Here's us on the bus ride LOL.
We went to a few stores, most of which we have in Dallas too. Oops. Hate that! But I did find a cute shirt for $17 (rang up even cheaper than I expected) and a fun headband for $12 (expensive for a headband, imo!!But I liked it a lot). The girl who rang me up said I picked out a perfect little black dress. DRESS?! I'm 5'3" and it barely covered my ass when I tried it on. I don't understand people these days with their embarrassingly short shirts they try to pass off as dresses. Call me prude, but it makes me feel embarrassed for girls who dress that way! :-x Oh well....
We did find a fun bracelet shop, Alex & Ani, where my Mom treated me, her, and a surprise for my cousin to some awesome, special bracelets with personal meanings. I was torn between the fleur de lis (my fave) or the tree of life, but ultimately decided fleur's are easier to find elsewhere, so I got the gold tree one to be a lil more unique. Love it! Thanks mama.
I invited my friend Mike to join us for lunch and luckily he was on vacation from work, so he was able to make it. We met him at the Red Parrot. I suggested my Mom try the lemon sole. I thought I'd eaten there years before and had that and loved it, but upon further thought I think I ate somewhere else that time. My bad. My Mom did get the sole and LOVED it. I got it as well, but thought it was just OK, if that. I hate rice, especially white rice, so I left all of that behind. I felt pressured to order before I was ready even tho we spent forever deciding and just blurted it out since she did :-P. I also had an unpictured Sam Adam's.
Before lunch I also came across a cute lil shop and picked up a lil somethin' somethin' for later :)
We promised the rest of the gang we'd meet up with them around 5 to head to the beach and we were cutting it close. Mike was nice enough to drive us back, so that bought us a little extra time to visit. I forgot to get a pic tho. Doh!
Before we went to the actual beach, we agreed to check out a Dixie band (they originally said like the Dixie Chicks, but I figured that wasn't true...) across the street in a lil open park with a gazebo. Yeah, Dixie Chicks? Not so much. It was a couple handfuls of 80 year olds crammed into a tiny gazebo playing instruments. Oh boy.
OK, OK, it was cute and fairly crowded, so we just chilled out and made the most of it lol. Some of our party loved it, while the rest of us thought it was funny/cute :-P. The scenery was nice for pic taking & it was fun watching the lil kids dance around. What is it about kids and dancing? Too sweet. & the weather was peeeeerfection. Someone send Dallas the memo, huh?
Dave and Candace, our trip hosts, are fabulous hosts & always have food, drinks, anything you could want on hand. We snacked on a few things (hummus and water for me!) and lounged in their comfy chairs.
Nice & breeeeeezy. Doesn't life look easy? ;) Ahhhh, vacation.
& How charming is this?
Love it.
Shortly after, most of us got up and walked over to the beach
We met a friend.
Haha.
It was a lil chilly, but the gang was REALLY trying to exaggerate to make the 100+ degree Texas crew jealous back home! We're super nice, dontcha know?
Time to bust out the beach hat!!!
Poor Candace's eyes lol.
My Mom took her tootsies for a little dip....with shoes on.
Which clearly did not stay on...and needed a good washing. & a nice husband to carry them around.
Everybody else went back to the gazebo to watch the geezers play (I'm so nice!), but my Mom and I stayed behind for more beach action & more photos to make people jealous, mwhahaha.
If you're landlocked like us 99% of the time, you get it!
For dinner I was SO pumped. I didn't think we'd be able to go to my fave restaurant in the area that we went to last year, Crazy Burger, but we did. YAY! Despite the name, it's actually more of a vegan/vegetarian place, but they do serve meat too. When I'm in any city near the water I try to eat seafood almost exclusively, buttttt in a vegan place I had to go vegan! Do as the Romans do, y'know? Cliched, that's meeee.
Is that napkin not so me? I should just tattoo my entire body in black & white damask...lurve.
I've been dreaming about a repeat of this juice allll year. Pear apple ginger. MMM MMM good. I almost went for seconds, but stopped myself. I want it again. and again. It's super good. If only juicing at home wasn't a huge pain! Or if we had a nearby local juice bar......*dreamy sigh*
My meal came with soup or salad, so I went with the same thing as last year again....the sweet potato soup.
Same as last year, just OK. But it sounded like the best option at the time.
I wavered forEVER for my main entree choice, but decided to eat Italian for like the third day in a row & went with the vegan lasagna.
It was pretty good, but didn't have some of the ingredients it was supposed to, I don't think? Particularly noticeable..the veggie sausage was missing. That was one of the main reasons I got it!! Bummer. On the plus side, I read online they use daiya instead of soy cheese. I can't confirm it, but if so that's awesome. Love that. I wish we had this place near me, so I could try the whole menu! It all sounds amazing.
When we got back to the house (or actually, maybe before we left, but timing isn't important here!), one of the guys, Howard, presented us all with some surprises he found when cleaning his house or going through old boxes or something like that. He found old pics, drawings, & letters my family sent him over the years. It was really awesome to see and REALLY touched my Mom.
HAHA the sad thing is my handwriting hasn't improved all that much over the years :-x. I was probably 10 or 11 when I wrote that lol. I knew I wrote it the second I saw it. Maybe I need handwriting 101? LOL @ how I printed my name and signed in cursive underneath. Randumb!
I guess I liked blue and purple flowers with yellow centers a lot in my youth. Ha.
My brother is a (graphic) artist as a career now, so it's kinda cool to see some of his first works of art!
He was only about 8 back then. Not bad ;).
After changing into pj's & getting cozy in the guest room I took out this lil number and split it between my Mom & I.....
Oh Em Gee. It was sooo good. I wish I had gotten more! Damn. Deeeeeelish.
Then, it was time for resttttt. We were supposed to have 1 more full day in Rhode Island, but didn't have any real plans for the day & my friend Marie convinced us to spend another day with her in Boston instead. When she was able to rearrange her work schedule and take Saturday off (she'd already taken Sunday off for us) & offered her place up (we had a hotel for Sunday already booked, but she wanted to save us the trouble of an extra day and extra $$), we took her up on it, fo' sho'! Good times ahead, natch.
:)
xo,
Amanda
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