Bayou Bend

We flew back to Seattle on Sunday! The bags are unpacked and the mountain of laundry is folded, so I can finally finish telling you about our trip!

One day last week, we went to Bayou Bend with Allie. It's a beautiful mansion with amazing gardens in the River Oaks area of Houston {aka where George Bush Sr. lives}. It was originally the home of Ima Hogg, a great philanthropist who founded the Houston Symphony and lots of other invaluable institutions.

Yep, her real name was Ima Hogg. Poor, poor lady. You can buy a ticket to tour the house or one to just walk around the gardens. Since we had a rather rambunctious toddler with us, we stuck to the gardens.

 When we were all sufficiently sweaty, we met our friend, Jake, for lunch in Rice Village. Allie introduced us to a new sandwich place, Local Foods. Definitely recommended.

P.S. Tess from Little House in Chicago put together a series of "what I wish I knew before getting married" posts while she's gallivanting around Rome on her honeymoon. She very kindly asked me to contribute and you can find my post right here! 

Hermann Park

Adam technically didn't have enough vacation time for a two-week trip. We really wanted to see both of our sisters graduate and we really didn't want to make two separate trips or split up somehow, so it was super nice of Adam's boss to allow him to work from home all last week. While he was working, Claire and I found lots of fun ways to occupy ourselves. One morning, we met up with both Claire's grandmothers, Aunt Allie, Aunt Jenn, and her cousin Estelle in Hermann Park.

 

Hermann Park, in my humble opinion, is one of the prettiest spots in Houston. I love, love, love all the beautiful live oak trees.
 

 

We took Claire and Estelle on the little train that runs through the park while Allie stayed behind to watch the strollers. I'm pretty sure the adults got a bigger kick out of it than the babies...

 

After lunch at the "build your own grilled cheese" place in the park, we walked through the rose gardens.


 

This picture of Claire toddling around just kills me.

 

I mean, really.

Down South

Our trip to Houston revolved around food, family, food, friends, and food.

Our moms each took a day watching Claire so we could see a movie and go out to lunch.



Can you guess which movie each of us picked? Adam's choice of lunch spots was a little place called Bill's Cafe, where they serve not-so-little steaks.



This was a sirloin for two, but we barely managed to eat half of it. Only in Texas.

Speaking of crazy Southern food, Adam's parents threw a crawfish boil one weekend. They may look disgusting but, trust me, they are surprisingly delicious.  I was four years old when I went to my first crawfish boil and I ate so many that I made myself sick!



One weekday, we drove downtown to meet our friends, Jake and Jamie, for lunch.

And met up with my dad and sister after they got off work. Allison is interning at the best cancer hospital in the world this summer. We are so proud of her!

We got to introduce Claire to almost all of our Texas friends. I wasn't able to snap pictures with everybody, but we're so glad that my best high school friend, Sam, and Adam's best high school friend, Nick, drove down from Dallas to see us.





We also made some new friends, Katie and Jeff. We actually met them at an engagement retreat sponsored by the archdiocese about two years ago. Katie and I bunked in the same room with a couple other girls, but since the weekend was supposed to be about you and your fiance, we didn't chat much, besides discovering that we were getting married the same day.



A few months later, my sister emailed me a link to a blog, saying "hey! this girl is from Houston and y'all got married the same day!" Turns out, it was the very same Katie, and we've been blog friends ever since.  Katie and Jeff ended up buying a house in the same suburb our parents live in and they graciously invited us over for a Memorial Day barbecue. It was such a fun evening and so great to finally meet in person {again}!



 When we weren't eating or visiting with loved ones, you could probably find us on the couch watching episode upon episode of House Hunters. How is that show so addicting? Let's just say it's a very good thing we don't have cable.

The Breakfast Klub

We got to spend the last two weeks in Houston with our families! It was so, so great to see everyone and time flew by way too fast.

We made it back to Pittsburgh late Monday night. We're still settling back into our regular life. There's been a lot of unpacking, thank-you note writing, and photo editing on the agenda this week. But I promise things on the ol' blog will be back to normal next week!



So, The Breakfast Klub. Nope, not the 1980s teen movie. Something much, much better. At least for chicken biscuit lovers like ourselves. You see, the next logical step up from chicken biscuits is chicken and waffles.



We've seen chicken and waffles on a menu only once before, while dining at Founding Famers on our Spring Break trip to DC. But that just happened to be a Friday during Lent, so it wasn't meant to be. Oh, timing.



