Babymooning

We had a wonderful time this past weekend in South Padre celebrating Stephen and Diana's wedding. We also threw our "Babymoon" into the wedding mix and stayed a couple more days to enjoy the beach! It is surreal to know that our last little vacay together has passed and I can't travel anymore. But we are so ready for the babe to get here! And Hello Third Trimester!

We arrived midday Thursday and hit the pool to catch some sun before heading out for dinner at the Palm Street Pier Bar and Grill overlooking the ocean. Then walked over to Louies for some drinks and dancing.

Since we have been going non-stop lately with work and life, we decided to get a couples massage on Friday morning. This was Austin's first massage and he really enjoyed it! It was my first prenatal massage and I realized just how bad I was missing out by not have getting one sooner!

After a little relaxation, we met the crew by the pool and had a great time. This body needed some serious Vitamin D.


Later that evening we went to the rehearsal dinner at Louies and partied the night away! Spring Break 2011. Seriously, I havent stayed up that late in a long time... We even went on a little booze cruise after dinner and saw the sights of Laguna Madre. It was beautiful! Just what we needed to escape the hustle and bustle of Dallas. The groom organized two parts to the booze cruise. The first part was relaxing at sunset and the music was all country and oldies since we had some older folks on the boat with us. We re-docked at 11pm just in time to find out that the Mavs won! Then we departed for round 2 of the cruise and I couldn't have prepared myself for what was to come. I have never laughed so hard in my life. We all have some great stories to share from that evening and we ended up back at Louies after the cruise.




Saturday morning we enjoyed some more pool/beach time as if we couldn't get enough! Later that evening we walked down to the beach for the ceremony and it was an amazing view. The bride and groom looked beautiful. After the ceremony we were greeted by a Mariachi Band and had cocktails on the patio and then went to the reception which was beautiful!




What a great weekend!!! Congrats to the Ratliffs!!

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas.....

I think my whole family was dreaming of a white Christmas this year and all that dreaming brought us a blizzard!

We had such a fun time in NYC for Christmas this year. Not your tradition Christmas, but it is a trip that we will remember for a lifetime. We have so many fun memories and couldn't have dreamed up a better Christmas!

Austin and I took the adventurous route and turned New York upside within the first 3days! We enjoyed a helicopter ride overlooking the Hudson. It was Amazing. Toured Wall Street, Top of the Rock, SOHO and Nolitta. We loved eating at all the amazing places NY has to offer, Balthazar, The Plaza just to name a few. We also took in the Nutcracker, Wicked and The Rockettes.
Welcome to New York - Where dreams are made of....


Our room at the Michelanglo. It was beautiful


First Night out at Radio City and the start of the Irish Pub Tours...


We hope to complete this post sometime soon, but we just bought a MAC and are in the process of transferring everything (including pics) Will update soon though!

Langtry

Austin traveled to SF and Napa this past week on business. He stayed with our good friend, Josh, in SF and then drove out to Langtry Vineyards to meet with some clients. It's a rough life....
Eating with Josh at The House of Prime Rib...That's some serious meat.


Visit to the Langtry Estate where he stayed and the view from the front porch. Langtry sits on 21,349 acres and stradles both Lake and Napa counties where cougar, bear and wild boar still roam the remote hills. Guests can hunt, fish, golf and enjoy the wonderful winery.


View of the vineyard and the wine making process...Langtry has emerged as one of the top producers of Sauvignon Blanc(one of my favs), but they are most famous for their Petite Sirah.

Cali Swing - Part II

On our way out of SF, we rented a convertible and drove down the Pacific Coast Hwy, aka (The 1). Whomever suggested we get the convertible and try to cram golf clubs and two suit cases in it were crazy, but we figured out how to make it work. The 1 hugged the coastline and was a beautiful and relaxing road trip with the wind in our hair.


Securing the luggage. The wind was blowing quite strong.

Our destination was Carmel, specifically Pebble Beach. Along the way we stopped in downtown Santa Cruz for an Italian meal at Kianti's Pizza & Pasta Bar. It is home to the 5 time world champion pizza dough spinner. The food was so good! We enjoyed the pepperoni pizza roll and the veggie sandwich with artichokes, sundried tomatoes, feta cheese, olives and pesto. The artichokes were incredibly fresh.

