Texas wedding/vacay/anniversary

First of all- life around here has been pretty busy these last couple of weeks. So sorry that I've been a little MIA. But, to be honest more "real life" things have been pulling at me. And isn't being engaged into your real life more important?

I'm way behind on even keeping up with the reading in my blogroll. So much that I'm considering stopping some of the subscriptions that I don't absolutely "love".

Anyway, all that aside...

Part of the reason I've been so busy is that we took a trip to Texas!!!

It was so I could be a bridesmaid for my friend H. But since she got married 3 days before our 2nd anniversary we made a little vacay out of it.

Thankfully the 12 hour drive was fairly easy, especially since John chauffeurs me everywhere :) Except the dive through Houston and San Antonio where I wished either he or I had a Xanax. Lol.

Friday was spent getting the wedding reception setup and the rehearsal done. Then we enjoyed a great rehearsal dinner at a Mexican restaurant on the Riverwalk.

Saturday was the big day! H got married right along the Riverwalk at the Arneson River Theatre in the historic La Villita area. I did get a bit misty watching her walk the aisle. It was also so sweet because she looked a little like "Thumbelina" next to her dad. She's very petite and he's fairly tall.

Saying their vows

They can't stop boat traffic along the river, and during their ceremony another wedding party came through on a barge tour. So cute! (That's the bridal party's feet (the one I was in) on the stage above.)

The big kiss!

Yummy pretty cake!

Only in Texas does a gift bag to a wedding look like this! Lol

The lovely champagne gown. I made the hair accessories from the extra fabric hemmed off the dress.

The bride and I. Or Thumbelina and the Ogre. Lol. She's so tiny I look like a linebacker!

It's so nice to have a "date" at a wedding!

Had to get a shot of the wedding hair!

 The day after the wedding we headed back to the Riverwalk to browse more casually, and of course see The Alamo!
It's funny, because everyone at the wedding had told us "It's not nearly as big or grand as you'd think". But of course, if you've driven 12 hours, you can't leave without seeing it!

It was still cool to browse the grounds. And it's kinda surreal because it's very much in the downtown area now, and there are high rises and industry all around it. I guess it must be something akin to Central Park. A piece of lush green in the midst of a concrete jungle.

There it is! When you rely on a stranger for the photo- things get cut out! Like the top of the building.

Then we walked the entire Riverwalk loop. So many pretty sights.

A street crossing over the Riverwalk.

A cannon re-enactment! You can hear it from blocks and blocks away.

 Sunday was also a great food day. For lunch we ate at a restaurant in La Villita called the Guadalajara Grill. It had Mexican and John had a burger and they were both so amazing! In fact, his burger was one of the most flavorful and moist burgers I've ever tasted. I was also glad to get some really good Mexican because up to that point everything I had seemed kinda ho hum. Not any better than what I can get locally. And the owner himself was there cooking and serving. A sure sign it was home grown!

In the afternoon we drove up to Houston. We have friends there we wanted to see.
But Sunday night when we got in- we went to Cheesecake Factory for dinner. We were so tired of being in the car we debated driving another 30 min for dinner, but I am SO glad we did. First of all, the closest Cheesecake Factory to us is 6 hours away. Second, this means I have not eaten there in 4 years. Third, I love cheesecake.

The menu is like a novel, but somehow we managed to pick two winners. And our server was just excellent. Anyway, John had Sun Dried Tomato Chicken Fettucine. I could drink the sauce in a cup. I'm sure it had 356,347,277.9 calories. I had a wonderful BBQ ranch chicken salad. We really wanted to try red velvet cheesecake for dessert, but they were out. So we had a banana one instead. It was good, but I'm still thinking about how the red velvet might have tasted...

Monday we took it slow then headed off to Houston Space Center.

The tram tour took us to the Saturn V rocket park

A huge engine!

The Saturn V rocket. It was ENORMOUS!

The opening to each of these is like 20ft diameter

John and I touched a moon rock. Only 8 in the world you can touch. But, it now kinda looks like a piece of graphite.

This day we tried out a chain we don't have here- Chipolte. To be honest, we were not impressed. Not a lot of choices for toppings.

Monday night we finally were able to catch up with our friends "The L's".
We have not seen them in over a year since the moved away, and it was really nice to catch up.
BTW- If you ever visit Alvin TX don't drink the tap water. It's horrible.

