Married Life – Page 5 – Hoots of a Night Al

California, La Jolla, Married Life, Travel

La Jolla Life: Part 2

July 3, 2013 5 Comments

As we begin Week 3 of our La Jolla adventure, I figured I would add another update. We are still really enjoying our time here, and trying to explore as much as our schedule allows.

Last weekend we attended a picnic at a park that far outshone any park I’ve ever seen!

It had volleyball courts, playgrounds, kites, bubbles, and spray on tattoos! I was cooler than Louis and decided to get a paw print tat on my wrist. It felt very Lion King-esque to me. Is that a thing? I’m making that a thing.

In addition to the games they had delicious catered food…no PB&Js, Lays, or ants at this picnic. Cali is too fancy for that apparently. We had a great time enjoying the weather, playing bingo, and admiring the fact that we needed to wear sweatshirts outside in June. A very foreign concept for us Texans! After a few hours of picnic fun, our hunger returned, and we decided to hit up a well known California landmark…In-n-Out!

Apparently there are several not-so-secret “secret” ways you can order your burgers like animal-style, 3×3, etc. However, Louis and I are pretty boring when it comes to our burgers, so we just went simple.

The burgers were pretty yummy. They reminded us of Sonic burgers. The fries were pretty meh though…not sure what all the hoopla is about! Oh well, at least we can say we tried it!

Speaking of food, our hotel conveniently offers free dinners Monday through Wednesday evenings as well as free breakfast every morning. Tuesday is usually “homestyle” food, and Wednesdays are always BBQ night! However, Monday is almost always “Chips & Salad.” The first time I saw that on the community calendar, I assumed they must mean taco salad or something more exaggerated. I was wrong.

Y’all, this is seriously what they have for “dinner” every Monday night. Thankfully, we’re within walking distance of several yummy restaurants. Typically our Monday nights end up looking more like this:

Yes, Chipotle is just as delicious in California as it is everywhere else. Yum.

No, eating isn’t all we do in La Jolla! We also enjoy the beautiful scenery. Even driving around here I am constantly in awe of the landscaping, terrain, and random ocean views that spring up. The other day we were lucky enough to enjoy the sunset down at La Jolla Shores. First, we took a stroll down Ocean Lane. How cute is this?

Even though the streets are painfully steep, they make up for it with cute street names and adorable views.

Once we finally made it down to the shore, we were not disappointed. I’ll let the pictures do the talking here…

Aside from animating the first two pictures, I haven’t edited any of these pictures! That beauty is all God! I can’t believe this view is only a mile and a half away from us here! So stunning!

This is only a sliver of our La Jolla Life so far, but I’ll update again soon!

California, Disney, Disneyland, Married Life, Travel

Disney Dreams

July 1, 2013 8 Comments

Exciting news! Louis and I spent last Sunday at Disneyland! We took the big financial plunge and invested in annual passes, so we can enjoy the parks all summer long. We felt SUPER official and very “legit Disney fans” having our official passes with our names on them and everything! Definitely worth the chunk of change to us. Plus, we only have to spend 6 days in the parks for them to “pay for themselves.” Also, we get 15% off food, and 20% merchandise in the parks! Another big plus is it covers parking, which is $16 a day (ouch!). All of the positives added with our love of all things Disney meant the passes were the perfect purchase for us!

Back to our first trip. We are staying in La Jolla, which is about an hour and a half from Anaheim where Disneyland is located. We woke up around 4:45 AM to leave at our planned time of 5:30 AM! EARLY. Thankfully, we’re still on “Texas time,” so it felt 2 hours later to us! After a quick stop at Ralph’s to grab some breakfast, we hit the road! Thanks to Louis’s lead-foot, Disney Way popped up on our map after only about 45 minutes of driving! Apparently, the speed limit wasn’t 85 MPH…oops?

So, we rolled into the Mickey ‘n Friends parking garage at about 7 AM…only 30 minutes earlier than planned 🙂 We parked on Daisy Duck’s level and ~~sprinted~~ strolled down to the tram. We couldn’t contain our smiles as we rode towards the park!

We hopped off the tram and power-walked to the gate. We arrived 45 minutes before the park even opened! Haha! Typical over-zealous Disney lovers! We stood waiting and chatting with fellow passholders about the best rides to go on first and extra park tips. Since it was our first time at Disneyland, we were soaking up any information we could!

