food

Sinking in the Vegas Desert

lifestyle, travel

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When I think of Vegas, I think of lights, music, drinks and people on the side of the street handing you tickets. This was my first time not staying on the Vegas strip and staying on Fremont Street. I’m going to be super honest… I truly love the Vegas strip and everything that they have to offer. But there is something about Fremont Street that makes it so much more fun! Maybe it’s the lower price on the drinks and food… lol. Okay maybe it is that too, but the atmosphere there is so different. It feels like the side street to your typical downtown/uptown street. It’s filled with tourists, but when we found ourselves in other areas with less people.. we ran into other locals. And I felt so good because we found a local spot! Fremont Street’s music may not be as good, but its soul is definitely way more lively!

We stayed at the Four Queens Hotel and it was across the street from the venue where Odesza’s show was playing. It was kind of nice to be in an old school casino/hotel. The decorations were so vintage. Literally, the corridor felt like a part in the movie “The Shining.” 

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california dreaming

travel

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The last time I was in LA, it was winter of 2011 with my family for Christmas break. I seriously can’t believe it took six years to come back and visit. I missed the dry air, perfect sunny rays, the salty ocean air on the Santa Monica boardwalk and just the lifestyle there. 

My brother and sister-in-law recently moved here this past summer, so we were able to find some time to visit them. And fortunately, it lined up with some of my other sibling’s work schedules and it became a family weekend trip. As we’ve grown older, we have all separated into different cities and honestly, it’s tough really budgeting time to pull off something like this. So truly, I tried my best absorb every moment of this trip. I’m crossing my fingers that we get more weekends like this! ** 

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Daikokuya – Little Tokyo

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Weekend Runaway: Houston

food, Texas Ventures, travel

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So lately, it feels like everyone has been traveling and getting in their beach time this summer. Everyone except for us, lol. So we decided to drive down to Houston and get in some sun at Stewart Park Beach in Galveston. Besides his ball, I think that the beach is the second thing that Arty loves most! He loves getting in the water and sunbathing in the sand. He was scared of the waves at first, but eventually learned how to jump over the little waves. It was seriously the cutest thing ever! This small getaway was a very much needed trip for all of us and we had the greatest time.

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Cooking Fresh From the Garden

food, travel

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Happy Friday!! Hello to you and the start of our weekend! *cheers* I recently took a trip back home to Arkansas with David to visit his parents and the farm. They have three acres of land filled with rows and rows of produce, which are sold at the farmers market every Wednesday and Saturday. We went with my father-in-law to the Tulsa Farmer’s Market on Saturday morning to help him sell at his stand. I was going to take a few photos there, but the rain decided to take a three hour visit… so that was that. There was still a pretty good crowd though! People usually like to come by to grab their weekly veggies and see what produce are in, but during the summer season, they come for one thing.. and one thing only — tomatoes. 

And I really can’t blame them because *goodness!* these homegrown tomatoes are, literally, everything! Sometimes when you buy tomatoes from the store to cook, some are hard and taste kind of like water and nothing. But these homegrown tomatoes are filled with so much juiciness and flavor, you just want to take a bite out of it right after picking it!

I took a stroll around the garden with my mil (mother-in-law) in her van to pick out some veggies to bring back home to Dallas. We used to just pack a ton of random veggies home and sometimes they would go to waste in our fridge, so I told her that I wanted to select just a few that I know we would be able to cook within the week. And of course, all I needed was a good bundle of fresh basil to make some homemade pesto and some green, red and cherry tomatoes. And let me tell ya … I put these babies to some good use! 

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A U S T I N

Texas Ventures

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For me and David’s twelve year “dating” anniversary, we decided to drive back to one of our favorite cities – AUSTIN! We haven’t been there for about a year, so truly, it was hard to try new places since we had a few spots on our mind since our last visit. (which means we just need to make another trip out here sooner!) We also got to bring along our little dog child, Arty, this time — big thanks to La Quinta!! They’re one of the hotels listed that allows dogs to stay there.

When we first got to our room, I think he was a little unsure of what he could and couldn’t do. He sat on the small lounge chair with a towel under him and then after an hour of getting cozy he finally brought himself to find a good spot on the bed. He tucked himself right in the middle and we found him in the same spot when we got back from Sixth Street. So overall, I think one would say that he had a pre–tty good staycation there.

We hit the hiking trail right when we got into Austin on Saturday morning. We really, really wanted to go check out the Hamilton Pool Reserve, but since it’s been gaining so much attention on social media, tickets are booked until the end of August. I’m hoping to come back in September to finally see it. So we settled on hiking at McKinney Falls State Park.

May I remind you that we are extremely fearful and scared of snakes, lol. So going hiking there during the summer time was a big leap for the both of us. When we pulled in to pay to enter the park, I asked the ranger if there were a lot of snakes there. He kinda chuckled at us and mentioned that there weren’t too many but they do see snakes cross the trail from time to time. They had a lot of signs that said “Please Stay on the Trail” … so for the first hour, I literally turned on my inner snake radar and turned my head left to right every second. I did manage to get over the fear after the hour and focused on self-meditation while hiking. At then end we stopped at the waterfall for Mr. Arty to cool down.

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New York City

Uncategorized

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New York City – I’ve never been in a more crowded city until here. And it’s so packed with tourists (like me, HA) that it feels like they make up a quarter of the population here. But you really can’t blame them for wanting to visit a place with so much to see and so much to do!

My husband, David, and I decided that we wanted to travel more this year. We made a list of places that we definitely would want to make stops in, but New York was one of the top contenders. We are MAJOR foodies – so for our first wedding anniversary this year, we thought it’d be pretty fun to take a trip to a city that is notorious for its mouth-watering food.

Besides the amazing food, I’ve really been wanting to see some of the other national monuments in the area – Statue of Liberty, Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge and the 9/11 Memorial. Scroll on down to check out photos of our stops at each one.

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