New Orleans

Jason & I headed to New Orleans this week for a much needed vacation.  It was a nice mix of things to see and do and enough time to relax. 

Our New Orleans Digs - The Terrell House

We stayed at a The Terrell House B&B on Magazine Street.  We really enjoyed the location.  If you went out the door to the right, you could visit the shops on Magazine Street or the Garden District.  If you went left, you could head downtown or to the French Quarter.  Our room was actually located in a separate building at the back of the main house.  There was a wonderful courtyard which we enjoyed spending a few minutes reading and drinking coffee before breakfast.  The breakfasts were delicious Southern/ New Orleans cuisine.  And in case we started missing Radar too much, we could get our pet fix by petting the resident dog (Stella) and cat (Jubilee.)

 

Thursday Afternoon - The Garden District

We spent our first afternoon in New Orleans walking around the Garden District admiring the big houses.  I loved the architecture.  The red bricks, the iron work, the porches - all beautiful.  I wish I could have seen the Garden District back in the 1800 and 1900's when the lots were bigger and full of lush gardens.  You can tell that a lot of the original lots have been divided and smaller houses built in between the mansions.  Still beautiful, but it would have been neat to admire in its original form.

 

Thursday Evening - French Quarter and Frenchmen Street

That night, we ventured over to the Marigny neighborhood for dinner.  We stopped in several bars along Frenchmen Street to listen to bands and had drinks at d.b.a. Then we gained the confidence to walk around the French Quarter.  We went relatively early (between 9 and 10 pm) and it was still pretty crazy. I equated it to a carnival for adults.  Nice to see, but not really our scene.   

Friday Morning - WWII Museum

 

Friday morning we woke up relatively early and spent the morning at the The National WWII Museum.  The museum is HUGE.  They show a pretty neat movie about the war with special effects (chairs shake, smoke, snow, etc.)  While I didn't like some aspects of the museum that I felt glorified aspects of the war, it was still overall very educational and worth visiting.

Friday Mid-day - Ferry to Algiers

After the museum, we rode the ferry across the Mississippi River to the residential neighborhood of Algiers so we could see the city from a different vantage point.

Friday Afternoon - Nola Brewery Tour

After grabbing a quick lunch, we headed to the Nola Brewery.  The tour was one of my favorite parts of our trip.  The peeps were cool and the beer was good.  The plant is tiny!  They literally hand fill bottles.  Neat to see an operation so small, especially after visiting St. Arnold's here in Houston and Abita (see below.)  Uh... p.s. you might see a trend in our trip. Seems that Jason has taken to craft beer recently.  A little obsessively.  Like he wants to start home brewing in our garage.  Hmmm.

Friday Evening - Dickie Brennan's

We celebrated my birthday a day early by eating a nice dinner at Dickie Brennan's.  Our favorite part of the meal was definitely the banana fosters bread pudding... delish!

Saturday Morning - Abita Mystery House

Saturday was fun.  We headed north of New Orleans, across Lake Pontchartrain (literally we drove 30 miles across the lake) to Abita Springs.  Abita Springs is a tiny little town that feels like it's in the back woods.  We visited the Abita Mystery House in the middle of town - sooo cool!  I can't even describe it's eccentric quirkiness.  Not sure what type of individual it takes to dream up and execute such an idea, but I'm glad they did.  Totally worth the $3 admission fee.

Saturday Mid-day - Abita Brewery Tour & Brew Pub

Oh look... another brewery.  Didn't I mention there was a theme to our trip?  Which I guess is fitting since people just assume you go to New Orleans to drink.  We just did so responsibly and away from the French Quarter.  Which isn't exactly what people expect.  This time we did our drinking (or tasting) at the Abita Tasting Room and Brew Pub.  Another fun tour, but overall, I liked the Nola experience better.

Saturday evening we ate dinner at Capdeville and grabbed a drink at The Bulldog.  Then, being the old fogies we are, we were in bed, watching reruns of Northern Exposure, by 8 pm.  No joke.  But just pretend I didn't tell you that.  If it makes you feel better, you can pretend we were partying it up on Bourbon Street.

Now we're back in Houston.  I'm trying to enjoy my last few hours of vacation before having to head back to reality tomorrow.  I do have to give a shout out to our dog sitter for the weekend, Nicole at Lucy Goo Pet Sitting.  She did a wonderful job watching the house and the dog while we were away.  Radar calmly greeted us when we got home, and I can tell he had a nice, content weekend while we were gone.   A much better alternative to dog kennels or boarding facilities.

Today

I kinda feel like this today.

Just plain pooped out.

Except my tongue remains in my mouth. 

For now.

Four Year Anniversary Celebrations

Jason and I celebrated our four year anniversary this past week.  While our anniversary wasn't actually until Thursday, when I got home from work on Wednesday, Jason surprised me with a card and led me into the backyard where he had planted me the traditional four year anniversary presents of flowers and fruit (two blueberry bushes to be more specific.)  On Thursday, he surprised me with a scrapbook of our time together (too cute!) and then we went out for sushi. 

Pretty, pretty flowers.  Love the pink and white.

