weekend in houston

Hello hello!

Excuse my absence- we were having a blast in Houston and trying to regroup from such a fun time. We did a lot of things in just three days and it was awesome!

Friday afternoon Tyler and I drove to Charleston to hop on a plane to Houston. We had a short flight and arrived in Houston just in time for dinner! Tyler's brother Cameron and his wife Lissy picked us up and then we headed to their apartment for some grub. They cooked delicious lamb burgers with pitas, a fabulous salad, and couscous. I need cooking lessons from them! Oh, and wine of course! After dinner we walked a few blocks to a bar to meet up with a few of their friends. We met them last year at their wedding in Rhode Island so it was nice to hang out with complete strangers. Funny enough, their couple friends were flying to Charleston for Labor Day weekend.

Saturday I met up with Whitney from The Observant Turtle who lives in Houston and is from SC! This is the second time we have gotten together and of courseee food was involved! We had a fabulous brunch at Tiny Boxwoods and I had THE BEST watermelon lemonade I've ever ever ever had. Seriously, I couldn't get enough. And my granola, yogurt, and fruit was super too, but y'all the watermelon lemonade!! I want some right now!! We had a great catch-up as always and of course ended with a "see you soon" because hopefully I will get to see her later this month!

When I got back to meet the fam, they were geared up and ready to go sample BBQ. Keep in mind, i'd just eaten breakfast an hour prior!

We started at Virgie's BBQ and had brisket, sausage, ribs, baked beans, and potato salad. Oh and Big Red..... Texas friends- what is that stuff and do you like it!!? I felt like it was carbonated kool-aid and kind of hated it, but loved it at the same time!

Texas BBQ = beef not pork

It was obviously delicious.

Second stop was Gatlins BBQ but they weren't taking orders thanks to a catering order. After standing in line half an hour, we left and tried to go to an ice house that served BBQ, but they were closed! Finally we landed at one more place to get in a second sampling of BBQ. I was so full I totally missed the name of the restaurant!

Hello fried okra!

Tyler and Cameron went to the gun store for the afternoon while Lis and I went to the pool. I was like a blimp after all of the food I'd eaten! Then of course we showered and got ready for the CLEMSON GAME!!!

The four of us and a friend hopped in the car to get a table to watch the Clemson/Georgia game at Black Finn Grille where the Clemson alumni gather to watch the games. We had on all of our orange and got a great table and lots of beer! I had shrimp tacos which were decent, but it was OK since I was consuming plenty of beer (OK probably too much). We had so much fun screaming and yelling and ooh-ing and ahh-ing. We even met a couple originally from SC who went to Clemson who is friends with one of my friends and knows exactly where I grew up. It's such a small world people! After pulling out a great WIN we went home!

Sunday we woke up (with raging headaches- me at least), had breakfast (do you sense a food pattern here), and drove to George Bush Park to shoot skeet. Friends, let me warn you. Never ever shoot a gun while hungover. My head was pounding and every time I shot I could feel little blood vessels popping! I had beginners luck... We'll not beginners because been shooting a gun since I was very young, but I hit the clay the first shot I took. I think Ty was amazed. I, honestly, was quite amazed and then I was ready to go... Impatient much?

Trying to make things colorful.

A monogrammed gun case. NOW I have seen it all......

Of course, we had to grab some food (duh) after shooting up an appetite and Cam and Lis suggested Vietanamese food. I was super skeptical because usually my post-beer food is greasy, buttttt while in Houston you must eat like Texans! We drove through China town (this city is crazy) and had sweet and sour chicken at Que Huong. Thank goodness for Foursquare or I'd never remember the names of these places. I must say, it wasn't as crazy as I had anticipated!

Sweet and sour chicken- tomatoes, green onions, pineapple, onions + rice

And no trip to Texas is complete without boot shopping. Tyler is now a new proud owner of a new pair of Justin boots thanks to Cavendar's! I opted out of boots since I already have a pair and I don't wear them often, but it was so much fun trying on all kinds of crazy cowboy boots! We were so tired when we got back from our outing that Ty and I took a nap while Cam and Lis went to the pool. Before dinner, we all went downstairs to the gym to run off a few of the millions of calories we'd consumed over the weekend!

To wrap up our foodie weekend, we had tex-mex for dinner on Sunday night. I had delicious chicken tacos at Ninfa's and we all indulged on queso and mojitos and beer for the guys. I was seriously stuffed!! It was fun to experience all kinds of foods this weekend... obviously. After watching The Great Gatsby (which I wasn't really a fan of by the way........), we crashed!

Monday we had breakfast at home (because that's important) and sadly packed to head back to SC. Before we left, though, we made a trip to Tyler and Cameron's friend's fire house. I felt like I was on a set from Chicago Fire! I'd never been in a fire house before. As I sat in the driver's seat of the firetruck, the siren went off and I FREAKED out... I just knew I'd hit some wrong button, but, no.... the guys were called out to an assault! I asked a million questions and jumped on the pole because we couldn't slide down it since they'd closed it off due to the heat.... Oh Texas...

So as you can tell, I think we had a phenomenal time and I am so glad we were able to visit Cam and Lis! We hadn't gotten to spend too much time alone with them since we are usually in PA for a holiday, so it was great doing our own thing! I'm so blessed to have a great brother and sister-in-law! In a few weeks they'll move back to Lis's home state of Rhode Island, so I'm hoping a New England trip will be in our future!

And I'm going to miss their precious pooch and Sarge's cousin, Popcorn!

Thanks for reading my novel. Hope you don't think we are complete fatties! I promise I'm running and eating healthy this week!