Sunday Funday

Before football season begins, I wanted to go try out Paddle Boarding.  I've seen people on the paddle boards going up and down Town Lake for the past year and I couldn't wait to try it out.  We found a place on East Riverside that rented out the paddle boats for $15 an hour. I found a few places that were right on the water and they were all between $15 and $20 an hour.  I can't imagine we would ever do more than an hour.  It wasn't to hard to get up on the board.  We started by sitting on our knees and rowing to get a feel for the boards.  After we were comfortable we stood up and kept going :)  I won't rat out who fell in the water once... but I'll just say I kept dry the entire time on the water ;) 

I'm getting daring with my camera.  I had it in a water proof case for most of the trip on the water but pulled it out for a few photo opportunities.

View of downtown Austin

After paddle boarding we headed over to Takoba for brunch!  Jim with his uber large drink

Surprisingly I had an excellent cup of Tomato Blue Cheese soup at a Mexican food restaurant.  It was DAMN  good and I'll be trying to recreate it once the weather cools down.  I also got the pulled pork sandwich.... yuuuuuummmmm.... pulled pork!  

Another excellent Sunday Funday

Dinner with friends

When I get the opportunity, I love to have friends over and cook them dinner.  Since I work most Saturdays, I don't have as much time as I would like to have people over (seems to work out to once every couple of months).  Mostly because I don't want to work all day and then rush home to cook. 

This time I started off with 2 appetizers... marinated goat cheese in herbs and sun dried tomato's and a horseradish shrimp dip.  I have to say, that shrimp dip was DELICIOUS. 

For dinner I made homemade baked beans, a pesto pasta salad with fresh veggies, roasted tomato's, grilled salmon with a thai coconut sauce and grilled chicken.  I am racking my brain as to what I made for dessert but I can't remember! DAMN.  I'm sure it was good ;)

After dinner we played some games and had a few more friends show up.  It was a very fun night!  I look forward to the next time we have friends over for dinner.

4th of July Fun

This year 4th of July was on a Wednesday which was a little weird.  Sure it was fun to have the day off but I had to work the day before and the day after, so it's not like we could travel or have to much fun :)  Chris and Lindsay suggested we go float the San Marcos river because it is a short float.  Excellent idea!! 

I think the float takes a little less than an hour and if you want, you can do it multiple times for a longer float... you just have to get out of the water once you are done floating, get on a bus and go back to the starting point. I haven't been to the San Marcos river before and I thought it was a great time!  Not to busy, the water felt nice (well, once you got in the water and got used to the cold water)

This was the most interesting part.  There is a bridge over part of the river that you either have to go around or go under the bridge.  Once you got near it, it looks pretty daunting but as long as you leaned back you were fine.  The underside middle part of the bridge wasn't as low as that edge.

Instead of doing another lap on the water, we just hung out at the end

Chris and Lindsay

Fun times!!!

Brunch at La Condessa

While Rachel was in town last month, we met up for brunch at La Condessa.  I have eaten there once before for dinner and was looking forward to trying brunch. 

We started off with their Guacamole which gave you 4 different flavors to try.  I have to say... most of them tasted like just guacamole with a hint of other flavor.  I was hoping the jumbo lump crap was going to be out of this world, but it tasted like guacamole with a slight cool flavor from the crab.  Oh well... Now I know :) 

Guacamole:
-traditional

- chipotle purée & toasted almond

- watermelon, pomegranate molasses, queso fresco

- jumbo lump crab, apple, coconut vinegar (+ 2)

I don't have a picture of my dish (so unlike me!) but I ordered the

Huevos Condesa( raised-right rotisserie chicken, fried eggs, poblano rajas, duck fat-braised potatoes, grilled onions, bacon, spinach).  Overall it was a good dish.. slightly salty and I didn't see many of those duck fat braised potato's or bacon but the eggs were cooked perfectly and the chicken had nice flavor. 

Our group for brunch.... Starting on the left bottom side... Courtney (in red), Michelle, Rachel, Nicole, Kristina and me

I ordered a standard mimosa to go with brunch but it wasn't as pretty as Courneys margarita or Kristina's watermelon drink

The sunglasses troupe

First off... I am glad my friends are hams... nobody blinked an eye when I suggested we take a picture in front of this and second, I am glad we took this photo because a few weeks later they painted over this wall.