Happy birthday, USA!

We celebrated America's birthday with a weekend trip to Port Aransas with my family. It was four adults, three teenagers, two dogs and a seventeen-month-old alllll staying in my mom's RV. Thanks to some very patient people who didn't seem to mind Arden's 6 a.m. wakeup calls, we all survived and had a great time doing it. It was Arden girl's very first trip to the beach! I would love to tell you she was a natural, but she actually just ran around like a crazy baby and made us all a nervous wreck. Arden is NOT the kind of girl who sits still and plays in the sand. I swear if you looked down for one millisecond, she'd be a mile down the beach just like that.

Even Emma made the trip this time! 

 Please take notice of the adorable red-headed stowaway in the little red wagon.

 These crabs were BIG and they came right up to the edge of the pond at our campsite when we dropped cheese crackers into the water. 

 I love this campsite in Port Aransas! It's called Gulf Waters and it's so cute. Right behind that turquoise house at the end of the pond are the dunes and the beach. 

 I got the weirdest sunburn of all time on day ONE, so that was fun. 

Drew, Arden and I came home Monday night. I'd taken Tuesday and Wednesday (the 3rd and the 4th) off, too, so I stayed home Tuesday and put together a master plan to turn our garage room into a backyard Air BnB.

For the Fourth we went to brunch and then spent a lot of the day in our garage dreaming about how much this kind of reno would cost and if it'd actually be doable. Basically the low down is that the previous homeowners converted the home's original attached garage into a bonus room and built a huge out building in the backyard. It has an actual two car garage and an attached workshop that we're currently just using for storage—we would only convert the workshop room side.

Back in the eighties the previous family installed a sink, a toilet and ceiling fans in the workshop, so the good news is that electricity and plumbing is already installed—it all needs to be replaced, but the foundation is there. The whole room is about 450 square feet. If we went for it, it would be a studio apartment space with a kitchenette, a living area, a small dining table, a bathroom, a queen sized bed, and a little garden sitting area in the back—which is currently just a pile of leftover bricks and weeds.

It's just a dream. We shall see. We have a contractor coming to take a peek the day after tomorrow to see what this kind of thing would cost. Probably roughly two million dollars, so stay tuned. Nobody's ready to commit just yet.

Hope everyone had the very best Fourth and day off of work. Not much I love more than bonus time with this lil firecracker.

weekend of rest

Restful weekends are the stuff of dreams, no doubt about that, and the past two weekends have been full of just that—rest. (And productivity and fun...but mostly peace and quiet.)

We went to the zoo last Sunday. It wasn't Arden's first rodeo, but she LOVES any reason to be outside lately. So she was happy go lucky. 

Last weekend I also took on cleaning my CLOSET—which I'd been losing sleep over for AT LEAST a year. I cannot believe I let it get this bad. But, of course, I have to share photo proof of this feat with you. It's just too good not to share.

Before

 After

I started at about 6:30 p.m. and finished at 11:15. We filled a whole bag full of trash, a whole bag full of donate, and two whole bags full of "give to my little sisters." The closet doesn't actually look that big from this angle, but it probably extends out about 4 feet wide on either side as well as 4 or 5 feet deep. And it was JAM packed. 

All the clothes on my bed are my maternity and postpartum clothes that were all hanging up. I FINALLY took them all down, folded them, and put them into storage. You can also see all the clutter on my floor that I had to find homes for. This wasn't even the half of it—the whoooole room and hallway was full of junk. 

It felt SO GOOD to finally knock this spring cleaning item off of my summer bucket list. Champagne helped.

Last Saturday Drew's parents came to town to build Arden a swing set! This was technically her late birthday present and it was perfect timing because, as I said before, she is SO into being outside right now. Before the swing was in the backyard, she didn't have anything to really do except put leaves and rocks in her mouth the second I turned the other direction. 

On the lefthand side will be her slide, which should come in the mail this week. On the righthand side of her swing will be a porch swing for us to swing in—which is also coming this week.

Last weekend I finally started messing around with the tiniest little pony in Arden's curly hair!

Literally the only photos I can get of this quick little wild thing are blurry these days so—OH WELL. I still think her mischievous little "See, Mom, I can get up here all by myself!" smile in this pic is worth sharing. 

Drew started his new job at Magnolia and to illustrate how close he is to my office—a photo. 

He's still really excited about his new job and he's going to be so, so great at it!

