Jam-packed Weekend!

I love long weekends and I love that long weekends make for short weeks! This past weekend was a nice mix of relaxing on the couch and lots of hanging out with friends. Jonathan spent a good chunk of Friday and Saturday at Comicpalooza. He even had a booth and everything! I, however, sat on the couch and hung out with Colleen while we knit and watched movies. We watched the Newsies which was awesome!!! Plus, it's totally weird to see Christian Bale so young and singing and dancing. The dancing in the movie is so amazing though. We considered trying to learn all the choreography after we watched the movie but that required getting up off the couch lol.

Recognize him? He's so little!



Saturday was also a lazy day for me (mostly a day for doing laundry and things around the house) except for the evening when I went to a friends' birthday cookout. Sunday we woke up (semi) early and headed out to Alvin to pick strawberries! There are a lot of farms in the Houston area where you can go pick your own berries. Last year we went blueberry picking on the 4th of July. As Jonathan will tell you though, strawberries are pretty much the only berry I like eating. I like raspberries and blackberries but I don't like the seeds so I don't really eat them whole. And I just don't like blueberries...I know I'm crazy or something... I do have to say, picking strawberries is a lot more rewarding that picking blueberries. It only took us about 45 minutes before our 5lb buckets were overflowing. Literally, we kept dropping strawberries haha. While after picking blueberries for over an hour and a half we didn't even get to a pound combined. However, both times they have been the best blueberries and strawberries that I have ever tasted. That says a lot since I don't like blueberries.

Strawberries!

Picking! Left to right: Rachel, Colleen, Jonathan.

So many strawberries!

Sunday was jam-packed with stuff to do! Hehe you'll understand the pun in a little bit. Jonathan and I headed out to Chinatown for Dim Sum. We love Chinatown and Dim Sum is usually our first choice for food when we go there! If I even mention Chinese food, Jonathan immediately thinks Dim Sum instead of your normal General Tsao's chicken, Kung Pao, etc. If you don't know what Dim Sum is you're missing out! It's a meal of small plates that you share with everyone while drinking tea. It actually started as just tea and then changed to include food over time. Did you know that Spanish tapas started the same way with wine instead of tea? I'm just full of interesting facts! At some dim sum restaurants they bring everything out on a cart and you just pick out what you want as they roll by. However, most places don't have that, at least not all the time, so they usually have a picture book so you can pick out what you want. Our favorite place is called Dim Sum King and you just order it off the menu. It's delicious and I want to go back already! After stuffing our faces we walked around looking at all the goodies at Vietnamese bakeries and Chinese grocery stores in the area. In my humble opinion, the Vietnamese bakeries in Chinatown have the best cakes and baked goods in Houston. Think about it, they did use to be a French colony... I love just walking around and smelling all the goodies. We only got two small macaroons to share or else I wouldn't have known how to choose something. Strolling through Chinese grocery stores is an old past time for Jonathan and I. It's really fun to see things like dragon fruit, durian, and not to mention an entire aisle of tofu. Our last must-stop place was a store called Japanese dollar store called Fit. Apparently in a Japanese dollar everything is between $2-5 or so. Makes sense right? Well they have tons of random stuff which makes it fun for browsing: kitchen dishes, bathroom stuff, organization things, yarn, office supplies, etc. One of my favorite sections is the gift bags because many of them try to have nice phrases but are directly translated from Japanese and make no sense. Makes for a good laugh though.

This one was all sorts of hilarious but my favorite part is where they instruct you on how to laugh.

I can't tell you how many times I wished I had a hat to keep soap out of my eyes!

Ummm....sure?

This one made actually no sense but I think they're trying to say something about humility.

After all the laughing we headed home so that Jonathan could have a relaxing afternoon playing video games and I could make jam with Colleen!! Get it? Jam-packed! Hehehehe I'm so funny...Anyways, Colleen wanted to make jam with the strawberries she picked and I wanted to watch and learn how easy/difficult it is. Turns out, it's pretty simple! There's lots of cleaning and boiling of things but the jars actually seal if you do it properly! Thanks to Colleen I may possibly, maybe, perchance make my own jam one day! We'll see if I'm brave enough. It looked so pretty when it was done and it was absolutely delicious! We were eating it with a spoon it was so good, and I don't really like jam...I know it sounds like I don't like a lot of things but I really do!
 

Filling up the jars!

Boiling them so they'll seal!

Look how pretty!

It was a perfect weekend and I'm pretty psyched that another one in upon us. I hope you had a nice long weekend too!

- Chelsey

Henna, Shepherd's Pie, and the Hobbit!

