Christine and Abby Come to Houston

Christine and Abby were in Houston in the beginning of June for a wedding so I got to see them again! It was Abby's first trip to Houston and I feel like she fit in quite well. Perhaps she needs to move here...

Randi, Joe, Ryan, And Duck came up from Clear Lake to see Christine and meet Abby

Abby meeting her cousin/brother, Baloo

Finally visiting Eatsie Boys!

So glad I did because it was delicious! Frank the Pretzel:



Da bomb:

They sometimes have homemade ice cream sandwiches, but were out the day we went. They ad libbed some for us anyways! This one is snickerdoodles with pistachio ice cream:

It was super yummy!

Happy to be with these ladies (not pictured: Mary Furg), not so happy to sit on grass

Such a pretty lady!

Boom, curls:

Holy moly, pulling up on everything:

Me and the nugget having some fun in their hotel room:

Ugh, the next time I see them is not soon enough! Thanks for coming to H-town, ladies!

Leopold and His Fiction and Hands at Fitz's

Tom and Duck had seen this "really awesome band" at SXSW and noted that they were at Fitzgerald's in the Heights one weekend and recruited us to come with. Really glad we did because both of these bands were really cool. Check them out if they come near you or if you have the opportunity to catch them at a festival some time.

Leopold and His Fiction

 

Check these guys out if only to see the lead's sweet 'stache

Hands

These guys had so much energy, he could barely stand still long enough to play the keyboard

Susanna scored a tambourine

Some of us at the show

Really enjoying the jams

Susanna and I with Hands after the show

New Zip Code

One of the billion things I was juggling during my blogging hiatus was deciding to and then figuring out where to move. I decided I needed to live in the city as opposed to the suburbs of Houston. This was a little bit of a hard decision because it meant not only a much longer commute (like 3x as long) but also a slight increase in cost of living. Now, my plan last year was to move to DC so the change in cost of inner city Houston is not nearly as bad as I had been bracing for, but still. I was a bit panicky when, with 2 weeks left until my lease ended I had not found a new apartment. Luckily, I was touring around near Highland Village on St. Patty's weekend and stumbled upon a great option that was actually reasonable to live in a single. Pretty much got the application, moving truck, packing etc all done in about a week. Nothing like waiting until the last minute!

How has the move worked out you ask? Why don't you tell me how it looks to you:

Finally got all my stuff in the new place

At Chris' plate reveal at The Flying Saucer

St. Patty's weekend

Good times at Royal Oak

An unusually large group of ladies having fun in Midtown

Ok so technically not downtown, but the Chili Cookoff happened after I moved

Working on getting Steph into the city

Baloo loves his trips to the Arboretum

10 min from Saint Arnold's

Things go down at the Drinkery

First Grouper!

Having so much fun! And I just bought a sleeper sofa, so come visit!!

The Color Run 2013

I already did the Color Fun Fest with my soccer ladies, but we wanted to see how the original Color Run ran things, plus it was during the day and our first one was at night. We convinced a few more ladies to run this one and had a pretty good group. Unfortunately it ended up being a super cold and windy day and we were worried that we wouldn't get enough color. We needn't be worried, as you can see in these pics:

All pretty and clean before the run

Soooo many people, and this is just one of 3 flights

Check out these tutus

Blue station approach

Yellow station

Before color toss at the finish

Fail on my part at the jump pic, congrats to everyone else

Getting a little leaf blower action to clean some of the color off

So colorful!!!

Had so much fun with these ladies, can't wait for our next run!

Underbelly in Houston, TX

One of my good homies, Mat, is moving back to Seattle so I decided that his going away dinner would be a perfect opportunity to try out one of Houston's hottest restaurants, Underbelly. It's part of a set of 3 restaurant/bars that are focused on creating the best of what they make. Underbelly focuses on locally sourced meats and dishes that revolve around them. Anvil focuses on specialty cocktails, and Hay Merchant focuses on micro brews. I've been to both Anvil and Hay Merchant in the past and I was definitely impressed with the quality of product they were serving, so Underbelly was a must. We decided to get a bunch of dishes and share them all so we could taste as much as possible. Since our reservation was late, a few of the items we wanted had already sold out. Here's what we ended up ordering:

Korean Braised Goat and Dumplings, a far and away winner of the night, it's soft and crunchy, sweet and spicy. Me= blown away!