No photos to share from this weekend because we were literally couch potatoes. After the months of craziness prior, I needed to lay around! Other than a date night Friday night with some friends of ours, pushing Arden on the swing no less than six times, going grocery shopping, going to the park, and a few other little errands—we stayed put. It was SO nice. I'll be honest, I could use one more day—I'm not jazzed about work tomorrow. But with a busy week ahead, I have a feeling the weekend will come back around pretty quickly. And, other than a baby shower next Saturday, we don't have much going on then either. 

Drew and I worked on a new BUDGET today. Woooo #adultthings. We're historically bad at budgets, but there's no time like the present to get it together and get on the right road to getting the student loans paid off! We also planned a little weekend getaway to Fredericksburg in July (don't worry, it's in budget). We're trying to sneak in as many little trips as we can before we have ourselves another baby child, Lord willing, and then need to stay put for a little while. And for clarity's sake, no, I am not (that I know of) pregnant. :)

I'm so excited, as always, for Fredericksburg! Of course, I'm already planning our wineries and our meals and making the necessary reservations. I love a good weekend away, especially to Fredericksburg—the cutest little city in the hill country! If you have any recommendations, send them my way. This will be our third trip, so we're starting to feel like experts. But that doesn't mean we won't take alllll the tips we can get! Right now we've got Hilmy Cellars, Kuhlman Cellars, Vaudeville, Old German Bakery, and Treaty House on our must-stop list. We're staying at a little Air BnB off Main. 

I hope you had a restful weekend, as well. 

XX. 

A weekend away: Austin edition

Drew and I have had this trip to Austin planned for a month. I've been soooo looking forward to it, and I'm actually pretty sad that it has come and gone. Something about planning a vacation, even just a long weekend trip, gives you something to hold on to when you have long days or hard days or even just neutral days.

I'm a planner, especially when it comes to trips. So trust me, you want to vacation with me! I do all the research, reading, booking, reserving and even mapping. So basically you just show up and expect to have a fun time. For our trip to Napa Valley a few months back, I even typed up a full on itinerary with addresses, reservation numbers and approximate drive times.

If we're paying the money to do something great, I'm going to make sure we hit all the right spots. That's for sure.

So on my tough/stressful/harder days for the past month, I've been coming home from work, cooking dinner, putting the baby down and then retreating to our bedroom and burying myself in Trip Advisor reviews for this weekend trip. Something about vacation research is relaxing to me. In fact, whenever we don't have a trip on the books, I actually get kind of antsy and just research places we might want to go someday.

Currently our (my?) wish list:
Nashville | Can't believe I've never been and neither has Drew.
Seattle | In the springtime when all those gorgeous wildflowers are in bloom PLEASE.
Charleston | YES.
Road trip to the mountains | Any mountains will do, but I've got my eye on New Mexico
Italy & Greece | Our "someday" trips. After we have our babies and save up our pennies. Maybe 30th birthdays.
Oregon Wine Country | I hear Oregon is gorgeous and I do love a good Pinot.

But this weekend was beautiful Austin, Texas.
From the moment we got there Friday around noon it was definitely HOT, but this is Texas in May and that's life.

We drank a LOT of champagne (for me) / whiskey (for Drew) and ate an insane amount of delicious food, so I feel like I should share.

Launderette for brunch 

SO good. Best pancakes ever. Great cappuccino. SO accommodating (We were a full hour and change early for our reservation on a busy Saturday and they sat us immediately.)

We were starving so we got a few pastries as "starters."

OMG SO GOOD. Drew got this peach popover and I got the zucchini bread.

Moonshine for dinner

So good, so friendly. Busy spot downtown and they don't accept reservations, but we got there early (5:30 or so) and were seated in 15 minutes. Dinner was SOOOOO GOOOOD. They start you off with this popcorn and I LOVE the changeup from a bread basket or chips and salsa. So different!

 This champagne was so good. 

 I got the special which was tomato pie. Drew got trout or some fish that looked decently good, but I don't love fish so I'm not an excellent judge. Drew LOVED it. 

Bazille (upstairs at Nordstrom) for mid-day drinks

Whenever we're baby-less at the Domain, we always stop into this bar upstairs at Nordstrom. It's so cute, always quiet, and has a great view for people watching.

This is Drew calling the hotel to make sure they put us in a street-facing room—per my request. He was not happy about making this call. 

Culinary Dropout for dinner

Great, but I took no pictures because they sat us outside at 5pm so it was HOT and I was too warm to take photos or even fully enjoy the meal, honestly.

