Weekend Things: A Texas Wedding

Whew!  After a couple of travel snafus (our Airbnb cancelled on us the day before we were due in, then our flight was cancelled at 2:30 AM on the day we were to fly out and we had to scramble and make it on one leaving four hours earlier), we made it to Texas and can I just ask, HOW DOES ANYONE LIVE IN TEXAS??  Early June and it’s already in the upper 90s with full humidity.

But we got to see Tyler and Brianna tie the knot and a wedding is always fun!

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Our first stop was for beer and food, of course.  We all felt lukewarm about our beers, but this food was GOOD.  Sidewinder fries forever, please!

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Took a trip to NASA and as cool and educational as it was, I had pictured the training facility to be fancier?  I thought it was going to be Google level, but instead it was swivel chairs from 1960 and sowing machines?  We took a little tour around the campus that I found quite interesting and whoa, ever seen a space ship??

Made it back to our hotel in time to shower and get ready for the rehearsal dinner, featuring Rudy’s BBQ. Cathy gave such a lovely speech!

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The wedding was on Saturday and sorry it looks like Joey and I are really sweaty.  It’s only because we were really sweaty.  I think it was easily 90° at the reception!  But that’s just when you drink many glasses of chilled rosé, use your plate as a fan, attempt a line dance and dress up at the photo booth, right??  Tyler and Brianna had such a lovely entrance dance and honestly, I just really love attending weddings with Joey.  We have such fun! ♥

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It’s probably for the best that I have so few photos from Sunday because it was a literal 100° and I was so sweaty!  We had bought really good tickets for the Astros game and only once they were bought did I have a moment of panic about sitting outdoors for 3 hours, but then Joey reminded me their stadium is a dome.  Hallelujah!  We all agreed that an indoor stadium just doesn’t feel the same, but the Astros won so I’m giving us all the credit 😛  That’s stadium number TEN for me!

Afterward, we walked over to Craft Beer Cellar Houston (which must be connected to our beloved Craft Beer Cellar New Orleans!) for a glass and a game of Sequence, then met up with a big group of family, including Brianna and Tyler, for dinner.

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We flew back home (and had our fingers crossed that our flight wasn’t cancelled again!) Monday afternoon, but Joey and I did sneak in a quick morning trip to Blockhouse Coffee Shop and it felt fully like my kind of place (except later on, when I was really buzzing on iced coffee…) ♥  One last congrats to the newlyweds and man, does it feel good to be home!

Weekend Things

The first weekend of 2019!  Did you dig it?  Honestly, I sort of forgot it was the first weekend of the new year until my yoga teacher pointed it out, but it was a good one anyway.  It started with a spontaneous dinner out and ended with a wild Golden Globes show, that still has me feeling confused.  Let’s dive in!

We were totally going to eat free leftovers for dinner but my sister texted me as we were driving home asking if we wanted to go out for burgers and the answer took very little thought.  YES!  In exchange, we invited them to join us in seeing a movie, so Park & Co first, then off to the Mayan for If Beale Street Could Talk second.  Guys, this film is SO beautiful.  I felt so moved just watching Tish and Fonny, the two main characters, look into each others eyes.  It was truly astounding how love was evoked through this whole film.  The ending is sort of heartbreaking and not what you hope for, though maybe what you should expect.  I need to read the James Baldwin novel it’s based on now!

Saturday morning, we took ourselves to a new coffee shop, called Doppio for breakfast and to wrap our heads around the month of January.  After holiday chaos, this month looks blissfully empty.  Doppio was a-okay.  Into all the space they had, giant coffee mugs and decked out toast, but service was sort of weird and do I really need an extra piece of toasts that isn’t decked out?  Probably not.

The rest of the day was wide open.  We went on a noontime run and it felt wonderful and like it was maybe the first time I’d run outside since before the time change??  Whoa.  I also hit the grocery store and I cannot wait for everyone to give up on their New Year’s Resolutions so I can find a parking spot at Whole Foods again 😛  The Cowboys played that night, so I offered to make us dinner — Black-Eyed Peas with Cornmeal Dumplings, per tradition — then read while Joey watched the game.  They won, so I guess I’ll be doing this same thing next Saturday?

First things first, I woke up on Sunday and Joey told me he’d finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows the night before, thus bringing his reading of the HP series to an end.  I cannot even tell you how much this means to me ♥♥♥  Mostly because I’ll cry!  This moment is 11 years in the making and I love him on a whole new level.

Post-HP recap discussion, there were pancakes and afterward, I ran to a different grocery store to get a few things we can’t get at WF — it was busy there too and people were straight up creating their own parking spaces! — before returning home to make granola, eat lunch and read some more before yoga.  The class was really full — is this a theme?? — but it was also really good and I made it home in time for Joey and I to type each other a letter?  Don’t ask.  Then it was Globes time!

Oh the Golden Globes, what can I say?  I thought the whole thing was somewhere between okay and totally weird.  I’m probably just idealizing but I kept thinking “hasn’t this award show been much better in past years??”  There were so many good films this year, but winners were so spread out among those films that it almost felt like no one film got quite the recognition it deserved.

I still haven’t seen Bohemian Rhapsody so it’s hard for me to really have an opinion on it winning Best Picture Drama but the reason I haven’t seen it, is because it looks really bad!  Also, I really loved Green Book, but I feel so conflicted between my original opinion, the opinion of everyone I know who’s seen it and (apparently) the HFPA’s opinion versus everything I’ve heard about it from critics, which is basically that it’s an inaccurate depiction or it’s an oversimplification of race relations in America or it’s yet another white savior narrative.  I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to think anymore.  I do wish there’d been more space to reward Bradley Cooper for A Star is Born though!

Did you watch?  What did you think?

If not, tell me how your first weekend of 2019 was! 🙂