PhD Celebration Trip

This past weekend, Matt took me on a trip to celebrate my graduation. He had asked me several months prior if I would rather have a physical gift or an experience as my gift and I'm so glad I chose the latter! He planned this getaway for us and it was absolutely perfect. At first, all I knew going into it was this:

Then a few weeks ago, he let me know the first night was at the Fort Worth Omni, a hotel we had been to a couple of years ago. It was awesome to have one concrete thing to look forward to, given the rest of the trip was a complete surprise. My husband clearly knows me well as he planned the perfect trip for me. It pretty much consisted of amazing food, physical activities (to work off all the food), relaxation, and fun adventures. It is hard to believe it is already over and I'm so grateful to him for the time and effort he spent planning it for us.

The trip began Friday after lunch when we drove to downtown Fort Worth and checked into the Omni.

View from our room

Fort Worth Water Gardens

After checking out our amazing view, we went up to the rooftop pool area to enjoy the view and some tasty snacks. We hung out there for a few hours (got to see 4 F-16's take off), and then left to continue the rest of the evening. Dinner was at a local burger restaurant called Rodeo Goat, known for its deliciously unique burgers. 

At the roof top grill

Such good burgers!

My burger- the Chaca Oaxaca: beef & chorizo, avocado, pico de gallo,
fried egg, queso fresco, & tabasco mayo

Matt's choice, the Cowboy Murrin: applewood smoked bacon, tomato, jalapenos,
fried onion, cheddar, pickle chutney, housemade BBQ sauce

After dinner, we wandered around the downtown area some more, before coming across some fun arcade games. Along with playing the largest version of Jenga I've ever seen, we also played a few rounds of skee ball and air hockey! Made for a fun end to our evening.

It eventually came crashing down...

The next day we worked out at the Omni's fitness center (yes, Matt knows I need some form of physical activity every day), had a quick breakfast, and then went to spend the rest of the morning poolside. The water was a bit too cold to get in, but we were very happy to lay out and read our books. It was so relaxing and peaceful out there so I'm glad we took the time to just be quiet and enjoy the sunshine. 

We eventually had to check out, so after leaving the hotel and grabbing lunch at Sweet Tomatoes (all of the salad!), we hit the road for destination #2! I was driving and Matt was navigating, since he knew where we were going and I still didn't. However, after a little bit on the road my suspicions were confirmed-- we were going to College Station! We had a great drive back to the area we met and then did a driving tour of the area. We checked into our hotel and then got ready for our fine dining experience of the trip. 

That evening, Matt took me to Christopher's, an amazing restaurant that is perfect for celebrating special occasions! We had been a few times before but it was so nice to be back, especially to celebrate me earning my PhD. Texas A&M is where I first learned about criminology so being back in the area carried with it a nice symbolism. Plus, the food is absolutely delicious!! 

Our appetizer: almond baked brie.

Why don't food pictures ever look as good as it does in real life? This
was my dish, the Italian Braised Beef Ribs. The boneless ribs were
melt-in-your-mouth tender and the polenta hiding underneath was
SO good. Easily one of my favorite dishes ever.

Matt's equally awesome dish: South American Marinated Beef.

Our dessert- chocolate & peanut butter cake

The next morning we took a 2-hour walk around campus. Even though it has only been 4 years since we graduated, a decent amount has changed both on and around campus. Yet it was still nice to be back and very much made us feel at home. Until we saw the new Kyle Field! My goodness is that place huge! 

Matt in front of Bright, his AERO building

The Administration Building in the early morning

Only we would take a picture of the library :)

Inside the Flag Room-- figure it's rare to see it with NO ONE ELSE

Kyle Field!

About 6.5 miles later, we eventually wandered our way back to the hotel, got cleaned up, and headed out for lunch. We went to Fuego's, enjoyed some delicious tacos, then headed home. It was very bittersweet leaving, knowing we were headed back to real life after such an amazing trip. Throughout the weekend, Matt made a point to make sure I felt celebrated and that was certainly fulfilled! Guess it makes it really official now, right?

Masters Celebration

Sorry I fell off the edge of the earth. Between starting comps studying in earnest, traveling, and packing up our apartment, it has been go-go-go. I honestly am surprised I'm able to blog right now but I have a headache that's preventing me from reading comps material so I'm playing catch up! 

I wanted to do a quick recap of the ways we celebrated Matt finishing his Masters degree. He finished his last exam Thursday morning and then had to go to work (poor dude). Once he got home, though, it was party time! I surprised him with one of his favorite meals-- chicken enchiladas (from Cooking Light of all places; seriously these are amazing- make them!) along with chips & queso that I made in his new Little Dipper. For dessert, I made a slow cooker apple bread pudding dish, served with Blue Bell vanilla ice cream. So good! 