Tuesday we made the long trek home. This was our actual anniversary. We made really good time and had a coupon for The Melting Pot so we squeezed that in as a farewell to our vacay. ?This time we had Swiss cheese, canola oil (to fry) for the main course and white chocolate marshmallow Oreo for dessert. It was really good! Now we've gone there for "all" our anniversaries.

Never has raw meat looked so pretty

Flambeed chocolate!

Super sweet strawberries

Oh, another reason I've been lacking in my blog- I began this series on the drive to Texas.

The Hunger Games

Oh my goodness, it's such an easy and engaging read. I've spent a lot of my "down" time devouring the pages. I just started book three this week. I'm kinda sad now that it will end eventually. Who needs TV when you've got great books to engage your mind?
I also really enjoyed using John's Kindle. Since he got a Kindle Fire the regular old Kindle does not get used much. I'd really want to keep it if the books were all free!

Well, now that I finally feel less guilty since I caught ya'll up some- I'm off to read some more!

Stay tuned though, more changes to come!

Weekend Update 02-25-12

Hi everyone!

We kept the weekend pretty low key around here, since we were busy last weekend and will be again next weekend. I tried to get a lot done around the house, because I can't stand to come home from a trip to a dirty house.

I've started a pretty decent pile for a yard sale. Do you ever get to where you just feel like your stuff is crowding in on you? I just start itching to get it OUT! When I feel like I start to run out of space, and the space I have is even larger than the space I had before, it's time to purge. I think it was brought on by my closet getting a little tight. I like things organized. And you can't keep things organized when you don't have enough space. So, I'm hoping in a month or two (when my mom is in town) to have a big yard sale and free up some space in this house!

The big fun thing this weekend was John getting to drive a race car. For Christmas he got a Groupon to ride along for 4 laps at our local track. My mom graciously upgraded it to a 15 lap driving experience.
The day started out really nippy and windy. Of course being on a big open race track without wind breaks did not help. But I did get another chance to wear my warm wool coat.

John did just fine- no wrecks thank goodness. And he avoided his big fear of biffing when getting in or out of the car. All the car engines have been in a NASCAR cup race. We were worried because some of the possible car styles listed were not exactly what you would call "cool". But on our day they only had Monte Carlos.

John is the green car

Do you think I could be a good NASCAR wife? :)

The 2nd place winner of the Snowball Derby was the driver for ride along peeps

Getting out of the car. Successfully. :)

I'm looking forward to a short work week and I'll have lots of pics when we return from out trip!

Weekend Update 02-20-12 (A "Wicked" Good Time!)

Hi everyone!

So this weekend I finally discovered the surprise John had been taunting me with for several months.

All I knew until Friday was that we were going away for the weekend and that Saturday night we were staying in a hotel. I was told to bring one outfit each of "warm" "beach" "dressy" and "casual".
I deduced from the length we'd be gone that wherever we were going was in driving distance.

So Friday afternoon we headed out. Based on the route we traveled and the miles to our destination, I finally figured out we were going to Birmingham. I really enjoyed the scenery on the drive up as we traveled through the country a good bit.

We spent Friday evening with some wonderful friends of ours. Their son was John's best man and their granddaughter was our flower girl. We were unexpectedly treated to a great dinner in an area that reminded me of the little quaint mountain towns in Colorado.
Since I did not have a plan of the entire weekend as I packed, I managed to forget a very important item- jeans! My pants for the weekend. My only other options were shorts (too cold) and yoga pants (not appropriate). Well, I thought for sure I was about to have to buy another pair. But Mrs. "C" came through. I not only got some pants to wear, but about 10 other tops and bottoms along with 2 bracelets. Don't you just love getting new (to you) things for free? You know I do!
So once I had dinner-appropriate attire, we headed off to one of their favorite places, Stone's Throw.

Bleu cheese chips, steak, seafood pasta, burger

Banana pudding, bread pudding, creme brulee

We sat at the Chef's table- with a view into the kitchen

The only half-decent photo of the bunch. I promise we were all having a good time!

Everyone had a scrumptious dinner. I wimped out and had the burger. I just knew the steak would be too much food for me. Thankfully John had the steak and I did get to try it. Very very tasty! I do love a good steak.

Then we all had amazing dessert! I had banana pudding with a peanut butter crust. And the bananas were caramelized!

After getting home we were all full and tired, and headed off to bed. I still want to find out where Mrs "C" got her sheets. They were so so soft! I could not help but just skim my legs across them over and over.

