Bye September! {weekend recap}

So this was totally one of those weekends where you thought you were relaxing the whole time but it turns out you were just making yourself tired most of the time, which you find out Sunday night when you're utterly exhausted.  We were supposed to have our anniversary pics taken, but the good old Texas weather put a stop to that.  It rained on and off ALL DAY here on Saturday, so we deemed it too unpredictable.

Anyways, Friday night we went out to El Tiempo with some friends--we had never been to an El Tiempo and I gotta say, I was impressed, really good food!  I had fajita chicken tacos and was pleasantly surprised at how fresh they tasted.  Also, I maybe had like four margaritas.  They were well-deserved, don't worry.

Most of these pics are from Saturday I think.  Bryan and I en route to our friend's house to watch the A&M and Badger games and the delicious chili they made in a HUGE enormous giant pot.  I've only seen that stuff out at crawfish boils...actually maybe that's why they have it.

ANYWAYS, down in the corner we have one of their dogs, Penny, who is a delightful little wiener dog.  The guys rag on her for being annoying but I think she's cute.  Barley had quite the weekend...he had two mornings at the dog park, and this resulted in a nice long nap with his dad on the couch Sunday afternoon.

Yay for new nail polish!  I picked up the dark blue/teal-ish one a week or two ago, it's called "go overboard" and I kinda love it.  I was being against dark polish since it's still so nice out here, but it feels right.  Then I went to Target on Sunday and found the other new one, "the lace is on", which I'm super excited to try out. 

And I think we all know this wouldn't be a weekend recap without me mentioning food, so I will just share that Sunday night I grilled up a bunch of jalapeno spiced chicken breasts, veggie kabobs and some brown rice and put together my lunches for the whole week.  I am pretty proud of this!  I did the same thing last week minus the chicken, and I felt really good about what I was eating, but I needed some mid-day protein.  Little wins make a big difference, right?! 

I also need to mention all of the TV from Sunday night.  No, I don't watch Breaking Bad, but I was anxiously awaiting the return of Homeland.  I won't spoil it for anyone, but it was kinda meh in my opinion.  It will be interesting to see where they take this season since right now I feel like it could go a million ways. Also watched Betrayal on ABC last night and I'm semi-intrigued.  Everyone loves a good (fictional) affair and legal drama, right?! We also DVR'd Masters of Sex, the new Showtime series, so more to come on that.

Overall, a great weekend, and this upcoming week is chock full of plans and things to do!  Wednesday early evening is a reception for work, Thursday is BINGO with other lovely Houston bloggers, and Friday night it's party time again for the owner of my company's birthday!  So mostly just need to break through the first couple days of the week.    

Happy Monday everyone!

Champs, Good Meals & New Puppy Ears {long weekend success!}

Welcome back to reality from that beautiful long weekend everyone!  We had such a relaxing weekend, honestly I am dreading being back to real life today, and I'm sure most of you feel the same way.

This weekend was mostly about drinking only champagne, and eating lots of delish food, most of which we made ourselves.  So without more b.s. introductory remarks, here is our weekend.

Friday:

I worked Friday, and I'm using the term "worked" pretty lightly.  My company was having a charity golf tournament that I volunteered at all day, and there was a mimosa dispenser.  So, yeah.

Also discovered this fun fact on Friday, Barley has two different ears now:

Wednesday is pre snip-snip happening, and Friday is post snip-snip.   Is it possible that being snipped has changed his ears? I will be delving into puppy pics, because I think both ears used to be like the one on the right, and then both went back and cropped a little and now they are both different. 

After a warm day at the golf course for me and just a rough week in general for Bryan, he came home and announced that we should go out for dinner, specifically Italian.  So we decided to try Prego, a new place for us.

It went as follows:

1.  A delish bottle of red that was 70% Sangiovese, 30% Cabernet.  2.  My meal-steak per usual, duh guys.  We all know I literally can't resist steak at all. 3.  THIS WAS MY 25TH ITALIAN RESTAURANT CHECK-IN ON FOURSQUARE.  Twenty. Five. Different Italian restaurants.  Omg we are Italian food lushes.  4.  Bryan go some type of seafood fettuccine.  He said it was delish.  

Saturday was pretty chilled out--we had a nice morning family walk, I ran and rolled my right ankle (sweet.) .56 miles in (thanks Nike app.) so that kinda sucked, but the rest of the day made up for it in that we did basically nothing.  I ended up going shopping to buy some presents to send  for my friend in Chicago's baby shower that is next weekend.  And then I went to Half-Price Books and scored big time!

