Austin, TEXAS

This past weekend was my first weekend away from Jon AND the kiddo's! (I haven't been off by myself since the summer of 2007 (if you count my pregnancy with Sawyer), so this was a BIG deal!) My sister-in-law, Liz, and I went down to Austin and stayed with a friend of mine from high school whose name is Erin. Us girls had a fantastic time! It was so great to spend some quality time with Liz and get reacquainted with Erin. And, a HUGE thanks to Erin and Jason, Erin's fiance, for housing us, feeding us, showing us around Austin and being the best hosts EVER!!!

Some highlights of the trip...

Our first night in town, we bar hopped around downtown and had an absolutely great time! I have not laughed so much or danced so much in months (maybe years).

Our petty cab for the evening - Smurf. We tried to pass him for another cabbie, but he was first in line... We laughed about this for the rest of the weekend!






For our first whole day in Austin, we went out to lunch and shopped ALL day. Literally on one of the hottest days of the year, us three girls were walking around shopping. Silly of us since Erin has a pool in her backyard! But, Liz and I really wanted to shop. Also, silly me, I was so excited to get going on our little road trip that I forgot my "going-out" clothes hanging in the closet... I was outfit-less for our second evening in town. All those hours spent shopping, and none us of even bought anything. Bad day for shopping, but a great time with the girls!

After shopping we went back to Erin's and finally got in the pool and had the Blood Mary's I had made from scratch! They were good, but I have some tweaking to do to get them exactly how I like them. I followed THIS recipe.


We swam until it started getting dark and then decided to get ready for dinner and our second night out. (Erin was kind enough to borrow me a shirt. She would have let me borrow an entire outfit, but she's a skinny-minny!) Even though we were all a bit tired from the night before, we really wanted to power through and have another night on the town, it being girls weekend an all. So, we got in a cab and headed to dinner. No joke our caddie was the grumpiest cabbie ever. A complete and total jerk! Kind of a buzz kill... We ate at Guero's, a well known Mexican restaurant and then walked to a near by bar for a drink. We saw this graffiti on the wall while walking around. Lovely!


We decided we weren't really feeling like going out downtown and it was time to head back to Erin's. The cabbie who picked us up had to be the best cabbie ever! We rocked out to Michael Jackson all the way home with the windows down and singing at the top of our lungs! The pictures taken were all hilarious, but I will only share this one of Liz and me as some of them are embarrassing. GREAT TIMES!!!


That evening we stayed up way past our bedtimes reminiscing. The next day, Liz and I's last day in town, we swam and BBQ-ed. It was such a great weekend and will have to be repeated more often!!!

Sushi

While I was in MN, my friend Kristie and I went to our friend Jennifer's house to make sushi rolls. Jennifer made the rice and Kristie and I helped cut up the fish (we had Tuna and Marlin) and veggies. Then, Jennifer showed us how to roll them up.

Everything tasted as good as if we had gone out to eat! I will definitely be making sushi from home again soon!

Along with nummy wine, we also had cake balls on the menu. When it came time to dip the cake balls in chocolate we had already had a bit of wine... So, our balls were messy! Hehe! Recipe HERE.

Trip to MN in Photo's