Matt's loot

Yay! He's done!

Have to stir the queso

Chicken enchiladas

A little bit of back story: as opposed to getting him one big gift, I decided to go for a series of small things he has wanted but were hard to randomly purchase at the store. So yes, I got him a Little Dipper. While my waist line may regret our easy access to queso, it is totally worth it. Some of the other things I got him included Maple syrup (yes, we're silly) and an Amazon gift card so he can start ordering the books he has wanted to read. 

But anyway, we had a fun time eating good food and relaxing that night. We were a bit more adventurous on Friday. After I finished studying for the day, we headed out to one of the local Studio Movie Grills to watch the Captain America sequel. It was a fun movie but we had ordered chips and dip (can you tell we like this dish?) and might have spoiled our dinner a little. The movie was a lot more suspenseful than anticipated and that resulted in mindless eating. Oh well, it was delicious! 

Benefit to middle afternoon showings on
weekdays- theater to ourselves!

For dinner we headed to the appropriately-named Celebration Restaurant in Dallas. As soon as I saw the menu, I knew it would be the perfect place for Matt as it featured home-cooked recipes such as chicken fried steak. It had a nice laid back environment and we both enjoyed our food a lot, despite not being that hungry.

Have to have a bread basket!

My entree, a pecan-crusted chicken salad. So good!!

Matt's chicken fried sirloin steak with sides. You could get
seconds on these items by the way. Unfortunately we couldn't take
advantage of that as we simply didn't have room!

The graduate :)

Since Matt wasn't wanting to have a party or anything and since he didn't walk across the stage, that about sums up our formal celebration of his graduation. It was fun and relaxing though, both perfect qualities after all the time studying! 

Epic Date Part B

This past Saturday night Matt & I finally got to complete our Epic Date of 2013 (Part A here)! We got all gussied up and headed to Bonnell's Fine Texas Cuisine in Fort Worth. The original plan was for Epic Date to be actually 1 date-- we would eat dinner at Bonnell's and then spend the night at the Omni. Due to unforeseen circumstances, it had to be split into 2 separate events. I didn't mind though-- meant more time to explore the Omni and 2 awesome dates to look forward to instead of just 1! 

Anyway, we had an amazing Texas-themed meal and enjoyed every bite. The quality of the food is as good as any other fine dining restaurant I've enjoyed, just with a Texas twist. It really made for a unique experience and the service was awesome as well. I highly recommend it if you're ever in the area. 

Matt and I split 3 of our 4 entrees (what, we can't split dessert!) and still left absolutely full. We started with the appetizer sampler where we got to choose 4 of their appetizers. From top of the plate clockwise, our selections were the Texas Bruschetta, Elk Mini Taco, Venison Carpaccio, and Oysters Texasfeller. 

We also split a small salad as it came highly recommended to us. No picture but it was topped with a jalapeno and garlic vinaigrette and queso fresco. Not spicy at all, just very well-flavored and delicious!

We ordered the mixed grill for our entree. It automatically comes with their housemade Andouille sausage and grilled quail and we chose Bison Tenderloin to complete our meat selection. It was also served with green chile cheese grits and grilled cactus. The grits... oh my goodness! Everything was honestly so good and we both finished every last bite. The entree came with some cornbread with jalapeno bacon butter. I definitely used the cornbread to soak up the demi-glace as I figured it would be un-ladylike to lick the plate. Matt's favorite was the bison and I was especially partial to the Andouille. 

For dessert, Matt had the apple crisp and I got the caramelized banana sundae. They make their ice cream in-house and that was honestly my favorite part! Both desserts were awesome and the coffee we ordered was also quite good. 

Yay birthday candle :)

They were very generous with their apples in the crisp.

So there you have it. Matt did an excellent job in planning our Epic Date(s) and I'm so glad I got that quality time with him. Now to go dream about another meal at Bonnell's... Yum!

Five Things for Friday

I am so happy it's Friday. This week has been exhausting, more so for Matt than me, but we'll get to that in a minute! Here is my list of weekly happenings...

