Pictures of Sophie Suite Cottage in F'burg

View of our cottage when you enter the side double doors

View of the ultra comfy bed that I actually laid in bed for a couple of extra hours after waking up. For those who know me, know that when I'm up...I'm UP! So this was definitely one of the most comfortable beds I've ever slept on.

Baby watching a special on Machu Picchu. He apparently has decided that we MUST go there this summer. How fun! Although, he's more into the luxury train ride between Lima to Machu Picchu while I'm all about hiking that bad boy!

So Comfy...

Right now I'm such a lazy bum. I've been up for about an hour now and have done nothing but lay and enjoy our soft bed at our cottage in Fredericksburg. Baby is still out cold next to me, so instead of waking him up, I've decided to read the news and start blogging all via my blackberry so he can sleep in. I suppose it IS his vacation, too. Just because I get up with the sun doesn't mean he has to also, right? I'm such a sweet and considerate person ;)

We stopped in at three wineries yesterday. Basically, Baby and I were drinking steadily from 1pm until about 8pm. Surprisingly at no point were we smashed. Although there was one point at dinner that I started to get loopy, but thatfaded pretty quickly once my food started settling. I'll give better updates when I get home.

Hope you're all have a fantastic weekend!!!

F'burg, here we come!

Like the Pointer Sisters, I'm so excited and I just can't hide it!!! Baby and I head off for Fredericksburg at 5pm today. Yes, folks, the height of rush hour. Although, it is Friday and rush hour won't be too terrible...we hope. I figure we can ride in the HOV lane most of the way out of town anyway.

So what do we have on the agenda? We won't arrive to our quaint little cottage until about 9pm or 10pm, so not much is slated for tonight. With the way Baby likes to drive, we may very well make it there by 8pm, but I've warned him that the cops in all of the towns in between Houston and F'burg live for catching out-of-towners and ticketing the hell out of them. It really is their bread and butter with all the money the towns make from people passing through. I know in college, I probably got enough speeding tickets to pay for a new school gym or something...or at least a small bust of the mayor for display at city hall.

Tomorrow, we plan on walking around the little town and hitting a few wineries. I'm looking forward to tasting all kinds of vino!!! I'm such a wine junkie. Baby is getting to be a bit of a connoisseur himself having been around me so long.

I will give a full report of the trip as soon as I get back (with pictures...if Baby remembered to pack his camera seeing my camera is still kaput). Hope you all have a lovely weekend. Even though it will be freezing, it'll be nice that it isn't raining for a change!

I hate shopping for Baby!

So what do you get the guy who has everything for Valentine's Day? The guy who has the income to impulse buy whenever he feels like it? The guy who actually shops more than myself???? Yes, you heard correctly, folks... he's worse than a woman!

...

As I had mentioned on a previous post, Baby and I are planning a nice little weekend getaway out in the little German-esque town of Frederickburg, TX to stop in at some wineries. But, I still haven't bought a gift for him yet. I've narrowed it down to two things. Either a portable dvd player or a bed comfort reading pillow. I need your help in deciding. Let me give you some info as to how I came up with these two ideas.

• DVD Player - When Baby takes a trip that's not business-related, he tends to tote his laptop with him anyway so that he can watch dvd's. The bad thing about that is that watching videos tend to kill his laptop batteries pretty quickly. Plus, his laptop is from work and probably isn't the smartest thing for him to be bringing along on vacations where he could either lose/break it or have it stolen...especially if there are confidential contracts and important work he doesn't want to lose. The portable dvd player I found is the best on the market - Philips 824/37 with 8.5" Screen. Yes, I did my research, people! It has a 6 hour battery play life, and he and I could actually watch movies together when we travel by simply getting a headphone splitter.
  

• The Bed Reading Pillow - You're probably all thinking, "HUH?" Let me explain how Baby's bedroom is set up, and you will understand. He has a king-size bed, and a big screen tv at the FOOT of the bed. Not to the side or at an angle... it really is the only way to set his furniture. And seeing that it's a big screen, it's not like a tv that you can put on something to elevate. So if you are laying down, you are to look straight passed your toes. That means you either use several pillows to prop yourself up to see, or as Baby does so wonderfully... lay sideways on the bed until you're ready to go to sleep. It forces me to have to lay sideways just so that I'm not kicking him if we choose to watch tv in his room. As you guessed, spending the night with a man who wants to lay sideways at the foot of the bed is a bit retarded. So, yes, I'm willing to turn his side of the bed into his own personal lazy boy by buying him the above setup. Actually, I'll pass on the leg rest because that bad boy is $80!!! It's a nice set together, but for that much money, he can put pillows under his legs instead...lol.

Basically, these two gifts are gifts he would probably never buy himself but would get great use out of. Even better is that they are both gifts that benefit me in some way or another - which is really the most important! So what do you think - electronic entertainment or home/sleep comfort?

Sophie Suite - Where we're staying in Fredericksburg

I just received a picture of the Sophie Suite. Unfortunately, they just acquired this private one-room cottage so there isn't a website link for it yet. I'm disappointed that I don't know what the outside looks like, but the inside looks romantic (and clean). They tell me it's got all the amenities - full bathroom and shower in addition to the jacuzzi tub, microwave, mini-fridge,hair dryer, etc. It's also less than 1.5 blocks from Main Street so we can walk to all the shops, restaurants, and winery on that strip. And, they bring us breakfast every morning at around 9am. I wish I could go right now!

