FaceTime with Solomon

Matt and I got to FaceTime with Solomon just before his bedtime. We started playing a game where we would fall asleep, snore, then wake up screaming and confused as to who woke us up! ;) He thought that was a pretty funny game. After a while he'd say, "Now Matt go to sleep," so Matt would play. Then he'd play. We had a blast. I got a screenshot during our conversation that pretty much sums it up!

Root Beer Kick

The first step is admitting you have a problem.

I have a problem.

I have a newfound love of root beer (in Nolan Ryan koozies).

San Antonio - SeaWorld

We went to SeaWorld one day while we were in San Antonio. Renee and I talked about wanting to go a while back, so we decided we'd just go! It was hot, for sure, but luckily it wasn't too crowded. We didn't take a whole lot of pictures, but here are a few!

We were taking a short break to eat some Dippin Dots.

This was inside one of the aquariums.

These were taken by the main fountain near the entrance. The pictures are mixed up again (surprise!), but these next two were just before we left (so we were tired, hot, and sweaty).

The big promotional show at SeaWorld was an Elmo/Sesame Street theme, and Renee ran into this big fella during lunch. :)

The sea lion show was definitely the best one. It had me cracking up the whole time!

We were waiting for the last show before we left - Shamu!

SeaWorld was fun. I don't think I need to go back anytime soon, but it was fun. :)

San Antonio - Missions

We toured two of the Spanish Missions in San Antonio, Mission San Jose, and Mission Concepcion. I linked those titles to a website with some basic information on each if you're interested! We took several pictures, and I'm not positive that they haven't been mixed up here, so I'll just let the pictures do most of the talking from here, and I'll comment occasionally. There are a lot of pictures, but Matt got some really pretty ones, so don't skip over them! :)

Keith, Renee, and Matt walking ahead of me on the tour.

This is inside the church at the mission.

Matt wanted to be a Park Ranger. :)

San Antonio

We took a few days off to take a trip to San Antonio with Matt's parents. We raced go-karts, played miniature golf, rode in bumper boast, enjoyed the riverwalk, toured some missions, went to SeaWorld, and toured the Blue Bell Creamery in Brenham before coming home! I'll do separate posts for the missions and SeaWorld, because I have a lot of pictures.

The plan was to just play miniature golf. BUT THEN we get there and it's cheaper to do a "package deal" where we can play putt-putt, ride go-karts, ride bumper boats, and play arcade games. None of us had much interest in the arcade games, but since we had the tokens, we figured we'd play a couple of games. Then the two BOYS got hooked on a hunting game and ended up going back for MORE TOKENS so they could play!! Renee and I found some empty seats at a table and got comfortable while the boys played. ;)

The next day we toured some missions, and the next we went to SeaWorld, but those posts will come next. :)

We left San Antonio and drove over to Brenham to tour the Blue Bell Creamery. Of course, at the end of the tour you get to taste some ice cream! I tried Southern Blackberry Cobbler... YUM. If you haven't had it, go to the store right now and buy some. It is delicious! We also got some fun stuff from the gift store... :) Matt got a Blue Bell coffee mug that looks like a Homemade Vanilla ice cream carton and I got a cool tshirt. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the creamery, but we got a couple by the Blue Bell truck outside.

More San Antonio posts to come!

Photo App

I downloaded a photo editing app on my iPad. I wanted to try it out, so I snapped a couple of pictures of myself, and some of Matt. I thought they turned out kind of alright!

Engagement

5 years ago today Matt proposed to me!

Chicago

Matt and I had the opportunity to attend an Integrated Marketing conference in Chicago this summer. Matt found some information about the conference a while back and thought it might be helpful to him in his new position at Austin Grad. He talked with the President of the school about it and explained that there were two tracks to the conference, so they would need to decide which one would be best for him to attend. The President responded, "Well, let's just send you and Lauren, that way we can cover both!" FINE BY ME! :)

I was excited to fly. I've flown in a plane before, but I don't remember any of it. It's weird... because I wasn't THAT young (junior high), but I just don't remember it. It was kind of fun, but I'm not just dying to get back on a plane anytime soon. I took this picture shortly after we took off.

We got into Chicago later that evening, rushed through the airport to catch the train to downtown, then walked a couple of blocks with our luggage to the hotel. We were exhausted and HUNGRY (it was around 9pm and we hadn't had any dinner). Someone at the hotel recommended a small Italian place just around the corner where we found some delicious pizza (though not Chicago-style) and even more delicious gelato.

Our room was pretty cool. One entire wall was a giant window that overlooked busy Chicago. It was obnoxious at first, but later became laughable, how much people honk in Chicago! It was non-stop honking, screeching tires, and other various traffic noises.

