So Many Things! And Texas!

Argh, I have been so busy this summer, I have neglected all sorts of things (housework… blog…) but on the other hand, I have been really busy and not home much, and a lot of the things I've been doing have been fun things! 

This post is super long so the TL;DR version is: I have been busy and went to Texas and did fun stuff instead of blogging.

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Let's see… Malvina and Sam got married June 1 and fun times were had. There is no (good) photographic evidence popping up on Facebook so I have no pics of this situation, including me in my bridesmaid dress and hot pink shoes. Alas. 

Movies: I saw Snow White and the Huntsman (it was okay), Prometheus (it was hilarious), Magic Mike (delightful… in so many ways! There was an actual plot!), The Amazing Spiderman (100% better than I was expecting! I had low expectations – not ready for another Spidey movie, but they were exceeded quite a bit. Recommended!) I also recently watched In Time, which came out last year I think, and stars the surprisingly talented Justin Timberlake, and that also was pretty good.

I got together with my friend Amy for a taco lunch – we used to work together at our old company and meet up every now and then to catch up. Amy has moved to a nicer, smaller house closer to work and it looks like they really like it there. Their little dude Colten is getting big and climbing into everything. He's a cutie. 

Went to Felicia's baby shower – she's due in September. Felicia is my oldest friend; we've known each other since we were six. For those keeping track… that's 26 years now! yikes. She and her husband have chosen not to find out what the gender of the baby is – to my annoyance! I like getting clothes for babies/kids and baby clothes are really gendered! It's hard to find stuff that is not specific to boy vs. girl, so I gave up and got a blanket and a Pat the Bunny. Anyway.

I went to Texas over my birthday and visited my college roommates. My friend Julie flew in from Florida where she lives now and we stayed in a hotel (if it was just me I probably would have just stayed with Margie). We had a lot of fun eating our way across San Antonio, and I think I was 3/4 of the days we were there for eating Tex/Mex! We hit all the old favorites: Mi Tierra (not as good as previous, alas), Jacala (SO DELICIOUS), Taco Cabana, Bill Miller's BBQ (breakfast tacos!) and County Line (BBQ)! We also managed to have Sonic a couple of days and kept ice cream bars in the hotel freezer, which we kept forgetting about and had to eat our last one at 4 am on the way to the airport, heh.

The day we got in, we checked into the hotel and then bombarded the girls with our presence. We met up at Tara's and then headed downtown to the MERCADO where I looked longingly at all the baby-sized Mexican peasant dresses (Sarah was about to find out if she was going to have a girl… but she is three for three for boys! lol) and didn't buy anything. The girls had never been to the mercado  before which I thought was funny because Julie and I always go there whenever we're in town (and we haven't lived in SA for years) but – I haven't been to half of San Francisco's stuff and I've lived in the Bay Area for the great majority of my life. After the Mercado we had dinner at Mi Tierra and it was fine but the service was slow and it wasn't as good as I remember. Boo. It *was* the 4th of July so maybe it being a holiday was a little bit of a problem, but still. 

Anyway, after that we went to see Spiderman, which turned out good, to my surprise. Then we said our goodbyes till the next day and Julie and I headed to (Super) Walmart where we had to sneak into the books section and find me a book (the section was technically closed for floor buffering but we found an opening and stealthily headed inside). 

The next day (my birthday), we drove up to Fredericksburg. This is a small town up in hill country (aka pretty countryside) and has a cute downtown and lots of fun shops. We went inside one shop that had a lot of new agey home decor and stuff (kind of like a Cost Plus/World Market, I guess) and they had GREAT jewelry… and it was buy 2 get 1 free… and it was my birthday… so I got myself 3 new pairs of excellent earrings. When I made some crack about it being my birthday, the girls at the counter even gave me a 10% discount! So, win all around. 🙂

We shopped around for awhile and then wound up in Rustlin' Robs: Texas Gourmet Foods, which has a lot of samples, so we sampled our way through lunch and also bought a couple things – I got two jars of this amazing praline pecan honey butter and some fudge. Julie got some honey butter too (but in a different flavor) and then we headed out of town to a winery… that turned out to be closed. On our way out of town, we stopped at Walgreens to get some bottled water (it was hot, and we needed to stay hydrated) and while we were there I looked for the new line of Walgreens-exclusive (I think) Wet N Wild nail polishes from Fergie (Black Eyed Peas). AND there in this Walgreens in pretty much the middle of nowhere, I found the two nail polishes I had wanted (Hollywood Walk of Fame, multi-colored stars in a clear base, and Tonight's Gonna Be A Good Night, which is matte black and shiny gold glitter. I also picked up New Year's kiss – silver glitter with holo bar glitter and a red micro glitter with small holo glitter. Later when I was back home I also picked up Miami Spirit, the bright matte turquoise). 

Anyway, so after that pit stop, we headed down to Comfort, TX, which had another winery (closed) but we also found a yarn store called The Tinsmith's Wife which was run by an adorable little old guy and his three cats. I got a skein of Lorna's Laces sock yarn in a bright light tuquoise and the new Knitscene. 

Then we headed back to Boerne, where we had to find a bathroom, and then we went to Sisters Creek Winery… which was open! There we participated in a wine tasting and seriously had some of the BEST wine I've ever had – a Moscato reserve white wine. SO GOOD. I bought a bottle to enjoy later. 

Anyway, then we were tired so we went back to the hotel and rested, and then headed to Jacala, aka best Mexican restaurant evarrr!

