I stink as a blogger....

Sorry I haven't posted in ages, my only excuse is that it has been a busy, crazy and fun summer so far.

To recap, we went here:


Stayed in these condos on Lake Travis:



And had a ton of fun doing things like this:

University of Texas

The Alamo

Texas State Capital

Water skiing & Tubing

Waterpark

Barton Springs

Capital Dome

Duck Tour

San Antonio River Walk

Congress Street Bridge Bats

Austin City Limits Tour

LBJ Presidential Library


We went to a wedding of a lifelong friend (Congrats Pete & Amy!):



We had a blast for my birthday at the San Diego zoo:






We celebrated the 4th with family and fireworks:
Ed & Char


Mom and Dave

All of us with Sparklers


After that my best friend's son turned 2 and we celebrated with a big party at the park:
Blowing out his candles

Pinata!

Birthday Boy

The birthday boy's little brother


And last but certainly not least, we went to Comic-Con in San Diego and got into the LOST panel! It was such an amazing experience, we are certainly planning on going back next year. Here are some highlights:

The LONG line to get into the LOST panel


The full Panel

Jon Favreau

Gene Simmons

The Husband and The Sister

The Simpsons Panel

The Husband and Bumblebee

Fringe Panel

True Blood Panel!


Superhero Costumes


Best costume of the day


Last weekend we were in Palm Springs for our annual weekend getaway thanks to my parents timeshare. We always have a great time just relaxing by the pool. This weekend was our first real weekend with down time, so we stayed home for the most part and got lots of chores completed around the house. Last night we had dinner with my Family at Peppinos, and this morning we had brunch with The Husband's family at the Queen Mary in Long Beach, which is always super yummy. And filling. Yes, I feel like I may explode. My eyes were MUCH bigger than my stomach!

That pretty much catches me up to speed. I will try to be a better blogger, though I make no promises!! Next weekend is the Kings of Leon concert, and I cannot wait. Hopefully I will be able to take pictures!

A Weekend Getaway

Last weekend The Husband and I decided to splurge on a quick one night trip down to San Diego to celebrate Valentine's Day and our tax return. We are so lucky to live so close to such great destinations.

So Sunday afternoon we made the hour and half long journey down to SD and arrived in the gaslamp district. We had never stayed in this area before (we usually stay in the Mission Bay area), so it was a new experience. I found a great deal on Hotels.com for a small boutique hotel called The Ivy. Let me just say this hotel was AWESOME. The location was perfect, service great, and the rooms/views were fantastic. The room had a huge bathtub and shower, a great view with 2 huge windows with window seats, a good size flat screen TV and a great mini-bar. The rooms were small, but we knew that when we booked a boutique hotel. The only complaint we had was that the toilet started making random noises in the middle of the night and the nightclub across the street apparently had some issues since the police were there in for at about 1:30am. This of course wasn't the hotels fault, but it did wake up The Husband.

When we booked the room we also received a $25 credit to the restaurant that they have on site, The Quarter Kitchen, so we decided to have dinner there. The food was excellent! The Husband had the Rack of Lamb, which came with Ratatouille (we were really excited about that being huge Disney nerds), and I had garlic cream of spinach and macaroni and cheese which was to die for. I would highly recommend this restaurant even if you are not staying at the Ivy. It was on the pricey side, but not over the top.

After dinner we walked around and explored the gaslamp district, stopping briefly at TGI Fridays to have a drink. The whole area is really fun, full of little shops, pubs and bars. There is also Horton Plaza, which is huge! We spent a little time there as well.


After returning to our room we discovered that the bar across the street had a mechanical bull that we could see from our wonderful window seats. We sent probably way too much time watching drunk people try and stay on that thing, but it was hilarious.

Monday morning it was pouring, so we decided to head home in the morning. It was a great trip and a much needed escape from reality.