Saturday morning we slept late, which was AMAZING. Then Mrs "C" made us all breakfast. We talked and caught up on life (over the last 2 years!) for several hours before finally getting out of our pajamas. I showered just in time for us to head over to the hotel (that was a fabulous, no "priceless" deal, thanks again to Mrs "C" the travel agent). We stayed at a Hyatt Place in Birmingham.

A lazy rainy Saturday. Love.

I told you all I did was shower. No makeup. Waiting in the hotel lobby.

Then John had us get in our nice clothes for dinner. We intended to eat at The Cheesecake Factory- but the wait was too long. Instead we went next door to California Pizza Kitchen. Also very tasty. We had some time to kill before the next surprise, so we walked around the shops that are in the same outdoor mall as the restaurant. The area is called "The Summit". It was on the peak of a hill and it was so nice. I did not realize how "happening" Birmingham is. There's lots of nice areas and fun things to do.

These always turn out as our best photos on vacay. Lol

Wearing the fishnets that were my later downfall

In the car headed off to dinner

Bham skyline

The kid who decided his arm should join us in our booth. John finally stretched his arm out and bumped his arm "accidentally". That was enough for him to get the message.

My favorite store we went in was Anthropologie. Oh my. We don't have those back home. I'd only peeked in once once before. I was so in love. I could decorate my whole house from there. I managed not to drool. However, I was not in love with their prices. But if I was rich- that would be my store. The candles there smelled amazing. But not $30 amazing.

Drool. I want the grey lamp shades. Too bad a pair would set me back $260.

We also stopped in for some froyo at Pinkberry. I had the caramel and it was really good.
As we made our way back to the car (in the wind and drizzle) I realized that I indeed wore the wrong shoes. The "hurts-so-bad-they-put-you-in-a-bad-mood" kind of wrong shoes. Good thing I had another half mile of walking ahead of me. I did manage not to cry. The pain was exacerbated by my fish net stockings that were making the balls of my feet burn with their web-like pattern. Two days later that area is still sensitive. But I digress.

We headed downtown as it was the reason for our trip. John bought us tickets to see "Wicked: A New Musical." !!!!!! He knows how much I love this show!  I've only seen one Broadway show, but I've now seen it six times! We've each seen it before, but never together. It was so nice to get all dressed up for a date. And even nicer to get away for the weekend.

The convention complex the theater was in was HUGE. And I don't know if closer parking was available, but we literally walked for 10-15 minutes to get to the theater from our car. I thought I was going to cry because of my feet. But John said "Please don't, or people will think this is a really bad date." Lol.

Once we finally made it to our seats, we were already huffing a bit. To make matters worse- it was like literally 75-80 degrees in our section. Mind you- it was like 40 degrees outside. So we were dressed warmly. Thank goodness for layers or I would have been sweating. Also, John thought we had floor seats, but as it turned out we were in the first balcony, about 4 rows from the top. So, a little further than he expected.

The show itself did not disappoint. I don't have any photos since any kind of recording is strictly prohibited. Since I've now seen about 5-6 different people play the leads, it's interesting to compare every actor's take on the character. Some really are better than others. Of course I've never seen the originals- Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth.

At about midnight in the hotel lobby- just before finally taking off those wretched shoes!

Side note- while placing the links to the names above, I got sidetracked for about 30 minutes reading bios of several women who've played the lead in Wicked. Sad but true. Sometimes I get a little starry-eyed. I think being a Broadway star would be one of the coolest and must fun things to do in life!

Sunday morning I slept the latest I've slept in a very long time. John proclaims the latest since we've been married. 9:49 am. I guess going to bed at 1:20 am had something to do with it. Anyway, we managed to catch the last few bites of the free breakfast, but just by a hair. I felt exceedingly relaxed the rest of the day.

On our way home, John had one last surprise for me. As a mid-trip break, we stopped at a local place called Priester's Pecans. It had a Cracker Barrel like atmosphere. And of course lots of pecans. I had some really wonderful pistachio almond ice cream and John had a coffee drink.

And all of this weekend was possible because of my wonderful husband. I kept thinking all weekend how blessed I am. Not everyone is a "lucky" in love as we are. not everyone tries so hard to make it work. But mine does. Every once in a while- he goes BIG! :) And he does "little" things to make me smile all the time!

Once we arrived home and had our tongue-baths from the dogs, we settled in to watch another Harry Potter. Now we only have 1 left to go!

I hope you all had a good weekend too! But it being as exciting as mine is highly doubtful :)

If only I could get away like this once a month. Oh I do love traveling for pleasure!