This is lamb with red cabbage (it's no longer on the menu so I don't know the exact description) after we had eaten most of it:

Blackfish with Butternut squash puree and chopped chard (fish was good, but the winning segment of this dish was the butternut puree):

Finished up with a goat cheese cheese cake with salted carmel (suuuper good because the goat cheese made it less sweet than cream cheese and the salted caramel really set off the flavor): 

Over all it was a huge win. As I look over the current menu while writing this post there are several new dishes I'd like to try. If I lived closer, I could see this being a place I visited on a weekly basis, it's that good and they vary their menu that often. This is a must visit in Houston! And if you don't trust my taste buds, check out some professional reviews: Robb Walsh Patricia Sharpe Bon Appetit Houston Eater 

Christine's H-town Visit!

I was counting down to this visit since February when she booked her ticket. Soooooo happy to see Teeners again, and pregnant Teeners at that! We got to eat lots of old faves as well as discover a few new faves at the Haute Wheels food truck festival. Thanks to everyone who came out with us, it definitely made the visit that much better! Here is a recap of the weekend:

First stop on the trip was lunch a Tookies (they have a pretty good turkey burger!). Christine was pretty pumped to be eating outside, I on the other hand got pooped on by a bird haha. Then, we headed to Boondoggles for a meet-up with Christine's old work group from NASA:

Next up was catching dinner with Josh and Shanna in the city before Shanna jetted off to Dallas for the weekend. We ate at our fave, Cyclone Anaya's and got to see Josh and Shanna for the first time since their engagement. Congratulations!

On Friday we hit up Cracker Barrel first thing (apparently there are no CBs in WA, boo). Then we did some bee-bopping around Clear Lake, errands and what-not. Took Baloo to the park etc. Then we headed back to Boondoggles for the HH I had set up for all our homies to see Christine on her visit. Here are a few peeps from that outing:



Saturday was the Haute Wheels food truck festival. Josh, Christine, and I headed into the city and tasted goodies from lots of the 30 different food trucks. There was also a beer and wine tent with lots of delicious microbrew action. I think my fave sampling was the fried macaroni and cheese with green chili sauce from the Fork in the Road truck:

Firehouse tacos (I believe these were pineapple and buffalo chicken):

Waffle Bus Chicken Waffle bites:

Barebowls Kitchen:

Angie's Cake Balls (ginger beer):



I definitely had tons of fun (and food) at this event and I was glad to have a few peeps up for the adventure (for once)! We met up with Steph and Josh that evening for some Thai Cottage and B&J.

Sunday was actually Mother's Day so I booked a brunch for Christine and I at Haven downtown. I've been wanting to try this restaurant because it's green-inspired (meaning they grow a lot of their own veggies in an organic garden out back and even have their own bees!) and seasonal (so the menu is always changing). The brunch was a set menu that gave you a few choices per course. The first course was free range deviled eggs (just normal). For the second course I chose smoked pork belly and a scrambled yard egg (both were good, but pretty standard) and Christine chose brioche french toast with homemade Greek yogurt (she said the french toast was ok but the yogurt was yummy!):

For the main course I chose a grilled gulf fish and gulf shrimp over a wheat berry salad (it was killer delicious!!!) and Christine had the farm egg frittata (another winner).

For dessert we shared a slice of cheesecake and chocolate ice box pie (both pretty amazing).

Over all the food was very good, but could def use a little more pizazz on the opening numbers. The ambiance was definitely top notch. My one complaint was not food related at all. I had called to try and expand our reservation and was vehemently denied by whomever answered the phone, and yet when we arrived we were sat at a 4-top and there were empty tables around. Not cool. Here is us leaving Haven:

Since Christine was flying out that afternoon, we made a quick pit-stop at the galleria for a visit to GAP Maternity and then headed to Josh's place to see him once more and get in a bit of backgammon haha. Here is my last pic with Teeners and her bump:

Sooo excited to be an aunt, obviously! September can't come soon enough! Thanks a million for visiting Houston, Christine! I had a great time and I can't wait til the next time we get to hang out :)