deep in the heart of texas.

after christopher's ceremony in kingsville, all the family drove up to san antonio for a few tourist-y things.

first, we visited the number one tourist destination in texas, the alamo.

after the little history lesson, we headed down to the number two tourist destination in texas, the san antonio riverwalk. although it was a scorching hot day we saw some pretty sights. i even found alphie!

along the way, we stopped in some of the shops and restaurants alongside the riverwalk. grandma, granddad, mom and i took the riverboat tour and learned some really cool stuff about the history of the riverwalk and the buildings along it.

all in all, i'm pretty sure we walked at least thirty miles over the three days we spent in san antonio. thirty miles. for real.

but that's ok. that helped burn off the calories from the red velvet cake cheesecake i got for dessert at the cheesecake factory one night. or at least 1/3 of them. maybe.

kitchen adventures.

so not too long ago i told you all about austin's pickling adventure, but we've been working on some other things in the kitchen recently, too.

first, we used this stuff, quinoa, to make some burgers.

once cooked in the rice cooker, it looks like this:

then we added some onions, carrots, cheeses, and spices to get this "burger" mixture.

and the quinoa apparently breaks apart to look like worms, kinda gross looking.

anyway, we formed them into burgers, cooked 'em up and here's what we ended up with.

and while they weren't gross, they weren't super either. kinda just tasted like bland rice on a bun. not one to make again but it was fun to try a new recipe.

and back in the canning department, we made some salsa!

the only veggies in the salsa that are from our garden are the peppers, we didn't have enough tomatoes to use our own... but still--it's homemade salsa!

austin also decided to go ahead and use those leftover cucumbers to make even more pickles. yuck. but hey, at least we shouldn't have to buy pickles for a few months!

hey girl heyyy.

juliet just wanted to call to say heyyyy.

i'm a nerd.

yeah, i said it. i'm a nerd. know why? because i love school supplies with every fiber of my being. of course, if they are cute or hello kitty school supplies, even better.

here's my stash so far.

a new planner, lots of pens {some of which i got for free with coupons!}, highlighters, post-its and a hk computer sleeve. oh yeah, and i am currently blogging for the first time on my brand new laptop computer! woop woop!

i'm not joking when i say i'm a nerd. i even get ridiculously excited about textbooks.

muscle testing, electrotherapy and medical dictionary--who wouldn't be excited about that? i'm also super pumped about the photography class. for the first time ever i ordered my books online. i've only gotten about half of them so far, so i'm anxiously awaiting the ups man's visit.

lucky me, miss lindsy came into town this weekend and met up with austin and me and our friends tyler and bryan at buffalo wild wings for the ufc fight {yeah, we go watch people beat up other people, whatever}. and i miss her, so this is very exciting.

buuut, as if this wasn't exciting enough, she brought me a back to school present from her and rar jay! all piled in a cute bag, too.

it's good stuff, too. everything i need for class.

an hk notebook, hk accordian file, hk hand sanitizing wipes, and hk duck tape {who knew they even made that?}. oh, and for my lunch, pirate themed sandwich bags, of course. my friends are awesome.

and now, on a completely random and unrelated note...

it rained the other day. a lot. and austin and i came upon this little flood as we were trying to get to the bank {i did a little zoom action for you, too}.

don't worry, we took an alternate route.

i warned you it was going to be random...

we're still farming.

i guess you can't really call caring for our 4' by 8' garden "farming" but it's kind of the same.

anyway.

so about a month ago, our garden was looking like this:

lush. green. fruitful. right?

well, today it looks like this:

the corn is dead. our lettuce is non-existent. the whole thing is still a little bit unruly, but mostly just a little waaamp waaamp. but despite it's not-so-wonderful looks, our garden is still providing us with lots of veggies.

however, a few weeks ago, we picked some corn {obviously before the corn was looking dead like this} but this is all we got:

we got two or three little cobs like this and we cooked them. but after one little bite, we decided not to eat them. fortunately we had bought some corn from the market, so dinner was not ruined.

another disappointing harvest was our potatoes.

these were the ones that were growing in a container {we lost the ones in the garden a long time ago} and while these potatoes looked promising, they were reeeally soggy and nasty when we went to cook them. boo.

austin also pulled up one of his beets {who knows why he planted beets} but you can just take a look at his face and tell how that turned out...

but despite those disappointing picks, we are getting lots and lots of tomatoes, green beans, and peppers.

and cucumbers. so many cucumbers that austin had to pickle some, six jars worth actually.

and while i appreciate that the cucumbers aren't going to waste, i think we all know how i feel about pickles...

{image}

but let's also note, just for fun, that one of the ingredients austin just had to run out and get before he could make his pickles was alum. and what did he do? forget to put the alum in? why, yes. that's exactly what he did. except in this one jar.

so who knows if these pickles are even good. or pickled, for that matter. but that's ok. 'cause we've got more cucumbers.

so austin can always try again.

bethenny!

this saturday, i attended the annual she expo at the convention center.

this women's only event {or women mostly} is two days of vendors, raffles, free products, food and drinks. they also offer free health screenings ranging from allergy tests to free mammograms. and then they have some big time famous speakers. in the past, they've had the neelys, paula deen and, one of my personal favorites, jillian michaels. but due to scheduling issues i've never been able to make it before. but this year, i knew i couldn't miss it. why? because one of my new favorites was speaking. she's been on tv on for quite a while, has written books about health, nutrition and fitness and created one of my favorite cocktails, the skinnygirl margarita, mrs. bethenny frankel.

i got there just in time to run into lindsy's sister, alex, who had good seats for bethenny so i sat with her, just a few rows back from the stage. bethenny answered questions about her life, her reality shows, her books--anything and everything--even sharing details about her flannel/cow print pajamas. she had me and the whole audience laughing the entire time.

she even walked danced the runway a few times for us.

i was really hoping she would do a meet and greet after speaking. i even brought my copy of her book, a place of yes, hoping i could get her to sign it. but, no such luck. but that's alright, i was happy to get to see her and hear her speak.

and i absolutely loved her look, so don't be surprised if you happen to see me wearing something similar soon.