San Antonio part 3

Sea World

On Saturday, we woke up and had breakfast at the most amazing pancake house - Magnolia Pancake Haus - if you are looking for breakfast in San Antonio, we highly recommend it!

After a late breakfast, we headed on over to Sea World and rushed to get seats at the first show, Azul, featuring dolphins, beluga whales, and water acrobatics. It was a really great way to start out the day!

Next, we headed over to the Shamu show. We were a little disappointed when we found out that the trainers no longer get in the water with the orcas, for obvious reasons, but it was still a great show.

(Please don't make the logical comparison between me and the killer whales!)

Even though Sea World has several rides, Kevin only went on one (I think he felt bad that I couldn't go too)...can you find him in the picture?

Some of the shows were a little too hokey for us, but we still had fun.

Waiting for the "Cannery Row Caper Show" featuring sea lions and a walrus.

After several hours of rushing to and from shows, Kevin and I decided a nap was in order, so we went back to our hotel, crashed, and came back for the "Howl-o-Scream" festivities in the evening.

We waited in line for the Nightmare Forest for about an hour, but it was worth it!

Note that I am pointing to the warning for pregnant women...I am such a rule breaker!

Do you want to hear the saddest story? So, we waited in line for the haunted forest for about an hour and in front of us in line was a couple with a small little boy, probably about 4 or 5 years old. Well, we didn't really think anything of it until we started into the forest. The dad was carrying the little boy and as you enter the forest you have to go through a tunnel with black inflatable walls that push on you from either side, inducing a claustrophobic attack from most people. Well, the little boy was rightfully and obviously scared and he started pleading with his parents to go back.

They continued on through and then in the most pathetic and heartbreaking little voice he turned and asked us "Can somebody please help me! Please!!" I just melted. It was the saddest thing! He wasn't crying or screaming, just pleading in a scared little voice to the strangers behind him. He knew that his parents obviously didn't love him as they brought him in there in the first place, so he was asking us and there was really nothing we could do but utter encouragement like "You're going to be okay little guy!" "It's almost over" "Just close your eyes!"

It was just so sad! His parents get the bad parent award for sure!

After the forest and deciding not to call child protective services, we ran over to the "Jack is Back" Shamu show which was WAY cooler than the earlier show. The music was great and the whales did a lot more tricks. Even though we had to sit in the splash zone, it was totally worth it!

What a great weekend!

San Antonio part 2

The San Antonio Riverwalk

After eating the most amazing lunch ever, Kevin and I weren't exactly hungry, but we took a bus down to the Riverwalk and had a lot of fun walking around and checking out all the cool restaurants along the river.

We even took a boat cruise that reminded us a lot of the ones we used to take in St. Petersburg, Russia oh so long ago when we were facilitators for the BYU study abroad program. It was so much fun to putter along the river and float under the beautiful old bridges.

Summer of 2006...crazy, huh?

Unfortunately, the boat was extremely crowded and I started to have a minor panic attack and once we were off the boat I was more than a little dizzy, hot, and nauseous and all the "cool restaurants" turned into stinky yucky smelly places that sell foul looking food. We ended up eating far away from anything too malodorous at an extremely overpriced restaurant that didn't have very good food. Oh well...at least our lunch was amazing!

San Antonio part 1

The Salt Lick

If you are a long time follower of our blog, you know that Kevin and I are amateur foodies...we love going out to cool restaurants, finding local dives, and cooking together. You also know that Kevin and I will go to great and somewhat embarrassing lengths to procure yummy food.

Well, when we first moved to Dallas over a year ago, we saw this BBQ place featured on the Food Network called the Salt Lick and we knew at that moment that our life would never be complete if we did not go eat there. Fortunately, this BBQ heaven is just outside of Austin, making this an attainable goal. So, for over a year we have been planning on driving down and eating there (about 3.5 hour drive) but it just hadn't happened.

Yes, you guessed it - I can now die a happy woman because last weekend we did it! Kevin got some time off work last minute so we planned a quick little trip to San Antonio via The Salt Lick. We left home Friday morning in time to have lunch at the best BBQ place EVER, ate, drove the rest of the way to San Antonio, checked in to our hotel, wandered down to the Riverwalk, spent the next day at Sea World, and then drove home on Sunday in time to eat lunch at the Salt Lick again. Yes, it was that good that we wanted to make sure that we ate there twice!

There are now 3 locations of this awesome restaurant - the original location in Driftwood, TX (20 miles outside Austin in the sticks!), Round Rock, TX, and at the airport

We went, of course, to the original location in the boonies!

What makes their BBQ so tasty is the open, real wood fire pit they use to cook the meat right inside the restaurant. Yum!

I couldn't resist taking a picture of this...seriously, do you have a square to spare? (Seinfeld, anyone?) They REALLY don't want to run out of toilet paper!