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, we were let into the park! We rushed to adventure land, as we planned to go on Indiana Jones Adventure first. As soon as the rope dropped we ran over and were one of the first people on the ride! The theming was incredible, and it was SO much fun!

After Indiana Jones Adventure, we walked toward New Orleans Square to take on some rides. It felt like we had the park to ourselves! We were able to ride Pirates of the Caribbean with an entire boat to ourselves! It was so fun to experience the Disneyland version of the ride with just the two of us. And I must say, the Disneyland version was much more fun than the Disney World one!

We hopped off our boat and walked right on to another one of our favorites…Haunted Mansion!

It was fun to see all of the differences between this version and Disney World’s, but I think DW’s version takes the cake this time! We stepped out of our Doom Buggies (with a hitchhiking ghost!!!), and walked right on to Splash Mountain…with our ponchos on of course! We stayed relatively dry, and loved following Briar Rabbit through his adventures. We then stepped onto The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh to dry off a bit from Splash Mountain. And this was all before 10:00 AM!

It was time to dry another Disneyland classic, so we walked over to Matterhorn Bobsleds. It was quite obvious to our bodies that this ride was built quite a while ago…I think my tailbone is still bruised!

After that, we strolled over to another Disney classic and were met with our first line! It was well worth the wait though! Disneyland’s Space Mountain was AWESOME. I think it was my favorite ride of the day!!! I can’t wait to go on it again.

After Space Mountain, Louis grabbed his favorite Disney snack (a churro), and we decided to head over to Disneyland’s 2nd park, Disney California Adventure. Several parts of it really reminded us of Disney World’s Hollywood Studios because it had an “old Hollywood” feel. We journeyed over to the newest portion of DCA, which holds Cars Land!

This area is themed SO cute! Louis and I aren’t huge Cars fans, but this area was so fun to walk around. The one big downside is new at Disney=CROWDED. They wait for the main ride, Radiator Springs Racers, was OVER 2 and a half hours ALL day! We explored the rest of the park and rode Tower of Terror, California Screamin’ (twice!), Toy Story Mania (Louis’s favorite in DW), Little Mermaid (I know my mom will love this one!), and strolled back to Cars Land to tackle the wait for Radiator Springs Racers. We waited TWO AND A HALF HOURS. Ugh. We were dying to get out of line, but the ride was fun! Granted, it wasn’t worth that long of a wait. However, at least we can say we experienced it! We’ll only ride it again this summer if we can snag some fastpasses though!

That long line did us in, and we walked out of the park to head home surprisingly early! We decided to eat McDonald’s for dinner instead of paying 5 times as much for the same amount of food in the park! Hey, our annual passes don’t give us THAT big of a discount! Disney is expensive! Even though or feet were killing us, on the way home we were already planning our strategy for our next trip! We’ve actually already returned since I’ve written this…but that’s for another post! 🙂

Can’t wait to share our remaining Disney adventures we have planned for the summer!

California, La Jolla, Married Life, Travel

La Jolla Life: Part 1

June 21, 2013 6 Comments

Louis and I have the awesome opportunity to spend some time in La Jolla, California this summer! We have been here almost a week now, so I figured I would share what our La Jolla Life is like so far!

We flew in Sunday morning on Southwest. My parents were sweet enough to drive up to San Antonio on Saturday to celebrate Father’s Day early, and they drove us to the airport on Sunday morning. They’re so great! Our flight was smooth and relatively quick. Louis let me have the window seat, so I got to see the terrain change and enjoy the clouds!

When we arrived we immediately walked outside to cross the airport and get our rental car. When we walked outside, I honestly couldn’t tell we had left the air conditioning. It was so cool and breezy, it took us at least a minute or two before we realized the walkway didn’t have windows and this was our first taste of beautiful Cali weather! Coming from a Texas summer, that was quite a welcome change! I was in charge of watching our suitcases as well as our fellow traveler’s, so I had to stand outside alone with 7 suitcases while we waited for our rental car. I felt like everyone thought I was such a diva. (I mean 5 of the 7 suitcases WERE ours, so I guess if 1 of the 10 pairs of shoes I brought fits…)

Our first La Jolla stop was our hotel, and since our rooms weren’t ready, we headed straight for Downtown La Jolla! We grabbed burgers at Prospect Bar & Grill, which offered us a beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean.