Today I got to lay around, work on a few things around the house, and be lazy. I love that I get every other Friday off! Yesterday was a pretty fun day so I thought that I'd write a recap. Work had a huge Asian Festival. Each country had their own booth with a little sampling of food at each. The food was amazing! After going from booth to booth I was stuffed. I had Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, and Indian. There were also great performances with both musicians and dancers! There were tons of people there so I kept just getting in line not initially knowing which country I was heading toward. One of the lines I got in happened to be one for henna tattoos and I hadn't even realized it! I've always wanted to get a henna tattoo so I was really excited! Henna tattoos are an Indian tradition and they last about 2 weeks. They're very common during weddings and other celebrations. I think they're beautiful! Of course for the rest of the day everyone kept giving me confused looks and asked me what was on my hand haha.

My henna tattoo!

This was a Singaporean dancer at the festival . Her dress was beautiful!

Thursday evening Colleen came over for a fun night of cooking and watching the Hobbit! We made shepherd's pie which turned out delicious! The Hobbit was a great movie too. I'm so behind on my movies and that was definitely one I had on my must watch list. I read the Hobbit back in middle school so I vaguely remembered the story. It seemed like the movie was really accurate to the book. I highly recommend it!

Rainbow carrots from our Greenling local box!

Shepherd's pie!

It paired well with peach wine!

Tonight Jonathan and I went out for barbeque and walked around the Heights area. They have a nice jogging path with art and memorials along the walk. Plus all the houses are gorgeous! We were picking out our favorites and dreaming about our dream house. The rest of our weekend will be pretty low-key. We're getting together with Jonathan's parents tomorrow to celebrate a late mother's day. We're going to a Brazilian steakhouse. All you can eat meat, YUM!

Pretty art in the heights! and pretty houses!

More art! These paintings are double-sided and on doors that rotate!

Shout out to my cousins who graduated this week and my uncle Tom who will be nifty fifty in a few days!

-Chelsey

Last Weekend's Update

Another weekend is upon us and yet I haven't posted about last weekend's adventures! We started off the weekend going to a food truck event on Friday! Of course we decided at the last minute but I was so excited that Rachel was free and could come with us! It was just one of those days where we just texted each other being like, have any plans tonight? Nope, you? Want to go to this thing? Yes let's do it! So if you don't know, every first and third Friday there is a food truck gathering at the HEB Montrose. There were about 8 food trucks there with foods ranging from Asian to grilled cheese to burgers. Yum! We each got something different so we got a sample of about half of the food trucks that were there. Pretty impressive if I do say so myself! I don't think there was anything that we tried that we didn't like! They also has live music and a little area with tables to sit at. Probably the nicest location that I've been at for food trucks.

A smore brioche sandwich!

I got an Asian pulled pork banh me from this truck!

Sooo many options!

Saturday was a lazy day but that evening Jonathan took me out for a fancy date! We had free tickets to the opera to see Il Trovatore. The music was amazing! The story was pretty trippy but there's nothing wrong with that lol. I'd say that it's a mix of Romeo and Juliet with Oedipus. There was lots of messed up family situations like in Oedipus with a beautiful but doomed romance like R&J. Jonathan took me to Feast before the show for dinner. It's probably his favorite restaurant in Houston and sadly it's closing. They decided not to renew their lease because they weren't do as well as they hoped. Jonathan's pretty much devastated but we're trying to go there enough times before they close in August. If you haven't gone, check it out before they close! We ended the night by going to Amy's Ice Cream, another favorite of ours.

It was a pretty good weekend. It's always fun to go out for date nights!

-Chelsey

Officially a Chevron employee!

As of yesterday, I became an official Chevron employee! I've been working here for 6 months as a contractor but I'm making the transition to full-time employee. It's exciting to have more benefits than before and not be blocked from access to important things just because I'm a contractor. Yesterday we went out to Okra for happy hour to celebrate. Jonathan and I have been wanting to go to Okra forever so it seemed like the perfect time! Okra is a charity bar so part of the proceeds from everything you buy goes to a charity. You even get to vote for who they donate to! You get a voting ticket for every drink or plate you buy and they have pamphlets on the organizations so you can make an educated decision!


The voting booth is on the left, very official!
This building is also super old and historical in some way that I should learn more about....

They also have cocktails but you just tell them what you like and they make you something!

I asked for a champagne drink and they made me a French 75: gin, citrus juices, and champagne!

Yay for my new/old job!

Happy hours are the best! Any one have any suggestions for great places to go in Houston for happy hour? I have also loved Hay Merchant, Brio, and Triniti's happy hours. Of course Houston has so many options for great places to go and I'm married to the restaurant expert so I rarely have a problem coming up with lists of options.

Until next time!

-Chelsey