Concerts and Friends

My weekend felt so incredibly jam packed but it was only a couple events that took up all of that time.  Friday night Andrea and I headed to Jamie's house to help her start preparing for her engagement party.  On the way I stopped at the Donuttery in Huntington to pick up some of their specialty donuts.  I had a bite or so of each of them and I was less impressed with the maple bacon bar than I thought I would be, but pleasantly surprised by the apple crumb and blueberry donuts.  I honestly don't even like donuts, but have felt it was necessary to try some form of specialty donuts for quite some time.  A few glasses of wine later we seemed to have done everything we could for Jamie's prep so we all headed home and I made it back sometime around midnight.  Saturday morning we headed to Lake Forest for Courtlyn's soccer game.  I think she was a little better and more focused this week.  Immediately following the game Billy and I made a pit stop for Pei Wei (SO good) and then to the Irvine Amphitheater to go to the Epicenter music fest.  It was more for Billy than myself but I love concerts so I can't complain.  The people watching there was incredible too, so that helped.  There were quite a few bands but only a few that I recognized and even fewer songs that I actually knew, but all in all it was a good time.  We took off early to avoid the horrendous parking lot traffic and stopped at Red Robin on the way home for dinner.  Sunday morning I was up pretty early again and took off to Jamie's to help with all the last minute details.  Between helping and the party I was there from 10-7ish so I was more than beat by the time we got home.  I don't even remember what happened after coming home Sunday night, everything is just a tired blur.  This weekend we are headed to Vegas so hopefully I'll have more pics for next week!

The Cone of Shame

This past Friday we decided to get our cats fixed.  It was all really in hopes that Lobo would stop peeing on linens if he was fixed (he didn't) and that maybe getting baby kitty's nails trimmed would stop her from tearing a hole in our carpet (it didn't).  So essentially we spent $125 without our desired returns, but hey we won't have to deal with baby kitty ever crapping kittens out all over our house so it's still kind of a win.  She's now wearing the cone of shame, which she despises.  I try to feel bad for her but it's outweighed by the hilarity of the situation when you can sit on the couch and hear her endlessly run the cone into the walls.

Baby Kitty hating her life

After we picked up the cats we decided to check out Bootlegger's Brewery in Fullerton.  They had a couple tasty options, but I wasn't super impressed with my flight.  My favorite of the night was the Golden Chaos with peach and apricot.  You could really taste the stone fruit in the beer and had I known better I would have stuck with a pint of that.

Neither of these are the delicious Golden Chaos.  Photo fail.

Saturday morning Billy had his last day of class for insurance licensing so I took care of a couple errands around the house and headed out for a sleepover at my cousin's.  It had been way too long since we got some quality time.  We started our afternoon with a delicious lunch at Tresino's. 

The salad that dreams are made of

That salad was freaking amazing.  I'm pretty sure it was laced with crack or something, it was that good.  We ran a few errands, picked up stuff for dinner, played with boo, and then Katie gave my hair some new life.  I, for the most part, do not give a crap about my hair.  I could honestly go for the rest of my life without getting it done, my gray hair on the other hand does not agree with that sentiment.

It gets worse before it gets better

So after some refreshments, my wonderful cousin, and a couple hours my hair was finally back to an acceptable state.

A little afternoon pick me up

Alas, I no longer have nappy hair!

Sunday morning started with this pretty little dragonfruit.

Then after a real breakfast and a couple football games I headed back home.  I picked up Billy and we went to see my cousin James' new house.  We stayed there the rest of the afternoon and into the night and I finished off the weekend feeling crappy from all my beer drinking and gluten eating and a tragic fantasy loss.  Hopefully after a few trades my team will do much better this week!

Pickle Backs

I feel as if this weekend was jam packed yet at the same time I also feel like I accomplished nothing.  We started out the weekend with an Angel's game.  As a Father's Day gift we offered to buy Billy's Dad's family tickets to a game and due to scheduling conflicts we were not able to go until this past weekend.  It was hot as balls at the game, but it was a really good game and we had a lot of fun.

C and her sunflower seed grill

 

Saturday started with Courtlyn's first soccer game.  The heat was absolutely miserable, by the time the game was over I was literally soaked with my own sweat.  Heat stroke aside, it was really cute watching all the little girls play soccer.  They play 3 on 3 and there are no goalies because they are so young.  Court is a very strong kicker!

 

After Courtlyn's soccer game we went to our friend Vanessa's house to cool off in her pool.  After a few hours and a few beers we headed home.

 

I ended up meeting some friends at a bar where I was introduced to pickle backs.  A pickle back is literally a shot of pickle juice that you take immediately following a shot of liquor, in our case vodka.  It sounds a little weird but you only taste the pickle juice, there is no harsh taste of the liquor going down.  I could see how these could be completely dangerous.

 

Sunday morning was a little rough.  I have been waking up with headaches a lot recently and the alcohol only exacerbated that situation.  I got Andrea up and we headed over to Jamie's house so Andrea could pick up her car and take Jamie and Vanessa to Seal Beach to get their cars.  Only that wasn't exactly what happened.  Jamie talked us all into going to her soccer game, so for the next hour we sat on towels in the shade drinking tecate to help us feel better about the previous night.  I finally made it home around 1 p.m. and from there my day was shot.  I napped for a good portion of the day and spent the rest watching football.  All in all it was a really good weekend, I just didn't manage to get anything productive done.