$13 ladies & gents.  For approx. $53 worth of books.  HARDCOVER Freedom, people.  

Part of my 30 for 30 list is about reading more books again (I was a huge reader through part of college and then I got busy with life.)  and trying to read books I wouldn't normally pick up.  So out of this stack, I would say Gone With the Wind and Freedom are two of those--a classic & a book that was so popular I wanted to avoid it.  So we'll see.  I'm 200 pages into Nineteen Minutes and about 20 pages into GWTW.  

Umm so obviously I rewarded myself with some champppsss for my efforts in book shopping!

Then we grilled maybe one of our best summer meals yet:

Cheddar-Jalapeno Chicken Burgers (with bacon on top, because yes.)

Corn

Sweet potato fries

Bacon-wrapped jalapeno poppers (homemade, not from HEB although you know I considered it.)

Here it is in all of it's finished glory:

Chicken burgers are my favorite & HEB grinds its own boneless, skinless chicken breasts so I love knowing it's freshly ground chicken.  The other grocery store *cough Kroger cough* does not do this. (I like Kroger too, no grocery store discrimination, but HEB dominates when it comes to produce and meat.)

So Sunday I have really no pictures of--another nice "family walk" in the morning, then we went to breakfast at a Black Walnut Cafe and decided we prefer Buffalo Grille.  Ain't nobody got time for a cold pancake, BWC!!!

After that, we relaxed around home, I ran a couple errands, and then Bryan made us crunchwrap (like Taco Bell crunchwraps, yes) rip-offs that are at least somewhat healthier than the real-deal.  Naturally, in true blogging fail-fashion, no picture!

I wrapped up my weekend with my blogger fantasy football draft! I did the whole thing myself and I'm pretty proud of it!  More about that for Fan Friday this week, but needless to say I'm pretty happy that I had first pick and was able to secure Adrian Peterson!

this is my fantasy picture.  AP living it up with Blue Bell (the best ice cream ever, TEXAS WHAT?!) after his knee surgery on New Year's Eve.  

As much as I obviously hate the Vikings, all-day AP was a big win for the Luckness Monster.  I also have Andrew Luck, haha, get it.  Let's start a count of how many times I change my team name this year.  So far this is name #2.  Armed Rodgery was my first, but I don't have A-Rodg and I feel like your name should be about a player you have.  Or something funny from The League.  I'm still considering switching to "Password is Taco" or "Carmenjello".

Only time will tell!

Hoping everyone had a great weekend/long weekend/extra-long nap days!

The Weekender {vol. 13}

Such a fun and busy weekend for us.  Lots of eating, touring, and hanging out!

Friday night we went to Pappasito's for dinner and of course I got this delish blackberry marg tequila creation again!

Um I also ordered this insane combination meal-pork tamale, cheese with chili con carne enchiladas, and a crispy beef taco! I hate like half of each and then just about died.

Saturday we drove out to Galveston, and spent the first half of the day shopping on the Strand. I found like 10 maxi dresses I would have bought were it not for something called "a budget" and "saving for a home."  Boooo.  

However, I did get some really great bracelets that I think are knock offs of ones I've seen at like Nordstrom, but whatever: 

Annnnd here is a blue tree to raise awareness of conservation because of Hurricane Ike (I think?)
 

We were all set to take my mother in law to an awesome seafood place so she could get something delicious and fresh, but then we saw this Mediterranean place and got hooked on the idea of a Greek salad:

 

Umm yes I got mine with gyro meat. No shame!

K so then we ended our day with a tour of the Bishop's Palace, I will let the photos speak for themselves:

 

Gorgeous! We grilled some dinner up, had some wine, and then everyone was pretty much exhausted from a long day!

Sunday, Sunday!! We went to Buffalo Grille for brunch, and omelettes and breakfast burritos abounded.

After that we headed to the zoo.

Rawwwrrrr

Oh hi sad zebra, let's be friendssss!

Crazy giraffe all splayed out!  They have like 400 giraffes, it's great!

Sea lion getting a drinky drink!

Sunday night we grilled again, and then ended up going to Dessert Gallery for some cake!  I got the "chip off the old block" which was white cake with chocolate chips and dark chocolate ganache.  yeah. and Bryan and his mom both got the Italian cream cake. 

A little HGTV later and we were all done for after two full days of walking, talking, eating and drinking!