Daydreaming of Vacation

Yes, I have a case of the Mondays. I have no focus whatsoever for work today. I keep thinking about wanting to take a vacation, but then get yanked back into reality when an email pops up with more work I need to do. Unfortunately, I finish the work so quickly that I'm back to daydreaming of being somewhere else relaxing. It's just one of those days... I think this is mainly brought on by the fact that Baby is on a plane right now on his way to warm Cancun for the week while I'm stuck in cold, rainy Houston.

All this thinking of getting away has pushed me to do a little more research on our trip to Fredericksburg, TX next month for Valentine's Day Weekend. We've decided to drive to Hill Country and visit some of the wineries out there. Considering it's something I've wanted to do for years and have never gotten around to it, we figure it's the best weekend getaway we can do since Baby is still limited on vacation time or PTO (paid time off) because he just started his job at his current company only 6 months ago.

We're staying at a bed and breakfast in one of their individual cottages called Sophie's Suite. Very romantic. I'm waiting for the booking agent to send me pics of the place because it's very new - I'll post them once I get them. The B&B also brings us breakfast to our cottage every morning...tres manifique! And of course being the most anal travel planner ever, I have already narrowed down the wineries we will visit Saturday to four locations that are within close proximity to one another and within the realm of our preferred tastes in wines according to the wineries' self-descriptions and other travelers' suggestions. We plan to visit Becker Vineyards, Torre di Pietra, Grape Creek Vineyard, and Fredericksburg Winery. There are others that I think sound really tasty, but are a bit further for us to drive to from where we are staying. We're not all too familiar with the area, so I guess we can hit those next time if we decide that we enjoyed the trip this first time around.

Margaritas + Spontaneity = Random Trip to NYC

On Friday, I met up with Giant and Midtowner for a jumbo margarita at Cyclone Anaya's in Midtown. Right there, that intro should scream, "Uh Oh!" After getting halfway through our jumbo and a couple of tasty quesadillas and chips, we start discussing doing something off-the-wall and exciting. We start talking about vacations seeing as Giant just got back from Rio (I'm jealous, and yes, almost hate him). At that moment, a plan was born - Let's go to Vegas tonight!!! And without hesitation, Midtowner and Giant are in it to win it. With that, we race to Midtowner's place to see how we can make it happen.

After thumbing around at our flight options online, I make the final sad call that Vegas is out of our reach :( So after some thought, we decided that we should visit Doc in NYC. Free place to stay, fun person to hang out with...why not? With luck the flights Saturday morning look good for us to arrive in NYC by 3pm, catch dinner, play in the city, crash, and get back on a plane Sunday morning. Spontaneous? Yes. Crazy? Absolutely. It was a done deal. We finish Friday night off by packing our bags hastily in our margarita hazes (yes, my clothes were a crumpled mess - I should've borrowed Single Girl's Flip Fold) , and then play the rest of the night away in Midtown. Probably still loopy from playing way too late, we get up Saturday morning and head for IAH.

Once we arrive into the city that never sleeps, we immediately went out for dinner to one of my favorite Thai restaurants in Chelsea - Spice. It's soooooo good!!! I got the chicken and shrimp pad thai - YUM! A couple of Doc's friends from his psych residency program joined us as well as one of Midtowner's old coworkers who has relocated to NY. Afterwards, we hit a couple of bars until we found our way to Beauty Bar. I had been there once on a previous visit. I love this bar. It use to be an old beauty salon that they kept all the chairs, mirrors, etc. Not only do they have a full service bar and a dance floor in the back, they also have a woman there giving manicures for $10. That includes the mani and a drink...awesome concept, n'est pas?

As the evening progresses, we decide to enlighten Midtowner to the gayer side of the city. After entering a couple of shady and even scary bars, we eventually we ended up at a bar that was muy fantastico! Great music, hot guys that could care less about me because I have the wrong plumbing, and strong drinks. The name of the place escapes me, but I'm sure I'll remember at a later time with Doc's help.

Eventually, we end up back at Chez Doc and pass out. The next morning was rough, to say the least. We eventually drag our arses out of bed, get ready, and make our way to the airport. Thankfully we were smart about our transportation and had a car service pick us up. Darn cabbies are real jerks about taking people to the airport because they hate sitting in the depot line for a fare back. Often times, the line is so long with other cabbies that they don't want to waste their time and end up coming back to the city with no one in the cab....that's why 10 cabs will drive right past you when you know they are on duty the second they see you toting a suitcase...bastards, I tell ya! Good thing is that the car service is only about $10 more than a cab, and is usually no big deal if you've got more than one person like we did.

We arrived back in Houston as of 1:30pm yesterday and for the most part have had time to recover. I, sadly, had to work a few hours last night at Job#2. But, it wasn't too bad. Surprisingly, I don't feel tired. I am a little mad at myself for not taking the time to apartment hunt instead though. Now I REALLY have to beat feet and get the search going...