hotel. We settled on a place called Denver Deep Dish. Best.Pizza.Ever. Literally the best pizza ever. The crust was the best crust I’ve ever had. It was like a biscuit and pizza crust put together. After eating at Denver Deep Dish, pizza will never be the same. The toppings were great, the crust is heaven, and the only thing I wished was that I could have eaten more. I wish Austin had a place like this.
This wraps up day 2. This was my favorite part of the day and ironically the worst photos I took during the vacation. Haha. Oh well, the memories will definitely always be there. Here are a couple of photos from Day 2 Part 2.
~ Jalys
Posted on April 29, 2015
I’ve decided to break day 2 into two parts as it was our busiest day! It also happens to be my favorite day. We started the morning by going to DJ’s 9th Ave Cafe for breakfast. I read they had peanut butter and jelly french toast before we went on our trip, so I wanted to try that out. It was delicious. The first bite took a bit to get used to, but then it became addicting. After we received the bill, the waitress saw that I still had 1/2 of my plate left and told me I should have ordered the 1/2 order. HAHA. That would have been great to know when we ordered! The plate came with 5 slices of french toast, I could only eat two of them, and Luis tried 1. They also have strawberries and cream stuffed french toast that looked interesting.
Yummy!
After breakfast, we once again needed to walk off all the calories that we consumed. The weather was beautiful, so we decided to go to the Denver Zoo. I will be the first one to admit that I’m not a fan of zoos. I don’t believe in the purchase of animals and taking them out of their natural habitat for our commercial entertainment that the zoo brings. However, Luis wanted to go, and I don’t expect everyone to have the same opinions that I have. When we got there, all the animals are asleep. We went through the first few exhibits and were about to ask for a refund. We kept walking, the sky became overcast, and the animals started to come out, and we were able to see them in their “manmade” habitat.
My favorite part of the zoo was spending time with Luis. Cue the cheesy “awwww.” But, we had so much fun looking at the different animals and making sarcastic comments about parents of the year. I really enjoyed the zoo. The weather was perfect, the animals finally came out and acted semi-interested. The best part was the gorilla section of the zoo. One of the gorillas was clearly annoyed with the zoo patrons. About every five minutes or so he would run up to the glass case and bang on the window to scare the bejesus out of everyone. I feel like one day he might be on an episode of Snapped: Zoo Edition.
We spent several hours at the zoo. We even bought a couple of trinkets to remember our wonderful time with the purchased animals for entertainment. 🙂 We also may have convinced ourselves we don’t want kids. That idea was confirmed on day 3, which I will write about soon! Here are some of the images from the zoo. Day 2 is to be continued!
~ Jalys
Posted on April 28, 2015
This past weekend Luis and I traveled to Denver for a mini vacation. We left at 630am Texas time and got to Denver at 745am. We did a little research before we left for Denver and decided we would have breakfast at this place called Denver Biscuit Company. By the time we got there, we both were starving as we had been up since 4am. The vibe at Denver Biscuit Co was awesome. We felt like we were right at home in Austin! The food was delicious, so much that we went back on our last day! I devoured my biscuits and gravy in about 2 minutes. 🙂 It was a great first stop on our Denver vacation.
This took all of 2 minutes to eat!!
After breakfast, we needed to walk off the calories we just inhaled, so we decided to drive out to Red Rocks and explore that area during the morning. The views were breathtaking. The mountains, the greenery, the rocks… everything! It was really cool seeing all the people running, jumping, and sliding down the amphitheater stairs. Denver seems like a really health conscious and exercised city. I took my camera along and photographed some of the scenery. The weather was about 50 degrees at the time and felt so amazing… NO HUMIDITY! We decided to continue exploring the area, and we went a little up the road to visit Buffalo Bill’s grave and Lookout Mountain. The area had a great view of the Coors Brewery and miles upon miles of hiking/biking trails.
Around noon, we drove down Lookout Mountain and ventured into Golden, where we toured Coors Brewery. This was our first significant brewery tour together. Usually, we go to local craft breweries, but we wanted to check out mass production. The tour was free and also came with free samples. I enjoyed sipping fresh Coors Light, and Luis found a fave new beer, Batch 19, that we are searching for in Austin! I didn’t bring my camera into the brewery as per their rules no bags were allowed, but, I did get a few iPhone photos! We finished the tour around 2pm and walked across the street to Bob’s Atomic Burgers. It’s definitely one of those mom and pops burger joints. Burgers tasted great and the atmosphere was super chill and laid back… once again, I felt like we were hanging out in Austin! I really loved Golden. It was a cute little town that seemed so quiet and small-town America.
Friday night we purchased tickets to go see the Colorado Rockies vs. the San Francisco Giants. Our hotel was right down the road from Coors Field and perfect walking distance. Coors Field has this cool industrial look to go along with the history of the city. It also is where Blue Moon beer was first brewed! #FunFact! My favorite part of the stadium was the bullpen. Back in the bullpen area, there was this nice little scene set up with trees, a river, mountains and even had fountains spraying water before the game. The Rockies ended up winning 6-4 that night.
Well, that was day 1 of our Denver vacation. Check back to hear about day 2! Enjoy the photos I snapped at Red Rocks and Lookout Mountain!
~ Jalys.
Posted on April 22, 2015
As promised, here are the photos form Lone Star Roundup. It was fun to walk around and photograph at my leisure. 99% of these photos are detailed photographs. I’m not a car photographer, I just love photographing details that I find interesting! I love the opportunity to go out and just photograph my interests.
I’m super excited to say that in 2 days, Luis and I will be in Denver for the weekend! We’ve been working sooooooo hard lately with me working weekends for events through my job, that we decided to reward ourselves with a mini vacation. We only have a few plans, a baseball game Friday night, we want to go to the zoo and the museum of nature and science. The rest of the time we will decide when we get there. There will be a couple of brewery tours, but we really haven’t picked out which ones. Both of our jobs are very demanding and are scheduled months in advance. We don’t want to plan our vacation activities. I’m terrified and excited at the same time! Hahaha. Of course, I’m bringing my camera along to document our trip! So be on the lookout for photos and our adventures!
I hope y’all enjoy the car show photos!
~ Jalys
Posted on April 20, 2015
Posted on March 13, 2015
A few weeks ago my boyfriend and one of our friends, Trixee, competed together in a CrossFit competition at CrossFit Round Rock. Being the proud girlfriend I am, I took some photos of them competing. I started CrossFit a few months ago and have a love/hate relationship with it. I love going, but I hate getting up so early to go workout. Looking at the photos has me dying to get back into the routine of working out and getting stronger. We are not members of CrossFit Round Rock, we go to another box called Woodward CrossFit. If anyone wants to join us, let us know. We always need more friends to come workout with us! Enjoy the photos, and new projects are in the mix. 🙂
Have a great weekend!
~ Jalys.