Laredo Wedding

As I walked out on the streets of Laredo,
As I walked out on Laredo today...
-Johnny Cash, The Streets of Laredo

I have been to Laredo before, as a little girl, I remember visiting family, shopping and eating in both Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, but hadn't been back in awhile. Always interesting to drive so far in one direction that they highway you are on ENDS. The city was still old, filled with pretty buildings, churches, and a pretty downtown square, and we found a fantastic hole in the wall place for lunch (no sign, just a door on a side street off the square) thanks to our concierge. Our beautiful hotel, La Posada, sat right on the banks of the Rio Grande, and was a gorgeous hacienda filled with hidden courtyards and huge balconies. Breathtaking!








The wedding was beautiful, a very traditional Catholic Ceremony in Spanish, yet bittersweet to celebrate since everyone is still grieving my Uncle Charlie, and his presence was definitely missed as father of the groom. The reception was quite the party with T W O bands, Mariachis, a Mexican candy bar, late night snacks bar, fireworks during the first dance, not to mention dinner, drinks, and dancing to name a few! Our little crew partied hard, making it to almost eleven...as we were leaving, more folks were heading in with coolers and the bride & groom still had not cut the cake!!! I heard the party went on for most of the night, impressive! I happily watched family & guests arrive back at the hotel while enjoying the view from my balcony (my mom & aunt arrived back and brought us cake, hooray!) Marc & Sandy, congratulations! Love to you both, cheers to a great night spent with family & friends! *Just for the record, Mike's work called and emailed him, telling him that he was not authorized to leave the country!!! Apparently his phone GPS had him IN Mexico, and sent messages about using out of country codes to make calls and send messages, funny now, a little crazy at the time! Viva Mexico!

Community Beer

It is official. Community Beer is now available in Austin! Hooray! Super excited to attend some of the launch parties at local bars & eateries with Kelly and Jamie! Wednesday we took the early train downtown meeting up with the Fultons at Max's Wine Dive, then headed to Bangers for the first launch party. Cool place, fun atmosphere, live music, great beer and apparently well known for homemade gourmet sausages as well. Great night, thanks to the Smiths for coming out! Cheers to old friends and new ones too!

Thursday we headed back downtown (Two nights in a row? crazy!) and stopped first at Qui, a place we have been dying to try since we moved to Austin. (Very exited to be in a foodie town, and we loved Top Chef, Qui is Paul Qui's restaurant, he won season 9.) While we didn't have the time to do the eight course tasting menu...we sat on the patio and tried the a la cart bar menu, AMAZING. Brew & Brew was up next for Community Beer, and then we were off for foodie place #2, East Side King. Another Paul Qui connection, this food truck is parked in the back alley of the Liberty Bar and was truly a hidden oasis when we found it! Yummy! Congratulations to Community Beer, welcome to Austin.

Octoberfest

What to do on a beautiful Fall Sunday afternoon? Drive to Fredericksburg, TX and spend the day at Octoberfest! Hondo's on Main St. has live music daily (Gospel band on Sundays!) and has a great outdoor shaded patio, perfect to play, eat & drink. After leaving Hondo's, we entered the festival grounds and were ready for sausage, funnel cakes, German beer, and more live music! Fun afternoon spent with the kids, who loved their balloon animals, a mermaid for Hannah and the big bad wolf for Luke. (His sort of favored the Spurs coyote more than a wolf, nevertheless, he loved it!) Love Fredericksburg any time of the year, such a cute little town! Auf Wiedersehen!

M O R E Food, and a Movie too!

So there is a great Mexican restaurant near us called Lupe Tortilla, and what do you know, kids get giant rainbow popsicles as a treat! Bonus, they have great fajitas, queso & chips, and margaritas so everyone is happy! After dinner we headed to see Hotel Transylvania 2, never having seen the first one, it was quite entertaining and the popcorn was delicious!



Since ACL was happening, we headed north on Saturday and had a lovely afternoon/evening in Georgetown. 600 Degrees, was a fabulous find! Excellent pizza, I did a terrible job of NOT taking pics of food, which by the way, the fried pork shanks and wings were amazing! Cannot wait to try more off the menu, too many pizzas to choose from, as well as enjoying their great selection of craft beers - I love finding local joints like this one...so many around here! It is blurry in the photo, but the Life & Beer are Similar, Chill for Best Results phrase really sums it up. Happy times!