I was the first of our group to ever go to Jacala. When I first moved to Texas, my parents came to visit me I THINK that first semester?? I sort of remember them coming in October of that year?? Anyway, whenever they came (maybe it was the year after that because I only remember them being in our upstairs apartment – we lived downstairs the first year) my mom wanted to go to Jacala, which she had seen on the Food Network making puffy tacos. So, we went, and thus started the Glorious Tradition of eating at Jacala. I introduced the girls to it and I think it's great that years down the line they still go there. For my birthday I ordered a 4b (cheese enchilada and puffy taco with a chile con queso – a chalupa chip with queso spread on it) and we also got an appetizer of queso that came in a big bowl and was delicious and the wait staff got wind that it was my birthday and then this happened:

SOMBRERO'D!! And freeeeee birthday flan!!!! 

I love flan. 

I particularly love Jacala's flan. Super delicious! 

(Not the most flattering picture ever, but a funny one!)

The next day we headed out to school to see what changes had been wrought upon the campus of our alma mater, UTSA. I hadn't been on campus for awhile and there were a lot of changes! There's a new engineering building and tons of new housing. The bioscience building is up and running and there is a new campus activities building with a huge ballroom. There's a road that cuts through campus and one that's now closed. And three new parking garages that weren't there when I left. The bioscience and Level 3 containment labs had just been built when I left but weren't open yet. Six years later, I'm even prouder that I'm an alumni of this school! Definitely have a sense of school spirit for UTSA that I never had in high school. 

Inside the beautiful new(ish – it's 6 years old now!) Bioscience Building.

Inside the Student Center, not the new one, the one from our years at UTSA.

After we wandered around campus (we even stopped in the Sombrilla and ate our Bill Miller's breakfast, hah) we headed over to La Cantera and the Rim and did some shopping. I don't remember what Julie got but I bought something for Sam's birthday at Claire's (yes you read that right, Claire's) and also picked up a couple of Deborah Lippmann nail polishes at Nordstrom's and Neiman Marcus! For my birthday my mom had gotten me FIVE DL nail polishes and I wanted to round out my collection with a couple more, and a backup of Mermaid's Dream – that one I found at Neiman Marcus and felt all fancy as it was my very first every NM purchase! For $18, haha. 

The day was long and we also stopped at two Hobby Lobby's and I forget what we had for lunch. Oh, Pei Wei's, which is PF Chang's Panda Express (basically). It was okay but I don't think I'd go back unless somebody else really wanted to. Julie was meeting up with one of her friends for dinner so I dropped her off at the gun club and headed to the HEB Plus that had opened up on Loop 1604 near there. The HEB Plus turned out to be kind of like an HEB Walmart, and I found a couple of nail polishes (of course) that I hadn't seen before and also got some of the Big Red Zero that we'd noticed for sale around – diet Big Red. 

Then I basically beached myself at the hotel and watched TV by myself, it was nice. Julie came back later and she too had stopped at the HEB Plus and gotten Big Red Zero for us to try! We both laughed at that, and then determined that we had way too much Big Red Plus in the room and cracked one open. It was fine but tasted pretty diet-ish to me (I can taste aspertame from a mile away.)

The next morning we indulged ourselves at the really quite excellent continental breakfast at our hotel – we made pancakes, had eggs, etc.! And then we headed down to the Botanical Gardens. We'd been there before but it's always nice to visit. 

This is one of the greenhouse exhibits – in the background you can see downtown SA and the Tower of America (where I have actually never been).

The arbor that leads into the park – our progress was impeded by a bunch of yoga-ers yoga-ing in the shade; we went through it on our way out of the gardens. 

Some lilypads in the sculpture garden.

It was getting extremely hot by the time we had finished walking through the gardens so we went down the street to the Witte Museum where it was nice and cool. Neither of us had ever been there before. They were having a Darwin exhibit so we paid the three extra dollars to see that, and it was actually pretty interesting right up until the end where there was a big plaque on the wall that basically said: "And so Darwin's discoveries basically make Christians look super retarded for believing in Creationism!" (In several paragraphs but that was the gist of it.) Now, I believe in evolution, don't get me wrong (TBH I don't see how you couldn't), but to be so asshatty about something that so many people believe in is actually pretty narrowminded. 

Other than that, the exhibit was okay, but that left a sour taste in my mouth because it smacked of high and mighty liberalism squinting down on the unwashed masses from their ivory towers. (Yeah I said it)

After that we were hungry so we went to the County Line for a late lunch. The County Line is another favorite and I had sausage and garlic mashed potatoes and potato salad. Um, last day of the trip so whatever I will eat potatoes all the time if I want! lol

We went back to the hotel and rested for awhile and then went to a sassy lady party at one of Margie's friend's houses and then we crashed out and got up at 3:30 a.m. to head back to the airport. I pretty much dozed through the first flight and then when I landed in Phoenix was pretty horrified to realize that I had a three hour layover! And it was still six a.m. because of the time change. I wound up getting a Starbucks and a crossandwich and the new Sookie Stackhouse book and parked myself in the terminal until it was time for my flight to leave at 9:30 or whenever. 

Made it home around noon and the parents picked me up and took me out for a burger. Once I got home, I did my laundry and then thought I would nap for an hour…. Napped for FOUR WHOLE hours and still wound up going to bed early. 

It's two weeks later and I still haven't quite recovered from the jet lag, going to bed kind of early and sleeping a lot. Oh well!

Anyway, so that' pretty much what I've been up to and a recap of my Texas trip. Hopefully I'll be a little better about updating ye olde blog but let's get real: no promises! 😉