Headed to SanFran

July 31, 2011 By 5 Comments

Golden Gate Sunset

In my usual style of heading out on another trip before managing to blog my previous one, we are planning on going to San Francisco for Labor Day weekend.  There’s so much to see and do in and around the town, but I’d love to have some input about how we should spend our time.  We are using reward points to stay at a Hilton, so our choices are Union Square, the Financial District or a few block from Fisherman’s Wharf.  Any tips on these areas?

San Francisco: AT&T Park

The first stop will obviously be a baseball game at AT&T Field.  We’re not doing both stadiums on this trip, so another trip to this region will be on the scheduler for next year.

Above downtown San Francisco

Current plans have us arriving Thursday night & then taking a stadium/city tour on Friday at noon before catching a game that night.  What can we do Friday morning for a few hours?  Maybe checkout Fisherman’s Wharf?  We will have all day Sunday to explore the town also- maybe doing an Alcatraz night tour or enjoying some of the scenery around town.

The Colors of Napa Valley

 Although we’ve been to a few wineries in Santa Barbara & many around Texas, hubby has been dying to go to Napa and/or Sonoma.  I think we are just going to do a day-trip to one of the regions and perhaps spend more time there on our next trip.

Any thoughts on which region we should go for?  Any good tour guide recommendations or drivers?  Any must-see wineries?  I’d love any and all San Francisco tips about tours or restaurants!

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Hopefully booking our airfare and baseball tickets tonight. 

Filed Under: Travels ->

Bolivar Penninsula

July 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The Costa Rica trip post will probably be sporadic and in a fairly random order- just depending on when I get to them and what else I’ve got going on in my life.  I fly out of the Houston airport many times every month, but I rarely head straight south out over the ship channel and Galveston bay areas.

All these random little oddly shaped islands in the  middle of the harbor really had me wondering what they were doing there.

There was a big cloud over half the bay making it dark & this was just about the moment I realized I forgot all my camera chargers and started to panic.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but we flew over Bolivar Peninsula and caught the famous ferry that goes back and forth between Galveston Island.  I spent waaay to many weekends of my youth partying on Crystal Beach before the hurricane just about leveled the island a few years back.

Right as we took off from the airport, we flew over where the San Jacinto River flows into Galveston Bay around Lynchburg and I loved seeing all the water since much of our area is in a severe drought.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Headed to Dallas to check out some wineries for a girls getaway!

Filed Under: airplane

Costa Rica Trip Summary

July 29, 2011 By 3 Comments

 

This trip post will be a little different than my other longer trips blogs and report.  This was our first week long trip- our other travels are just long-weekends or our big 2 week trip each year.  I wanted to write down memories and snippets as we went along.  I brought an almost dead camera battery with me on our trip & was sick to my stomach when I realized I wouldn’t be able to take hundreds pictures with my big camera.  The only upside of the daily rain was that I didn’t have much to take pictures of anyway & still had my little waterproof P&S camera, which I realized had some water on the inside and occasionally fogs the lens over.  So don’t be all expecting my usual pretty photos…

We spent 1 night in San Jose at the Grano de Oro to do a city tour and see the capital, then 4 nights in the rain forest by the Arenal Volcano at the Springs Resort.  We spent our last 4 nights on the coast in Tamarindo in a small boutique hotel on a hill call Los Altos de Eros.

 

-1 nap in a hammock on our porch surrounded by thunder and hummingbirds

-visited numerous beautiful parks in downtown San Jose and a few places outside town

-10 hours of rain on Monday afternoon which was perfect for sitting in the hot springs

-2 trips in an inflatable kayak down Arenal River laughing so hard I almost fell out of the boat

-2 cameras & 1.5 charged batteries and lots of missed photographic opportunities

-several frantic phone calls and emails home to get chargers and batteries overnighted to us

-Dozens of bottles of wine, numerous Cube Libres and Caipirinhas

-10 swimsuits for me and 1 for hubby with only a few hours of real sunshine the whole trip

-hundreds of hummingbirds feeding on our porch every day

-1 amazingly beautiful volcano that only recently stopped erupting

-3 hours of hiking in the rainforest over 6 suspension bridges

-7 miles of running split beteween incline work on the treadmill and hill repeats in the jungle