We DID attend a conference while we were there, but I didn't take pictures during the conference (with the exception of one lovely one at the end of this post), so everything you're about to see was during our off times when we got to enjoy Chicago a bit. :)

One night we went to Andy's Jazz Club. There was a trumpet trio group playing that night and they were pretty good. I snapped this picture of Matt while we were there.

 We stayed at the fancy Marriot and we didn't have an internet connection in our room. I think that is pretty silly. Of course, they'll give you internet in your room for only about $15 a day! No, thanks. So we spent some time in the main lobby using the free internet that was available there to look up directions to some of the places we wanted to go. This is Matt waiting patiently for me to look up directions (and obviously snap a quick picture of him!).

 This is right around the corner from the hotel.

We had one full day to ourselves. We went to Wrigley Field and took a tour! This is the "famous sign that you have to take a picture of," according to the tour guide!

We took a picture of a couple of Angels fans here, so they agreed that they could stand to take a picture of a couple of Rangers fans in return. :)

After the tour, we walked down the street to the Goose Island Brewpub. Matt had recently heard of them, and I also did a little bit of research on them for my Stock Project that I posted about earlier, so we went to check it out. We had just eaten not long before, so we had fried cheese curds and beer. HEALTHY (but delicious).

We snapped this picture on a busy bridge crowded with people (I quickly learned that there are a LOT of people in Chicago... too many for my taste!).

We walked a few blocks to the Palmer House. It is famous for a lot of things, but I read before our trip that Frank Sinatra had a meeting with Tommy Dorsey here and that is when Dorsey convinced Sinatra to sign a contract with his band. When I think back to "Sinatra time" and imagine the kinds of places he would hang out, the Palmer House is definitely it.

These are called the Peacock Doors that are right inside the lobby. We didn't take any pictures of the main lobby, but it was beautiful.

I don't know what this thing is called, but I know it's a popular place to go in Chicago. I guess I could google the official name, but in my head, it's just the "big shiny bean thing." To any art/sculpture snobs who may be reading my blog right now, sorry if I've just offended you.

We were underneath it here admiring our reflections. ;)

We also walked over to Navy Pier. I won't lie... I was pretty grumpy by the time we got there. We walked so much that day. Matt looked at a map that night and figured up that we walked between 6 and 7 miles. "It's good for you, Lauren." I know. But my feet hurt. So leave me alone.

Ok, back to the pictures. :) We rode the ferris wheel at Navy Peer.

This is the view of the skyline from the ferris wheel.

We knew we had to get some Chicago-style pizza while we were there. We had a place picked out to go, but met a local at the conference who convinced us to try a different place. We went to Giordano's, which was just a couple of blocks away from our hotel. On our way there, we saw tons of teenage girls run across the street ahead of us screaming at the top of their lungs. Matt jokingly said, "Geez... is Justin Bieber here, or something?" We laughed and kept walking. We got to the pizza place, which was on the same corner where all of the girls were still standing and screaming. There was a woman standing nearby who was cracking up, so I asked her if she knew what was going on. She responded, "Yes, Justin Bieber is here." HA! Matt and I cracked up. He was staying at the hotel across the street, so the girls were standing outside, singing his songs, and waiting for him to come back out. Luckily, we didn't have to wait long and got to go inside and enjoy some pizza.

I expected the pizza to be good... but I didn't know it would be THAT good. Look at that picture again. Delicious. :) We had quite a bit of good food while we were there.

One night we asked the hotel concierge for a restaurant suggestion for dinner. She suggested a BBQ restaurant... I informed her that we're from Texas and that I didn't believe their BBQ could possibly be better than what we're used to. She agreed and suggested a Mexican food place instead... ??? Ha!! That night we went to the Weber Restaurant (as in Weber Grills). They had a long line of grills set up in their kitchen where they were cooking all of the food. It was pretty neat. We started talking some with our waiter there and found out he is from Denton, Texas. It's a small world!

Here is another picture of the night skyline.

This building was pretty close to our hotel and it was absolutely beautiful.

Remember how I said I did take ONE picture from the conference? Here ya go, folks...

Come on! What did you expect??

After our last session, we booked it to the train station to head to the airport. We had dinner at the Chicago airport that night and I made the mistake of asking the woman taking my order, "Do yall have sweet tea?" It took me several seconds to figure out why she was looking at me funny. One: they don't say yall. Two: they don't make or serve sweet tea. I got quite a kick out of it once I figured it out, but I really thought she was rude for a few seconds for looking at me that way!

Our flight left around 9pm so we got to see all of the lights around Chicago. This picture doesn't even come CLOSE to showing how beautiful it was, but I'll share it anyway. Use your imagination. :)

All in all, it was a great trip. We got to enjoy Chicago (neither of us had ever been), and we learned a lot at the conference.