What was your highlight of the weekend? Hope everyone had a great one!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Weekender :: Vol. 11

Looking back on photos of this weekend, pretty much seems like all I did was drink, drink, drink.  Except for Sunday, when we were way too tired to do anything but nap and eat and nap and go grocery shopping.

Thursday:  

Growlers were half price at this great place in Houston, Moon Tower Inn.  They also have awesome burgers, exotic hot dogs, and all sorts of seating under umbrellas so you don't die in the heat!  Not technically the weekend, but still.

Friday:

It was a long week, so I drank some champs, watched The Sopranos, and we went to bed semi-early!

Saturday:

Woke up to these two boys sleeping under the same blanket on the couch, how sweet.

Then I made some strawberry margarita jello shots, some of which I tried to put in strawberries...more on that to follow soon.

I managed to get a super slow, really hot run in late in the morning.  The app claimed it was only 85 degrees but I know it was lying.  Felt like 100 outside.  DIED.

K, so then my afternoon drastically improved from running to meeting up with the so funny and sweet Lauren from Method to My Madness!  Three hours later, we were like, "shit, better get home and make sure the husbands are alive!'  Needless to say, time flew by and we had a great bonding session over blogging, married life, making friends when you're in your late 20s, accompanied by a few Moscow Mules, Beaver's house punch of the day, and pulled pork sliders!

We failed at being bloggers because we only took this one pic in the parking lot before we left!  I know, good bloggers would have taken like 400 of every drink, sandwich, etc.  

See?  Proof we were at Beaver's.

So then I came home and Bryan and our friend Tom (see him below) were having a little pool party together.

Tom and I trying to look like we like each other. 

Testing out my strawberry creations (which were awesome btw)

Sunday:

Around 4 am on Sunday, Bryan took the world's most unflattering picture of me ever, sleeping so I could see how Barley curls up on top of my head at night.  

Like I said, Sunday was a real lazy day for all of us.

So now some more gratuitous pics of Barley for your entertainment:

Sprawled out and relaxing on the cold floor after a hot walk outside.

Dominating Mom and Dad's couch space.

Totally dominating Dad to get at his bone! He was actually just sitting like this on top of Bryan.  For like five minutes and chewing his bone.  Really bro?

Hope everyone else had weekends that were just as fun as ours was!  After all, it was the last weekend of July...which means that *someone*coughBryancough has a birthday this Friday!

The Weekender :: Vol. 9

Ok, so here's what we've been up to over the last few days.   Honestly, it was pretty uneventful, but I think that's what weekends are for-doing absolutely nothing.

Went out for a delightful run/walk on the Fourth of July while it was still cool in the morning.  I ended up getting a total of three miles in under the 88 degree sun. I had sort of forgotten how much I love running outside, so I'm going to ambitiously try to do these more often, plus I just feel it more the next day! 

More to come on half marathon training soon.

We really didn't do a whole lot on the fourth---grilled ourselves some turkey dogs (me) and Italian sausages (him).  We ended up playing with pup, creeping on the pool (it was packed with a college party), and turning off all of the lights to watch fireworks on tv.  Maibs it's lame, but I had to work at 8 on Friday and couldn't totally get home at 11:30 from fireworks and try and get my sorry self up on Friday.

Oh you know, this is how Barley slept Friday night, right between us, stretched out, diagonally. Totes normal.

Gym-ed it up Saturday morning/afternoon.  Got a solid cardio in on this weird elliptical/stepping machine I haven't used before, but was ok.  Probs would just go back to interval walks or the regular elliptical next time.  I know this one looks lame, but I was on level 6 working it, so I was sweating something fierce after it.  

K so then I went to my friend's beautiful pool for a few hours and enjoyed some of these ridic tasty beverage and lots of gabbing.

Bryan had promised me steak for dinner. (yeah guys, this is like my 8th steak this month, whatever.)  So we grilled NY strips, and I caramelized some 'shrooms and onions and made fresh green beans. All I can say is yum.  We also put down a bottle of red.

After dinner we took the wine party out to the balcony.

Must be our dog, trying to get in our wine!

Showdown with Dad.

We also watched Identity Thief  on Saturday night and I'm happy to report it was really funny and definitely worth a watch!  I also maybe stayed up a little late to start watching the Jodi Arias movie on Lifetime...sorry I'm not.  It is ridiculous.  Gentlemen, avoid psychos. 

Sunday night--more Skinnygirl Grapefruit Margarita!  Yum.  We grilled again---thanks, summer--and had these delicious pork bundles I will be posting this week that are one of our favorites!