Front of scrapbook.

Isn't this impressive?

My blueberry bushes.  Mmmm.

This wasn't part of the presents, but isn't he cute?

This weekend has been pretty slow, but nice.  Yesterday, we worked out at the Y (yes, that's right... we actually joined a gym), saw a double feature at the movies (Super 8 & the new X-Men... both good), and went to the first annual Houston Beer Fest (way too crowded & ran out of beer.)  Today Jason ran off to play soccer and I have leisurely (very leisurely) been cleaning the house.  Ok, let's be honest... it's more of watching old Gilmore Girls than actual cleaning.  But, I did wash the stinky dog.  That pretty much makes today a productive day in and of itself.  I think we might be grilling ribs and chicken tonight.  Then, back to the grind tomorrow.  Well, for me.  Not for Jason who started his summer vacation last week.  So not fair.  At least he spent last week making me wonderful anniversary presents.  :) 

Too Old, Too Crotchety for Hot Music Festivals

This weekend we had tickets to the third annual Free Press Summer Fest.  It also happened to be a weekend of record breaking heat in the area.  Needless to say, I think the title of this post says it all.  We stopped by yesterday to get our wristbands, but didn't really stay for any shows.  Today we managed about 1.5 hours and watched the end of Black Angels and the beginning of Yeasayer before calling it quits.  It didn't help that the lineup was only so-so this year and Budweiser was the only beer at the festival.  I think if you are having a festival which promotes a good deal of local bands, you should support local food and brews as well (at least a few Texas breweries.) 

Old and crotchety is what we are.  Here's a look back at all of our festival going years...



Austin City Limits 2004 - Look at us young'ins.




Austin City Limits 2005 - Looking happy to be there.




Austin City Limits 2006 - Festival pros with hats and umbrellas to avoid the sun.




Lollapalooza 2008 - Added plus, we got to explore Chicago.




Summer Fest 2009 - Sitting on a A/C generator that kept us cool.




Summer Fest 2010 - Rain cooled us off on Sunday.




Summer Fest 2011 - No picture of us, just of the raspas we got on our way home.



Pinterest: For All Things Beautiful

Taking cues from my mom, I've always been a fan of magazines like Country Living, Country Home, and Southern Living.  Not only would I read them, but I would love pointing out pictures I found particularly pleasing.  When Jason and I were dating, I liked to test him, "So how do you like this?"  He obviously did okay since we are still together.  A few years ago Jason bought be a photo album so I could cut pictures out of my magazines and store them there so when we bought a house together, I could pull decorating ideas from my cutouts.  I thought it was an incredibly thoughtful gift. 

A few weeks ago, I found out about the website Pinterest.  It's still a relatively new website, and you have to request membership and wait a few weeks until you get an invitation to join.  I have a feeling they are limiting members because of the bandwidth required to keep the website up and running.  Anyhoo, the website is basically a virtual version of the photo album idea Jason came up with a few years ago.  The concept is that you "pin" things that interest you.  For me, it's mostly beautiful pictures of houses.  You can create different boards (or albums) for different things (art, clothes, foods, basically anything you can think of.)  You can follow other people's boards and repin things they have posted and vice versa.  This blog does a good job giving a quick run through of what the website is all about.

So, I thought I would share a few of my boards (even if you aren't a member, I think you can still click on the links and see my pages):

For the Home  Ideas for how I wish our home, or future home, looked.

I Swear I'm Not Pregnant, Just a Forward Thinker  Don't get any wrong ideas, I'm just a planner.

Stuff I want for Mi Casa  I do have a birthday coming up after all.

Evolution of a Bedroom

Jason & I tackled a project this morning.  Before I unveil the big surprise, I thought it would be fun to walk through the evolution of our bedroom from the day we moved in until now.



When we first moved in.  All existing furniture from our lives as renters.  Don't you love the unproportional glass & metal coffee tables we were using as bedside tables?

 

First change - furniture upgrade.  New side tables, bookcase, & lamps.  I'm not sure why I thought Radar needed two beds in the bedroom at this point in time.   I guess that's why we call him Spoiled Wompkins.



Addition of a rug (formerly in the living room.)



New curtains.  After we bought and put these up, we were still unsure of how they looked, so one Saturday I drove all around town and found about 8 more possible options.  After trying each one out, we stuck with our first choice.

 

New bedding.  Finally getting rid of all the brown.



Our room today.  What's new?  Hint: Look up.



Lights off.


That's right.  Jason & I took down the ceiling fan and installed a new light fixture.  All by ourselves.  We're practically master electricians now.  Actually, we are just hoping we hard wired it correctly and safely.

Too bad our bed making skills haven't improved over the past year.  They are all half-hearted attempts at making the bed look half-way presentable before I took pictures.  But, it does look like the pictures have gotten better.  The new camera makes a big difference. 

Anyhow, doesn't the new light look nice?  Much better than the brass & laminate fan at least.  We never used the fan because of my allergies, so I thought a more modern fixture would look nice.  I'm pleased with the result.  It's starting to really look like a grown up bedroom vs. just leftovers from college.