Second Bar + Kitchen was the restaurant at our hotel. We stopped in for a drink on their patio Saturday night and then in the actual restaurant for breakfast Sunday. It was GREAT. We'd go back again!

 This picture is literally me whining about the fact that when I die in 50 years, Arden will have 75,000 pictures of Drew and zero of me because I'm always the one taking our photos. Irony.

We live our lives on a budget—which is why Drew semi-hates vacations or trips of any kind. They don't fit within his ideal spending guardrails, and are therefore "A waste." This creates an interesting dynamic when paired with me—the one who spends my free time reading the reviews of resorts in Hawaii or chateaus in the south of France that I never intend on actually visiting.

Because of this point of marital discord, we make a lot of compromises on vacations. Example: I wanted to stay at the Archer at the Domain, and Drew wanted to avoid spending $275 on a hotel room at all costs. So, what did we do? We met in the middle. Friday night, we stayed at some Holiday Inn Express at the Arboretum. Saturday night, we stayed at the Archer. WHICH WAS AMAZING, by the way.

Our room was clean and well-appointed. We didn't spring for a fancy suite or anything excessive. Just a street-facing room with a big, comfy bed and a great view of Starbucks—dream come true.

 I forced Drew to put on the hotel slippers for this photo, I'll admit it.

 Drew was not at all entertained by me slowing us down on our way out the door for dinner for a mirror selfie.

 Quite possibly the fakest Drew smile of all time. Fine, I'll take what I can get. 

Archer has great details at every turn. The fun slippers, cute complimentary desserts with nighttime turndown service, excellent hotel bar and restaurant, cutest "rooftop" pool, walk-in showers with rain shower heads, and a lot more I'll not bore you with. If you're looking to stay at the Domain, try Archer.

We also went to see the Bobby Bones Red Hoodie Comedy Tour Friday night at the Paramount. This was a bit of a bust because the crowd was so rowdy that they wouldn't stop heckling him. It was all positive heckling like, "We love you Bobby!" and chanting his name and cheering at EVERYTHING. But even he admitted right there on stage that if the audience didn't quiet down, he wouldn't be able to get into a groove. And he didn't. It was the craziest crowd I've ever seen. He was great about it, but we did have to leave about 20 minutes early. It was already 2.5 hours in and it was just too much. I'm so glad we went! But next time I think I'd try to see him like in Dallas or somewhere where he's a bit "less" well-known. Yikes.

Saturday morning I got up early and went for a little belated Mother's Day treat...a massage! It was at Viva Day Spa at the Domain. Beautiful little spa! I had Heather, and other than shortchanging me about 8 minutes (I know, picky, but massages are expensive—so I'm allowed to say that one tiny thing) she was GREAT. I did a 60 minute deep tissue treatment because working at a desk combined with half marathon training really had me messed up. She worked out a lot of my problem areas (shoulders/neck/middle back) and I was so grateful for that quiet hour to myself. Sometimes that's all ya need to feel recharged!

Saturday we went to all the great places we can't go to in Waco. Madewell, Levis, Peter Millar, Nordstrom Rack, J.Crew, etcetera. We were both desperately in need of new clothes for spring. I hadn't really "shopped" (aside from a few trips for specific items or just being in the right venue at the right time) since before I was pregnant, and none of my clothes currently fit right. Drew had also been wearing the same 5 shirts for over a year. Sweet Drew would've worn them for another year if I hadn't made him branch out a little. :)

Saturday night I did something kind of extra, as the kids would say, and booked tickets to see Deadpool 2 at the fancy iPic theater at the Domain. You know, the one with those reclining chairs?! It was a dumb splurge for $24 a pop, but HELLO—it was a fun time and that's all that matters. Plus—free popcorn?!

Sunday we went to breakfast at the hotel, checked out, ran a few little errands and then headed to Georgetown to pick up Arden from Drew's parents' house. We had to run home for Lolli's 47th birthday party tonight!

My mom's birthday (May 21st) also marks two years since we found out we were pregnant! Read more about that adventure linked here. 

Drew starts his new job tomorrow. He's a little anxious, I can tell, but he's gonna kill it. I can't believe he's literally going to work 10 feet from my office door. It's going to be a new adventure, that's for sure. If you have any tips for working with your spouse, let me know. :)

I should probably head to bed. It's midnight, which is roughly two hours past my bedtime. Have a great week and a safe Memorial Day weekend next weekend. We don't have many plans yet, and that's how I like it. 

Chat soon.