I immediately noticed an immediate attitude shift here. In Texas people will wait twice as long to sit inside a restaurant instead of outside on the patio. The exact opposite is true here! Multiple people came and left when they realized the patio was full! The one downside to our meal was the fact that our table was two inches from the speakers and the live “musicians.” Despite our temporary deafness, the burgers were delicious and the view and weather were unbeatable. After our yummy lunch, we ventured down to Scripps Park to walk along the ocean! My phone was dead, so Louis happily snapped some pictures for me!

In every direction we saw the beautiful Pacific Ocean and felt the amazing ocean breeze on our skin! There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and it was so great to people and dog (…saw lots of chihuahuas! Shout out to my little bro, Sparky!) watch while we walked along the shore.

We were finally able to check into our rooms, and on the drive back to the hotel I saw some familiar faces…

All of the traffic control boxes around La Jolla are covered in beautiful graffiti ranging from cityscapes, to ocean scenery, to THE BEATLES! The traffic control box closest to our hotel has a different Beatle on each side along with lyrics from “Across the Universe.” I took this as a sign that we were in for a great summer as a huge Beatles fan. 🙂

After dropping off our luggage at the hotel and grabbing some necessities at Costco, we headed to see Man of Steel. There is a large shopping center across the street from our hotel that has 3 grocery stores, numerous restaurants, and 2 movie theaters. One of those theaters is a recently renovated AMC Cinema that has leather recliners in all of its theaters. Unfortunately, we went to the other theater. I’m pretty sure it was built in 1935. The projectionist came out before the movie started and introduced herself if that gives you any clue to the technological state of the theater. Also, we were the youngest people there by at least 45 years. Check this place out…

Those seats! I couldn’t feel from my waist down 15 minutes into the 2 and a half hour movie. Despite all of our first world suffering though, the movie was pretty good! After grabbing a few more “non-bulk” groceries at Ralph’s (California’s Kroger), we headed back to the hotel to shower and crash. Even though it was early-ish in Cali, we were still on Texas time!

We’re almost a week into our summer California adventure, and I can’t wait to see what adventures and memories await!

I’ll try to keep everyone posted!

Family, Married Life

Weekend Wrap Up

May 15, 2013 1 Comment

Last weekend was AWESOME. Louis took off work Friday (and I quit, so my last day was Thursday lol), and we headed home Thursday night. We arrived late, but we still stayed up until the wee hours of the morning catching up and laughing!

Friday morning my mom had PT, so Louis and I enjoyed cinnamon rolls with my dad and watched a crazy rainstorm move in. Once my mom got home safely, we headed over to visit my favorite sister and favorite nephew! My dad picked us up some tacos for lunch, and we spent the afternoon laughing and playing.

Louis picked me up in the afternoon, and we drove to Huntsville to watch Louis’s little sister graduate from Sam with her education degree! We celebrated with Louis’s family and a yummy, late dinner at Texas Roadhouse. It was a rainy, stormy, fun day!

Saturday was probably my favorite day of the weekend! First we woke up and enjoyed bacon, fruit, and my dad’s yummy homemade pancakes.

After a delicious breakfast, we got ready and headed out for Henry’s 1st trip to the Zoo! It was a beautiful day, hardly any crowds, and SO much fun! I’ll let the pictures do the talking…

This picture taken from the parking garage shows how beautiful the weather was!

When we first arrived we watched Amy & Travis help Henry feed the giraffes from a private platform! It was so neat...they were right up next to them! The giraffes were SO beautiful...I think they may be my new favorite animals! — When we first arrived we watched Amy & Travis help Henry feed the giraffes from a private platform! It was so neat…they were right up next to them! The giraffes were SO beautiful…I think they may be my new favorite animals!

We walked around and watched the elephants, lions, and bears enjoying the sunny day! Also, is Henry not the cutest baby you’ve ever seen?

Since it was Mother's Day weekend we made sure to get a shot of the Moms in our family! This was Amy's 1st mother's day! — Since it was Mother’s Day weekend we made sure to get a shot of the Moms in our family! This was Amy’s 1st mother’s day!

As if these pictures don’t show how much fun we had, I also shot a couple of videos while we were there! Henry is growing up so fast, I try to take little videos whenever I can. I want to remember each stage of his life forever!

The first video showcases Henry’s FIRST EVER CAROUSEL RIDE!!! He was so cute and waving to everyone as he passed by. I think he really loved it! Pretty sure that means he’s ready to visit a Disney park soon, right Amy & Trav? Also, my dad, my mom, AND I were all standing there taking videos and pictures the entire carousel ride…it was pretty obvious Henry’s the first grandson/nephew.