We arrived to Carmel late afternoon and toured the 17-mile drive. This tour is amazing and our hotel, The Inn at Spanish Bay, was on the tour. The 17-Mile Drive is widely recognized as one of the most scenic drives in the world. The famous coastal landmark runs through Pacific Grove to Pebble Beach, from the dramatic Pacific coastline to the majestic Del Monte Forest.


The drive is amazing with gorgeous view of the ocean as you wind through the mountains and trees.

And the views along the shore were beautiful

This is one of our favorite pictures that caputres how breathtaking it was.


After the tour we checked in to our hotel and had a bottle of champagne waiting for us to celebrate our anniversary. The hotel was fabulous! We went down to the terrace for a sunset serenade from a Scottish bag piper at dusk. We enjoyed a glass of wine and then went to Roy's for dinner. It was such a memorable evening for both of us.








We went to bed early that evening to prepare for our golf adventure on the famous Pebble Beach Golf Course in the morning. This round of golf really needs its own blog post. We woke up at 5:00am for a 7:50am tee time. When we arrived to the course, Austin took the shuttle to the driving range to warm up and I explored the Pebble Beach Resort, from the fancy market to all the boutique shops; it was amazing. Amazing probably doesn't begin to describe it. They also had cameras of certain parts of the course, the first tee and the 18th hole that you could view online. It was fun for our family to be able to see us on the course at the beginning and at the end.




We met back up to meet our Caddy for the day, Gene. Pebble is great because the caddys are all old men with great stories to tell you along the way. Now, we've heard the thing to do is walk to course. Austin walked it but insisted I get a cart just in case I didn't want to walk the whole time. Great Idea!

Austin teeing off

Just a flock of geese to distract you, no worries.


The course was gorgeous! I still can't describe how wonderful it was.



We will just round it out to the 18th. I only took 600+ pics of the course...

And some seals to cheer us on the 18th! Final putt!


Getting cleaned up! Nice!


After we finished this amazing round of golf, we had a late lunch in the cafe, that overlooked the first tee. Nothing like a hard days work!


It was such an exciting trip for both of us and I hope we can go back again and play the other courses. Austin did a great job on the course and it was one of our favorite experiences thus far that we will cherish forever!

Cali Swing - Part I

We planned a trip to the beautiful California coast for our 3rd wedding anniversary. We absolutely love it out there and couldn't wait to go back. We flew in to San Francisco Friday afternoon and stayed with our good friend Josh. He has an amazing house in the Marina District, just a 5 minute walk to the Golden Gate Bridge. Josh has been the best tour guide every time we visit SF. We have toured every square inch of this beautiful city and love and appreciate it as much as we do Austin.

We decided to hang out in the Marina District and get a feel of how the locals live. On Friday evening we went to the California Wine Merchant for a cocktail and then picked up some from Pizza Orgasmica & Brewing Co. (a local favorite). The pizza was phenomenal!

On Saturday morning we took our usual jog to the Golden Gate Bridge and the jogged over to our favorite brunch spot in SF called The Squat and Gobble. Just to be out in the fresh air on the bay is breathtaking.

There was a lot of fog and it was much colder than usual for SF in August. Here we are in front of the GGBridge and Alcatraz.



After brunch we headed out to wine country. We have vistied Napa and Sonoma before and loved it; but this time we ventured into Zin-country and went to the Russian River Valley in Healdsburg, CA. We were not very familiar with Zinfandel before this trip, but we will order it more often in Dallas now that we know all about it! Most of the wineries in the Russian River Valley are family owned, which gives the customer a more personal, hands-on feel such as tasting from the barrel.

We toured Dry Creek Vineyard, which has won several awards for their Zinfandels with ratings of 93 points and higher. This winery had some similarities to a Fredricksburg winery. Although it was absolutely gorgeous, it had a laid back Texas charm with an acustic band to entertain us on the lawn outside the winery.







We also toured Bella Vineyards, which was a cave tour we had never done before. It was amazing and the Zins were full of flavor. They even had a dessert wine (a petite sirah) paired with these amazing chocolate brownie bites. Some of the vines are 85 years old. We enjoyed a couple of bottles of our favorite Zin on the estate, while listening to live music.







That evening we went out on Chestnut to Izzys Steaks & Chops. It was one of the best meals we have had in a while. We had calamari, oysters, shrimp cocktail to start and the boys had the bone-in ribeye and I had the Tiger Prawns. When we are in SF, we like to take advantage of all things seafood because it is so fresh! You can't get that freshness in Dallas.