-a morning walk through the jungle over the famous hanging bridges

-2 games of pool I won by default, 1 game of darts we got bored with, 1 game of chess that ended in a draw

-tons of really neat couples we met from all over the US we met at both hotels

-Mani/pedi, facials, massages with hubby

-Many firsts for us- rappelling, zip lining, surfing, yoga together outside with gorgeous views

-520 pages read of a great novel called The Help

-5 passenger plane from Arenal to San Jose and a picture-window plane to Tamarindo

-Too many bug bites to even count every single day

ITINERARY

DAY 1- San Jose City tour & drive to Arenal

DAY 2- Exercise, Kayaking and Spa

DAY 3- Hanging Bridges & Naps and Perdido Springs in the Rain

DAY 4- Exercise, ATV tour & Rapelling

DAY 5- Flight to Tamarindo

DAY 6- Zip Line & Surf Lesson

DAY 7- Yoga, Mani & Pedi, Tamarindo downtown

DAY 8 Saturday- Pool time, Coconut Delight Spa Scrub, Surf Lessons, Couples Massage

DAY 9 Sunday-  Yoga, Depart Costa Rica

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Sweated out 14 hot and brutal miles this morning so I can enjoy my weekend!

Filed Under: Married Life, Travels ->

Haley’s Fashion Show

July 28, 2011 By 1 Comment

Back in June, my sister was asked to participate in a charity fashion show.  She and a girl friend headed off to the store and tried on tons of cute outfits for their big debut.

I didn’t actually get to go to their fashion show, but I loved seeing all her different looks in her pictures.

They did her hair & make-up, even providing the braid extension and provided all the accessories and jewelry.

I’ts adorable to see my sister all dressed up in a super-trendy adult clothes.  I imagine I’ll be seeing more of it in real life in the next few years.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Tropical storm is heading towards Texas & that’s good news since we need some serious rainfall in the midst of this horrible drought. 

Filed Under: kidz

Motown FantaSea

July 27, 2011 By 4 Comments

Several months ago, our friends all grabbed a deal on Groupon for a dinner & dancing cruise on the  Big White Boat out of Clear Lake.

We finally coordinated our schedules and ended up picking a Motown night on Sunday July 3rd.  We all got dressed up, ready to dance and headed out to the water.

Overall, the boat was really nice with an upstairs & downstairs.  We had all beer & wine included in our meal, but you could still purchase liquor.  They offer several different theme/music nights, but we thought Motown would be a blast as we sailed out from Clear Lake into Galveston Bay on a beautiful evening.

Luckily, all 6 of s were able to sit together & we were all excited to be hanging out again, so the camera came out early & stayed out all night long as we got a little rowdy.

We were the last people on the boat to eat, but we finally got through the buffett dinner and thought the food was excellent for the situation.  The sun slowly set as we exited Clear Lake (which I had NO IDEA wasn’t actually a lake, but connected to the open ocean…how did I live in Houston all my life and never know this???) and past up the Kemah Boardwalk.

I think this my new favorite picture of us.  I don’t put on make up often (enough) but this might convince me to do it more often.

We haven’t been to Kemah in ages, especially to indulge in all the tourist stuff and attractions.

Loved the area all lit up at twilight & we formulated plans for the friends to return and spend the night down there.

After dinner, the dancing started & the good times were on a roll.  I’ll just say this wasn’t the Motown music I was expecting after our visit to the real Motown, but I knew a few of the songs and we were having a blast out in the deck on a steamy summer night.

We then got smart and decided it was just as well to dance inside with the air conditioning.

This is about where the party got out of control.  We were singing, dancing. laughing, photographing and more. Some of these cam out incrediby blurry, but they still totally cracked me up as we all joked and acted silly.

Savanha owned the night through- from her patriotic shoes to busting a move on the dance floor, she had us all rolling.

All the staff were great & the captain was nice enough to answer questions about the boat, cruising and Clear Lake.  I’d highly recommend this for a group of friends.  The ship departs out of Clear Lake Yacht Club & the room rates were really reasonable, but we had to get back for our full pool on Monday.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY:  Thanks for all the music recs on this post.  I’ve decided to give everybody a $10 gift card to Amazon since a few people already have some Adele.

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