Happy Monday, y’all! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! We took a little overnight trip to San Antonio to celebrate my birthday, and it was the best gift! Time together making memories (and eating delicious food) is all I really wanted, and I got just that, so I’m a happy girl!
On Friday, we set out around lunch time and headed down I35 toward Austin. They just built a new Torchy’s Tacos in Round Rock (ironically, right next to our favorite Mexican food restaurant, La Margarita), and we wanted to check it out. We are no strangers to Torchy’s, and wanted to see the new set up!
It is really nice inside- much bigger than the other Round Rock location and the Waco location, which is where we typically go, and they have a huge outdoor pavilion area for eating as well. Livy definitely got down with the chips and queso!
Traffic was already backing up heading into Austin, so we decided to detour and take the toll road around Austin since we weren’t that far from it anyway. We ended up taking this all the way down to I10 and coming into San Antonio from the south side, which is a new way I’d never seen! And traffic was still terrible. We are definitely smaller town people because we can’t stand sitting in traffic, or worse, watching people do really dumb things in traffic, haha!
We stayed on I10 on the northwest side, near all our favorite things that we like to do and restaurants we really like. I found us a room at the Homewood Suites, which is different than where we typically stay, and it was SO nice. We wanted a suite because sleeping in a regular hotel room with Olivia is not fun. She won’t sleep in her pack and play if she knows we are in the room (like she cries until we pick her up and it lasts way longer than a tolerable cry it out time frame), but when we put her in bed with us, she crawls around and plays all night like a raccoon. So, long story short, we wanted a suite with a separate bedroom with a door that would close to be away from our child… And this was perfect! It actually had a full galley kitchen (stove, fridge, dishwasher, sink), a living room with a pull out couch, bathroom, and then separate bedroom. SO nice!
We went just up the road for dinner at Pappasitos (Mexican food, if you aren’t familiar). Steven and I both got shrimp- I got the camerones diablo, which was grilled butterflied shrimp with some kind of Mexican butter sauce with rice, beans, and homemade tortillas, and Steven got the camerones Tijuana, which was the same, but with fajita beef added. Not to sound dramatic, but we both agreed this was probably one of the best meals we’ve ever eaten. Ever.
We also got the “sopapilla nachos”- sopapillas with a caramel honey sauce, fresh fruit, and homemade whipped cream. SO GOOD. I felt like I needed to be rolled out of there in a wheelbarrow after eating so much delicious food! And please note the tiny hand reaching in for her share of the sopapillas in that middle pic 😉
After dinner, we drove up to The Rim to hit the giant Bass Pro Shop there. We just walked around the store to see if anything caught our eye and to walk off some of our dinner calories. It’s rare for us to walk out of BPS empty handed, but somehow, we did! We also made a short pit stop in Dick’s Sporting Goods to check out their Yeti selection and to borrow a bicycle pump to air up our stroller tires… #shouldacheckedourtirepressurebeforeweleft
We headed back to the hotel after Dick’s and we read for a little bit before heading to bed.
On Saturday morning, we were up bright and early (before 8) because our favorite restaurant in San Antonio (and one of the main reasons for even going there) gets SUPER crowded super fast. I’ve talked about Magnolia Pancake Haus before, but it truly is one of our favorite restaurants of anywhere! (And I think most people agree because the wait can get outrageous!) I checked us in on the Yelp app at 8:20 and there was already a 20-30 minute wait. It moves quickly, but by the time we were checking out around 10, they were telling people calling in and coming in about 1.5-2 hours. Yikes!
This time, I got the pecan peach waffle with the hashbrowns, Steven got pancakes, eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns, and Livy got chocolate chip pancakes and REALLY enjoyed them. But there is literally no wrong way to order here– everything is delicious!
After Magnolia Pancake Haus, we headed down to the zoo! I actually got really no pictures at the zoo at all. If I’m honest, it was pretty hot already and the animals weren’t very active. We couldn’t tell very well how much Livy really observed since she was under the shade of the stroller, plus it was pretty crowded for having just opened not that long before we got there. I’m sure we’ll go back at some point in the future, but I think Steven and I are good on zoos for the foreseeable future, haha!
It was about noon when we left the zoo, and that was about all we planned for San Antonio. We knew we didn’t want to be gone more than one night, but we weren’t sure we wanted to head home just yet. Since traffic was already crazy on I35 (is it ever not? I think we can just make the blanket statement that I35 traffic just stinks all the time), we ended up heading northwest on I10 up to Junction to eat barbecue. Junction is a small town on the Llano River that is home to the absolute best BBQ in the state, which Steven grew up on. He introduced me to it a few years ago, and now we don’t miss a chance to eat there. It’s about 2.5-3 hours from our house (and about 2 hours from San Antonio, so a bit of a detour out of the way), but Lum’s is 100% worth it.
We got home around 6 Saturday night, and just chilled out the rest of the night. Livy started getting cranky around 6:30, so I put her down for a nap and she ended up sleeping through the rest of the night– big day for a little girl!
On Sunday morning, we got up, got ready, and headed for an early lunch at Fire Street Pizza (we planned to go to church but time got away from me :|). After lunch, we took naps, did laundry, picked up the house, and I actually physically went to the grocery store (which I haven’t done in weeks thanks to HEB Curbside). And I was really reminded how much I love HEB curbside. But, we were really out of too many things to start off on Monday, so I went ahead and went, and made it through. We had a light dinner, then Livy went to bed about 7:30 and I got in a quick ride on the Peloton while Steven did some boards studying (he did a ride while I was at the grocery store). I tried a class with Olivia for the first time and I really like her! I typically ride with Robin, but I’ve been looking for new classes lately to mix it up. I tried Alex because that’s Steven’s go to guy, and he really, really kicks. my. butt. Really really. But I really liked Olivia, so I may start doing more classes with her!
And that was our weekend! And of course, we did our Sunday pictures, too. Do we have a little (big) ham, or what??
I hope y’all enjoy your Monday, and head back on Wednesday for a little What’s Up Wednesday! Thanks for stopping by!
Linked with Lindsay for Hello, Monday!
Livy’s little hand reaching for the sopapilla nachos is so cute!! What a great weekend getaway to celebrate another year older 🙂