Happy Halloween part 2

Witches Night Out

During our last year of law school, my friend Kelly threw the most adorable Halloween party called "Witches Night Out" complete with food, games, food, decorated witches hats, and more food! We had such a fun time, I decided to throw my own this year and it turned out great!

I made chili and had hot apple cider and everyone else brought sweets and other yummy dishes to share...everything was wonderful!

Not exactly the "sexy witch" that most women dress up as on Halloween, but hey! I am 8 months pregnant!

Michelle, Krista, and Meaghan

Lynn, Marsha, Joan, and Kate

Heather, Michelle, Jene, Jen, Samantha, Krista, and Shannon

Shannon, Heather, Jen, Samantha, Michelle, Kaitey, and Jene

The winners!

Heather won BOTH the "Which Witch is Which?" trivia game and the "Most Creative Hat" award while Samantha took away the "Most Glamorous Hat" award

All the fun tights!!

Happy Halloween part 1

Carving Pumpkins

This year Karen and Mike invited us over for some intense pumpkin carving (along with a fabulous dinner) and Kevin decided that he had had enough triangle eyed, toothy grinned jack-o-lantern faces and decided to do a fancy-stencil-takes-all-night-pumpkin. It turned out AWESOME!! I kept teasing him for attempting a "4 out of 4 pumpkin" challenge rating pumpkin design on his first try, but he did great and didn't even need any toothpicks to fix anything!

Kevin, Mike, and Mike's friend Bruce carving away

With his finished pumpkin

Kevin was really worried that his pumpkin would be damaged if it bumped in to anything on the ride home so he decided to buckle it in.

Yeah, I think he'll be a good dad!

Texas State Fair

I love corn dogs. And where do you get the best corn dogs? The fair! To this pregnant woman, there is NOTHING better than a fresh fried "corny" dog shared with her husband while people watching :)

Needless to say, we had a great time at the fair yesterday. I got my corny dog, Kevin won "Junior" a stuffed killer whale to go in his beachy themed bedroom, and we got to see lots of weird looking cows!

Kevin in front of the huge ferris wheel that stays up all year long

(sorry it is so washed out!)

So this is a Brahman cow. They were originally bred from several different Indian (as in from India) breeds and are named after the sacred cow of Hinduism. I think they are really weird looking - like a cross between a cow and a camel and something that has lots of extra skin hanging down (maybe a rooster?). I liked this one the best though because he has the number "666" seared into his behind. He's a sacred, devil cow! But seriously, what farmer thought that would be a good number?

We also got to watch a cow milking demonstration. We were hoping they would talk about the business of dairy farming and milk production, etc, but they only talked about the nutritional value of milk...boring! Poor Bessy is milked 4 times a day in front of a crowd just so some dairy rep can tell us something we already know - milk is good for you.

One of the things I was really looking forward to at the fair were all the pigs...but all we saw were empty pig pens. We finally came across this guy (a boar) and so I took a picture. Where did all the pigs go? I was very disappointed :(

Well, next year we'll have a little one to take to the fair. I hope he likes it as much as we (I) do!

Happy Birthday, Kevin!

Friday was Kevin's birthday and we celebrated all day! We started out sleeping in and then lazily grabbing some yummy donuts and kolaches before heading into Kevin's office for an hour while he finished up some work. We then enjoyed lunch at one of our favorite Uptown places - State and Allen - and then grabbed Kevin's new golf clubs (his birthday present from me and my parents) and headed to the local driving range.

Kevin with his new clubs

The plan was for Kevin to hit some balls at the range and then play 9 holes (I was just along for the ride), but the BlackBerry had a different plan and we had to go home so Kevin could work for a bit.

Oh well...he lives to golf another day!

That night we had some of our friends over for a little kid style pizza party complete with cake, ice cream, and games. After gorging ourselves on pizza and cheesesticks, we busted out the guitar hero and then played a few rounds of mafia. It was so much fun!

Kevin had requested German chocolate cake with coconut pecan frosting, so that is exactly what he got!

Okay, so notice how I am NOT the one lighting the candles? Well, earlier in the evening I had started a *minor* fire in the kitchen (who knew that putting pizza in the oven to keep warm could start a fire?) and Kevin didn't quite trust me to do the honors, so thankfully our friend Matt Hansen was able to light them for me!

Can you guess how old Kevin is?

That's right - 29! I put on 29 candles in the shape of the numbers 2-9 and he was still able to blow them out in one breath. Even more upsetting was the fact that I had put trick candles on there and he was able to blow them out too...only one re-lit. I was so sad! I was looking forward to the trick candles relighting and Kevin having to blow them out several times, but I guess they don't work as well on adults as they do on children. I have distinct memories of being at birthday parties as a child and having the trick candles relight and relight until they had to give up and dump them in water...ah, those were the good old days!

The Sharp clan spent the night so we could party into the wee hours and Dylan was being quite the charmer before bed. How can you resist such a cutie? I am so excited for our little guy to meet and be good friends with Dylan :)

I hope you had a good birthday, sweetie! I love you!