Memorial Day Weekend

We had a nice, relaxing Memorial Day weekend-- much needed after our two weeks of house guests (!) and all the festivities surrounding Jason's graduation. We kicked off the weekend with dinner on Friday night at Hop Doddy (I seriously cannot get enough of that place-- best. burgers. ever.), followed by a movie at the new Violet Crown Cinema in downtown Austin. The Violet Crown is kind of similar to Austin's Alamo Drafthouse theaters in that they have a full bar and lots of gourmet concessions, but it's a lot swankier. The lobby feels like a lounge-y downtown bar. We saw Everything Must Go with Will Ferrell. It was good, and nice to see Will in a more serious role, but definitely a little depressing.

On Saturday we attended a BBQ with some of J's business school friends, which was really an excuse for all the guys to get together and watch the European Champions Cup. I totally just made up the name of that soccer game. Something like that. All I know is that it was between Manchester United and Barcelona, and we are happy Barca won because we (meaning J) do not like ManU. (See, like how I use the abbreviated nicknames, as though I am a legit fan?)

Afterwards, he and I left to watch another movie. For Christmas my boss gave me a gift card to Austin's Gold Class Cinemas (I think they have them in other cities too), which are basically really fancy movie theaters. The seats are leather recliners. They give you fleece blankets. And you have a server who waits on you during the movie to bring you any variety of beverages (alcoholic and non) and gourmet treats. The ticket prices are astronomical, but it was a fun treat with a gift card. We saw The Hangover Part II. Meh. Definitely nowhere near as good as the original (and significantly more raunchy), but it had some funny parts.

We capped off the evening with a light dinner at Whole Foods. It's already so hot here that all I'm craving these days is fruit and big salads. Although we'll see how long that lasts. And clearly the heat didn't dissuade me from Friday's burger and shake. Ha.

On Sunday, a big group of our business school friends got together and made the trek out to Hamilton Pool, about 45 minutes southwest of town in the Hill Country, for a day of picnicking and swimming. We arrived around 10:45am, but at that point the lot was completely full and the park ranger estimated we wouldn't be able to get in until late afternoon. Fortunately Cassie saved the day by remembering a nearby swimming hole in the Pedernales River at Milton Reimer's Ranch Park. We would up finding a nice empty (sandy!) stretch of riverbank and the river was the perfect temperature (and depth) for swimming.

I was clearly too busy having fun because this is the only picture I managed to take of this beautiful spot. We decided a nice stretch of river and a sandy beach was far better than the obviously overcrowded, and apparently much smaller, Hamilton Pool.

Sunday night, we were completely wiped out after a full day of sun, so we tried out a new Indian place and then crashed on the couch and caught up on FNL episodes. Unfortunately I also wound up getting a pretty bad sunburn on my back. Ugh. It's all faded now, but I have to agree with Kate over at EA: getting a sunburn as an adult kind of feels like a major failure in "being a grown up 101."

On Monday (yes, I promise this post is coming to an end soon...), we woke up early and had a super productive morning: meal planning & grocery shopping, a turbo house-cleaning session, and a good workout-- all before lunch. Then Anne came up from San Antonio and we enjoyed yummy salads at Zocalo and a little bit of shopping.

I guess my weekend was actually pretty packed... but it felt nice and relaxing. And, now we're almost 3/4 of the way through the short work week... the best part of a long weekend! How soon until 4th of July?? Who's with me?