Fun In the Padre Island Sun

Though I loved growing up in Kansas and wouldn’t have changed it for the world, there were a few things we lacked. After all, being stuck in the middle of the country does create a certain longing to see something different, something besides flat to mildly hilly land. I would dream of a view of the mountains in the distance or hearing the crash of waves against a beach. Well, since I’ve moved to Texas I’ve been nagging Andy to take me to Padre. So, last weekend we planned a mini-holiday to Port Aransas (located on North Padre Island). Even more fun, we invited Andy’s parents to join us for our little beach getaway.

I actually had a 6 day weekend! (A product of working last weekend and a reduction in our hours due to corporate money saving schemes…don’t get me started) So, I took care of a lot of errands while poor Andy continued to go to work. He was able to get Friday off for vacation, but couldn’t match my long break. After dropping Jabber off at Courtney and Griffin’s apartment on Thursday, I had us packed and ready to go! I was pretty proud of myself, one bag for the hotel, one bag for the beach, and the cooler. I only brought ONE pair of shoes!! Incredible! We drove to Austin Thursday night, and after a little change in plans headed for the coast Friday afternoon.

From Austin, Padre is really only about 4 to 5 hours away. That’s really not too bad, especially since we split the whole trip up into two days. We pulled into our hotel (Holiday Inn Express) just in time to drop everything off, freshen up, and head out to dinner. At the front desk lady’s suggestion, we headed for The Wharf Restaurant. Delicious food, though the wait staff left much to be desired. I had a tasty fish sandwich, while Andy and his dad ordered blackened fish, while Mom Trommer ordered a nice steak. After dinner, we took a quick walk on the beach just down the street from our hotel. The sand is so soft and velvety, and the water is awkwardly warm…like tepid bathwater. (my exact reaction was pee water, but let’s go with bathwater instead) Since everyone was tired from the long trek down, we headed back to the hotel for the night. Andy and I watched a special on the Travel Channel about the mysteries of the Smithsonian Museum before falling asleep, a little foreshadowing on our next trip in September!

Early on Saturday, we met for the continental breakfast in the hotel. It had the usual bagels, muffins, juice, coffee…etc. Then everyone packed up and got ready for the beach and off we went! One of the best parts of Padre Island is that there is MILES of beach. You simply get your car down on the sand and drive till you find the perfect spot. Problem was…we were driving a Yaris. Not exactly the rugged off roading vehicle you want on your side. Needless to say, we got stuck, really stuck. The car’s body was basically resting on sand. So, with the help of Dad Trommer, Andy, and 2 other kind souls, we reversed our way back to drivable sand. That aside, we did manage to find a perfect little stretch of beach to call our own.

Us and the Seaweed (better it be seaweed than miles of jellyfish!)

The Trommers under the sunbrella

We properly set up camp. We had towels, chairs, our protecting sunbrella, drinks, snacks, books, music, magazines, lots of sunscreen, and happily spent most of our afternoon on our beach site. Now, I sprayed everyone with our Neutrogena sunscreen spray. It has always done well in the past, but as we were heading back to the hotel…everyone had developed a slight pink hue except me. This, of course, has now turned into a full fledged sunburn by now, but I’m still puzzled as to why my spray failed me/us! We reapplied and everything! Turns out, I should have read the instructions more carefully. You’re supposed to reapply after…just about everything, after getting wet, after you’ve dried yourself off, after an hour of high sun exposure…etc. Oops…sorry guys!

We had another delicious meal (lunch) at a family favorite, Snoopy’s. This was followed by some nice cold ice cream next door at Scoopy’s. I thought this was funny, Snoopy’s next to Scoopy’s. No one else found this quite as amusing. I blame it on the sunburns. ^-^ It was a unanimous vote after lunch to head back to the hotel for a nice de-salting, de-sanding shower. We then smartly decided to hide out in the hotel until dinner.

This is us right before dinner…everyone’s just a bit pink

This is us just after finishing dinner at Fin’s…look at the sunburns setting in! Poor Trommer family!

Learn from our mistakes friends, if you’re going to use spray sunscreen at the beach, spray often! Needless to say, everybody was in a little pain by Sunday. So, rather than risk more injury going to the beach again, we headed home. After we reached DFW, we took Griff and Courtney out for dinner at the Loophole to thank them for watching our beloved Jabby. We had such a good time last weekend. It’s nice to get outside the normal routine and experience something different. Plus, we had great company and such tasty food! Here are our photos for the trip. Alas, it’s back to everyday life for now…

Jabber’s look says it all…we’re tired!

A Farewell, A Welcome, and Some Tasty Lasagna

As a farewell to Andy’s 25th year and a kickoff to his 26th, I planned a fantastic outing last Monday (yes, I’m posting about LAST Monday - 07/07/08-…oops, I got lazy) and took him to the famed Texas de Brazil restaurant. A lot of our friends and co-workers have been raving about this place since we moved here! However, at $50 per person…we were reluctant to try it for ourselves. Well, thanks to their online e-club, they have specials, discounts, and free birthday meals. It seemed like the perfect time to give it a try.

Even though I made reservations, we still had to pick up a pager and wait till our assigned time. They were crazy busy for a Monday night! Since we got there early, we stopped by the bar and got a drink while waiting for our table. They have nice mojitos there, but as with everything else…very expensive.

Before

Once we were seated, the server warned us to pace ourselves. We kind of blew off his warning, we can certainly tell when to stop eating, right? Oh, in case you’ve not heard about this type of restaurant. It’s supposed to be based off of a Brazilian steakhouse. The servers come around with big skewers of meat (lamb, beef, steak, chicken, pork…etc), and depending on whether the little card on your table is flipped on red or green, pile your plate with whatever meat they have.

We started with the salad bar. It was so tasty! They had all sorts of salads, pasta salads, cheeses, pickled hearts of palm (which taste surprisingly like bamboo shoots…), soups, and rolls. We each had a plate of salad. I realize now that this was really wasted space! Then the meat fest began. Once we flipped our little sign to go, in about 2 minutes, our plates were completed filled with meat. How unhealthy, but oh so tasty! Nothing was cheap meat, everything was the best quality meat and perfectly grilled and seasoned. When someone would ask us, “would you like another filet mignon?”, the idea was so unexpected, that we would dumbly nod and another perfect steak would be piled on our plates. Needless to say, we rolled out of the restaurant hurting…

After…on the couch

We can now say we highly recommend this restaurant, along with everyone else. It’s really a good thing it’s so expensive…our health can’t take that kind of gorging more than 1-2 times a year!! Good grief! Not to mention, the salt intake had us drinking liters of water on end for days afterwards!

Moving on to last Thursday (07/10/08), Griffin and his girlfriend Courtney just moved into their new apartment in Denton. They graciously invited us over for a housewarming dinner. So far, the apartment is beautifully decorated. They told us of their future plans: painting, more furniture, more art…etc. Sounds ambitious but it promises to be spectacular when they’re done.

Courtney made a delicious dinner of salad, lasagna, garlic bread, and tasty baked apples with ice cream. We had a great time, and it was so nice being treated to such a lovely dinner.

With that said, I have to get to work. I had to work last weekend (hence the lack of posting) and have 2 more days before I get the rest of the week/weekend off. We’re planning a mini-holiday to the coast. I’ll be sure to post about that when we get back. Till then, here’s the complete set of pictures from Andy’s birthday

Oh and here’s a picture of Andy with no neck. It makes me giggle.

A Healthy Dose of Fuzzy Cuteness!

Wishing everyone a happy Friday with this cute little clip. Don’t you wish you had a pet that is as cute AND useful! More life, less fuzzy cuteness to post later…

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