Then my sister started nursing school back in Houston and moved to a swanky apartment in the medical center. Lo and behold, her new church is right next to a chicken and waffles emporium.



Checking it out was on our must-do list over Christmas break, especially after we snapped up a couple Google Offers.

The verdict? Everything we've dreamed of and more. Totally worth the hour we spent waiting in line outside!

Winter Break

We had so much fun spending the last two weeks with our families in Houston. We...

- Ate tons of delicious food. Pappasito's, Spring Creek Barbeque, Which Wich, Sprinkles Cupcakes, Bluebell  ice cream, Chick-fill-A chicken biscuits, a fancy night out at a Hibachi Steakhouse. Not to mention all the tasty meals our parents cooked up.
 - Played tons of games, like Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Catan, Dutch Blitz, and Pit.
  - Rented good movies. Our favorites were Flipped and Despicable Me.
- Caught up with all our best friends.
- Saw interesting exhibits at the Natural Science Museum.
  - Shopped for sale Christmas decor at Anthro, Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn.
- Officially changed my name and only spent six hours at the DMV doing so.
- Played with my family's adorable new puppy, a cocker spaniel poodle mix named Waffle.
- Took family pictures. More on that to come soon!

We were a little worried about our first Christmas as a married couple, but it worked out really well. Our system was to spend about three days with each family and then switch. We moved between houses four times over two weeks.

We went to Christmas Eve Mass with my family. On Christmas morning, we opened presents with them and had a pancake brunch. Then we opened presents at Adam's house and had turkey dinner there. We spent New Year's Eve playing games with both of our families.

We miss everyone already!

Last Days of Summer

After we got back from our honeymoon, Adam and I had a few days to spend time with our families {and pack up all our belongings} before heading back to Pittsburgh.

We had one last family dinner at La Villa, our favorite little Tex-Mex place. Then my parents took Allie back to school, while we took care of Scott. 

We took him to a baseball game, where we watched the Astros beat the Pirates.We were joined by...

Adam's sister Katie... 

and his parents, who took to us to Amy's Ice Cream afterwards! 

We already miss everyone tons. Christmas is so far away!

Fun Weekend

My weekend got off to a great start on Thursday night, when super-sweet Kailin sent me an awesome package of wedding gifts, including a handmade Texas pillow, which is even cuter than the one I'd been admiring on etsy. Thank you so much, Kailin!

After work on Friday, Adam and I checked out Sprinkles Cupcakes. I ordered key lime and and he ordered dark chocolate. We both agreed that they were the best cupcakes we've ever had {and we've also tried Magnolia Bakery, Hummingbird Bakery, and Hey Cupcake}.

Then we went to Jessica's twenty-first birthday dinner, at a delicious German restaurant downtown. Jessica studied abroad in Germany, so it was really neat to try the food she grew to love while living in Europe.

On Saturday night, I went to Arli's twenty-first birthday and bachelorette party, where I had my second alcoholic beverage, also a strawberry margarita.

And the fun continues this evening, when my aunt and cousin arrive all the way from Vancouver! Let the wedding festivities begin!

Wonderful Weekend

So, I'm still loving my job at the Symphony. On Friday, I got to attend a fancy luncheon at Neiman Marcus with a bunch of "society" ladies. The food was really weird though - a scoop of chicken salad, a mini bran muffin, fruit salad, and orange jello. Seriously, that was it. Now I know how they stay so skinny!

Friday evening was date night! Dates with Adam are basically my favorite thing. We had dinner at a really neat diner, the House of Pies. Their entrees are the usual sandwiches, burgers, and such. But we really came for the dessert - over 30 different types of pie.

After much deliberation, I ordered their specialty, "Bayou Goo." It was chocolate mousse with lots of whipped cream and a delicious secret ingredient - a layer of cream cheese on the bottom.

Adam went with blueberry a la mode, which was also pretty fantastic!

After dinner, we headed to Hermann Park {Houston's version of Central Park} to see a free symphony concert. Throughout the year, Miller Outdoor Theatre hosts the symphony, ballet, opera, and various regional theatre companies for free performances. It's totally worth getting a little {or a lot} sweaty!

On Sunday, we celebrated Father's Day by seeing this movie:

We all agreed that Pixar had outdone themselves once again! Then we had a huge lunch at our favorite Tex-Mex joint, La Villa. Allie made a delicious nutella pie for dessert. Check her blog soon for the recipe  {from Southern Living, of course!}