1. Why has this week been exhausting? Matt's taking 2 summer courses online and for over a week the videos he was supposed to watch were unavailable. The server was down for that long! Anyway, they came back on Monday so he watched 1 lecture Monday, 3 on Tuesday, 2 Wednesday, and finally finished getting caught up last night. Oh, and he works full time, so this involved him going to bed waaay past our normal bed time. In an attempt to be a good wife, I tried to stay up. But after 10 PM, I was out :( We're just happy he's caught up now!
2. We're going with my family to Disney World next January and I got to make our dining reservations this past week (yup, gotta make them 180 days in advance)! Let's just say we'll be eating at awesome places, like 

   

   Be Our Guest (as in from Beauty & the Beast)! Source

3. Matt & I will be running a 5K at Disney, but I decided to push myself even more. I want to run a 10K sometime this fall. Yikes, it's scary actually typing that out- makes it more real! I'm yet to sign up for one because they're not as popular as 5Ks and half marathons. If you know of any in the DFW area, let me know!
4. We will be making these brownies this weekend for a dinner party. Can you say yum?

   

   Just minus the nuts; source

5. It's date night tonight and I have no clue what we're doing. I'm sure whatever Matt has planned will be great, as long as it involves a good bed time! :P

What about you? Any fun plans this weekend?

4th of July Weekend Recap

I hope all of you had a great time celebrating our independence! We had a fun time in Houston with my family and even got to relax a bit-- very welcome during this crazy summer.

Over the long weekend, we:

-Embraced our inner child and played with bubbles. Later Matt may have been shooting the bubbles with a water gun. Oh the joy of having nieces! 

We had to 'prime' the wands for the girls. Best idea ever.

-We helped my brother move into his new house. It involved moving a very heavy aquarium and getting it set up, but he and his soon-to-be wife found an amazing house!

-We ate well. Are you surprised? It involved eating burgers at a delicious restaurant called the Counter as well as making dinner on 2 separate nights for my family. 

My custom-made salad. So delicious

Matt's burger, complete with BBQ sauce, pineapple, bacon,
pickles, lettuce, and jalapeno jack. He declared it the best ever.

Pioneer Woman's Peach-Whiskey Chicken complete with
mashed potatoes and fresh corn on the cob

-We bought a car.

If only...

Anyway, what did you do this weekend?

Precious puppy picture to make you smile :)

Texas Food Truck Festival

Have you ever gone to an event that you expected to be awesome but then just so did not pan out. It had all of the elements of a good time. You look forward to it all week. You plan, you research, you write a list of things you want to do/try. Well, that last part may just be me, but I'm sure we have all been there. Anyway, here is the most recent occurrence of that in my life...

This past Saturday Matt & I made our way down to the Rangers Ballpark in Arlington for the Texas Food Truck Festival! As you are probably aware of, gourmet food trucks are the new big 'thing' and we thought we would take advantage of about 20 different food trucks being in the same place. 

We pay our $20 admission cost when we arrive, enter through the gates of the ballpark, and see this.

They were streaming the away baseball game

List of the trucks

So many people. And trucks. But mainly people.

We get in line for our first food truck- The Yellow Belly- around 5 and order our appetizer for the evening, Sweet Potato Fries. The truck uses yellow tomatoes in each of their dishes, hence its name, and the fries came with yellow tomato ketchup. Oh my goodness were those good! 

Yummy!

We may have waited about 30 minutes for them, but they were worth it. Garlic, cilantro, and lime were used to season the fries and the ketchup was definitely delicious! 

After we finished that item, we wanted something to drink. And here is where things started looking not-so-happy. I confirmed multiple times on the website we would not need to bring cash and it said we would be fine with just credit cards. Well, the festival organizers forbid the trucks from selling 'regular' beverages (water, sodas, etc) and customers could only buy them from the festival carts. Not only were they festival prices ($4.50/water bottle) but they only took cash.

Of course.

We are yet to be in the habit of automatically carrying cash with us so no beverages for us. 

We found a water fountain inside the stadium and then stood in line for our next truck- which come to find out they also don't take credit. Fair enough. Move on to the next truck. Nope, takes at least 45 minutes to get one cheeseburger. No, thanks.

We finally make it to Bombay Wraps, order 2 lamb curry wraps and receive them in 5 minutes. Yay! They were delicious though I was definitely missing the water at this point.

There was an ice cream truck I spotted that I wanted to try, but I was a little grouchy at this point due to the festival organizers (in my mind) lying to me, so instead of waiting in another 20 minute line, we left. Drove to Freddy's. Ordered some cups of water and frozen custard. Ate. Enjoyed. Went home.

One strawberry shortcake sundae & 1 peanut butter,
banana, and chocolate sundae. Perfectly refreshing

So it wasn't that it was a bad night, it just could have been better. I have now learned the lesson my dad tried to teach me- always carry cash. Fair enough. At least I got some good baseball stadium pictures out of the deal!

I realize this post sounds very whiny, first-world-problem-esque, but it was a let down to not be able to fully enjoy the evening. What about you- any similar experience? Do you like the gourmet food truck fad?