A Lazy Labor Day Weekend

Weekend fun started a little early with a trip to Frostbites for some ice cream and a bonfire on Thursday night.  We paid the (absurd) $15 fee to park and relished in the unusually warm summer night.  C ran around playing with her friend Dean the whole night, ate some s'mores, and serenaded us with her guitar skills. 

Friday moved by at a glacial pace, naturally.  My boss let me escape about an hour early but it still felt like my work day was longer than usual.  After rushing home and touching up my makeup Billy and I were out the door for a date night.  Our first stop was for beers and food at Yard House.

I sipped on a Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar and we shared some buffalo wings and pizza.  For the more exciting part of the night we visited The Bruery in Placentia.  I. Love. Beer.  I love beer probably to an unhealthy extent.  Over the last few months I've attempted to avoid gluten and dairy for health reasons and seriously, beer is the hardest thing to give up.  I've tried to find a gluten free alternative but at best my findings have been just okay.  Needless to say every once in a while I throw the gluten free thing out the window and just really enjoy a few beers (and pizza, and ice cream, and chili cheese fries).  The Bruery serves their tastings in these adorable mini snifters.  You basically fill out a form of your five choices picked from a list of their beers on tap projected on a wall and take your little snifters in search of an area just large enough to set your beers down to enjoy.  From what I've read this place is constantly crowded and after you taste their beers it's obvious as to why.
My five choices were: Or Xata, Old Richland, Bryein, Imperial Loakal Red, and Autumn Maple.  I tried Billy's Sour in the Rye which was definitely one of the top three.  The other two I really liked were Or Xata and Autumn Maple.  Or Xata is inspired by the rice drink horchata and is so flavorful and tasty.  The Autumn Maple had hints of cinnamon and yam and tasted like a well balanced Fall brew to me.

I'll have to work on using the self timer

Saturday started out sluggish.  It has been unusually hot this past week which has made sleeping awful.  We spent pretty much all weekend sleeping in the living room since it is cooler than the back of the house.  Between it still being grossly uncomfortable and our cats stampeding up and down the hall all night long a good night's sleep just wasn't in the cards.  While Billy went to pick up Courtlyn I ran to pick up my new kettle bell and also stopped by a local liquor store that carries the best variety of craft beer.  Five beers and $40 later (the downfall of craft beer is that it's so damn expensive) I was on my way back home.  We lounged around for a while longer playing with Courtlyn then headed to a restaurant our friend works at to watch the fights then called it a night.

Sunday felt like the epitome of a lazy day.  We woke up too early due to the aforementioned heat and cats.  Billy went to one of his three fantasy football drafts pretty early.  I hung back watching Courtlyn until her mom came to pick her up.  After the necessary eating and bathing we played some Candyland, Hello Kitty Bingo, and some baseball.  Once she got picked up I cleaned the house a bit then plopped on the couch where I remained for quite some time.  Most of that time I spent reading, some of it napping.  I got through two books this weekend: The Fault in Our Stars, and Invisible Monsters.  The Fault in Our Stars was heartbreaking, but really good as long as you're not reading it in public and subsequently crying in front of strangers.  I picked a drunken boyfriend up from his draft and we stopped by Lopez and Lefty's for a mediocre taco plate and some good beers.  Billy was pretty much done after this so it was back home to read myself to sleep after that.

Monday was a day of gluttony on all accounts.  After a trip to Trader Joe's I took Billy to get his car and we decided to go to our local dive bar for lunch and to nurse his hangover.  We were severely disappointed to find out upon arrival that they don't open until 3 p.m. on Mondays.  After a quick Yelp search I drove us to an even dive-ier (yup, that't a word) bar named Tubby's.  We split some buffalo wings and chili cheese fries and each had a beer before deciding to check out the one bar within walking distance to our house.  We have been talking about going into Yesterday's since we moved in practically, but almost a year later we had still not been inside.  It's obvious from the outside that it's a dive, but sometimes you're delightfully surprised by the inside of some places.  Yesterday's is not one of those places.  The air conditioning was broken, the beer selection was terrible, and it was a shit hole inside.  The only thing this place had going for it was a friendly bartender.  A quick chug of our beers and we were out of there.  We decided to indulge in a Little Caesars pizza for dinner so we picked that up before heading home where we spent the rest of the day being lazy on the couch.  The only really productive thing I did Monday was FINALLY open an IRA account.

Overall, even though our weekend was gluttonous and unproductive it was still a really good weekend.  Too much beer was drank, too much food was consumed, not enough pictures were taken, but I got to spend time with some of my favorite people so I can't complain.  A few pounds gained and nightly stomach aches from the gluttony have convinced me that perhaps I do have some sort of gluten intolerance, or maybe when I indulge I just shouldn't go so flipping hard haha.  Oh yeah, these happened too.  More than once.