This video shows my mom (Lolli) and Henry playing around! My mom gets to see Henry super often, and you can totally tell he loves her so much!

After a great day at the zoo, we headed back to my parents’ house for homemade fajitas, Chuy’s dip, and guacamole. It was super delicious, and I’m pretty sure I ate myself into a food coma. After a short nap though, I woke up and enjoyed Hitchcock with my parents. If that movie is accurate, Alfred was one WEIRD dude. It was a good movie though. 🙂

Sunday morning, I woke up early with my dad to go get my mom donuts for breakfast in bed….our family tradition! I also gave my mom her Mother’s Day gift! She’s been redoing several rooms in their house to a sort of Pottery Barn look, so I gifted her with a mercury glass vase from there. I know everyone says this, but my mom is SERIOUSLY the best mom in the world. She deserves much more than one day to celebrate her because she is seriously incredible. I have learned so much from her, and I admire her for so many reasons.

Breakfast in bed (all faces cropped out to protect the innocent..err, makeup-less faces) & my mom's mother's day gift! — Breakfast in bed (all faces cropped out to protect the innocent..err, makeup-less faces) & my mom’s mother’s day gift!

After breakfast we relaxed and got ready before we met Amy, Travis, & Henry for lunch at Red Lobster (Amy’s pick!). I forgot to take pictures there, but I did capture precious Henry drinking some water from his Dad’s straw. Amy also snuck her gorgeous face into this video. Enjoy.

When lunch was over, we relaxed at Amy & Trav’s house for just a bit, and then Louis and I hit the road. The weekend went by WAY too fast…just like it always does when we visit home! It was so great to see my family though, and I can’t wait until we get to visit again!

Married Life, San Antonio

Snowcone Saturdays

April 22, 2013 4 Comments

Praise the Maker! Louis and I found a super yummy snowcone stand close by us! The good/bad news is they accept credit cards, so we are ALWAYS able to get a snowcone! Think about it…the only downfall of most neighborhood snowcone stands is that they’re cash only. Not so in San Antonio, folks. They are SERIOUS. about their cones. We were at Barnes & Noble one Saturday (because we are super cool and adventurous), and we stumbled across this beauty.

This lovely establishment, The Frosty Frog is apparently in this very spot from February to November, so we have plenty of time to enjoy snowcones! On our first visit, we both enjoyed some delicious shaved ice. We tried to respect San Antonio’s roots when ordering. Louis went full on Mexican and ordered lime, and I went full on fake sports fan and ordered The Spurs Trio (for an extra $.50 might I add…).

Lime & Spurs Trio (blue coconut, banana, and strawberry)

The ice was shaved super thin, and they had just the right amount of juice on them! For $5, it was the perfect Saturday treat. So perfect in fact, that we went back the following Saturday.

This time, Louis tried Spiderman vs. Hulk (strawberry & lime) because he is a child in an adult’s body (which is one of the many reasons I love him), and I was boring and got the exact same thing again…

Louis snowcone is a gross color, and mine is beautiful...again. — Louis’ snowcone is a gross color, and mine is beautiful…again.

A fun fact about this trip to the snowcone stand is that about 15 minutes into enjoying our cones in my car we started to hear a buzzing. Apparently a bumble bee wanted to enjoy in our snowcones with us and decided to be a stowaway in Louis’s hoodie. After jumping out of the car and dropping our phones on the ground and yelling (and being seen by several bystanders), we chilled out and enjoyed the rest of our cones.

Not to have our most recent experience be an embarrassing one, we decided it was only right to go back this Saturday and enjoy The Frosty Frog again.

This time my handsome hubbs got Watermelon and Lime, but they added some weird powder to it. Apparently pouring this stuff into snowcones is the norm in San Antonio?

I finally branched out and got half Blue Raspberry and half Pineapple. I had to text my sis a pic of my snowcone and torture her a bit because she loves all things pineapple. Sorry, Ames. 🙂

Don’t worry, we’ll be taking a break from The Frosty Frog this weekend because we’re FINALLY going home Saturday for sweet Henry’s baby dedication! Hooray! Can’t wait to see my family! Oh, and remember how we were at Barnes & Noble before our first trip to The Frosty Frog? I just might have been picking up a little something for my sweet nephew…

Check back next week for an update on our wonderful weekend at home!

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