Hippies and Spicy Corn

We are now at week 27 and our sweet little baby is now as big as a cucumber (or maybe as long as? these apps are super unclear on these things...the other one says he's the size of a head of cauliflower?).  The countdown clock on my registries now say less than 100 days until D-Day, so I think the time to panic is now? I've been really blessed in that I don't have a lot of the pregnancy symptoms that occur in the 2nd/early 3rd trimester like heartburn and leg cramps, here's to hoping that it continues this well.  The baby has been moving a ton more and definitely prefers quick blows to the gut over any other kind of movement right now.

In preparation for the baby David and I took a short little trip to Lake Travis, RIGHT by where all those hippies live, to spend 3 days eating, sitting by the pool, eating, reading books, eating, doing a little bit of hiking, and some more eating.  With the lack of margaritas and wine in my current acceptable diet plan the emphasis of food in general has become more important than ever.

This is a little place called Chi-Town that has Chicago style foods and hot dogs galore.  If you make your own you get to pick up to THREE toppings to put on that bad boy.  David ended up with the Kansas City "Royal Dog" which has sauerkraut, chili, red onions, spicy cheese sauce on a poppy seed bun.  It is not my cup of tea, but if you're into that kind of thing he finished the entire thing and then said he wanted another one.  I got a build your own with chili, spicy cheese sauce (think stadium nachos!!!), and cheddar cheese on top with a side of fries that we shared and it was amazing (although with spicy cheese sauce in the mix I'm pretty easy to please).  If we ever made it back down there I would for sure try one of their fry baskets, most of which have chili and cheese smothered all over them, perfection.

We went to the above little gem, Opie's BBQ, after spending a half day walking around Pedernales Falls State Park. It was during the walk back from the first very short "hike" that I realized that my new theme song in life should be "The Old Grey Mare" because she really "ain't what she used to be". Also, the only bad thing about going to a place called Pedernales Falls during a couple of year long drought in Texas is that the "falls" are more of a "trickle".  Either way, it was nice to get out and see some of the sights as the weather was not yet so blazing hot that you sweat in your car with the ac on, a magical time of year in Texas. 

Anyway, back to the FOOD.  So this place is kind of out in the middle of nowhere, but I kid you not I would gladly drive all the way from Dallas to get this food again.  As you walk in there is a HUGE pit open where they are keeping warm all the BBQ they have cooked for that day (this is a "when it's gone, it's gone" kind of place) and you get to pick exactly what you want by meat-type (is that a phrase?) and by weight.  We ended up with 1/4 lb of jalapeno cheese sausage and about 1/2 lb of brisket.  Here's the thing, when I go to BBQ places I rarely judge it on the meat quality because to me life is about sides, but this BBQ was so good.  I was told by my expert husband that you can tell how good a place is by their brisket, and this brisket was falling apart and super juicy and the sausage had huge chunks of cheddar in it.  We also got as sides their tater tot casserole (above right corner) and spicy corn (lower left corner), and they have a giant pot of beans simmering in the middle of the seating area for you to get as much as you want. (I will warn you to be patient and let the beans totally cool because they are lava hot and I may have burnt my tongue multiple times trying to eat up all the deliciousness).  The tater tot casserole was like a cheesy potato and green bean casserole mix (without the green beans but with the crispy onion topping) and the spicy corn was probably the most delicious thing I have ever eaten in my entire life. Even David, who could take or leave sides in a place like this agreed that it was incredible.  It's creamy and spicy and I tried so hard to pick out ingredients that were in it by taste, but then realized that I had no idea what i was doing....  I did get that it contained corn and jalapenos...... Also, the free beans were so flavorful and wonderful, and I want to live in this place and eat there every day.  I can't believe how long this paragraph was on food, and I feel a little like I should be more embarrassed by it, but I'm going to go ahead and just say PREGNANT. End of story.

As a side note: when we were in there the Texas A&M offensive coordinator walked in and I MAY have recognized him by sight (because I MAY have seen him on Johnny Manziel's twitter/instagram before) and I don't think David has ever been so proud. We were too big of scared babies to say anything, but I'm sure he reads this blog, in which case Gig 'Em sir, hope you didn't mind the whispering and pregnant lady staring at you while you ate.

The picture above is from a place that overlooks Lake Travis and boasts a little shopping area that I was excited to check out.... that apparently is closed on Tuesdays....and during "the winter"....and a bunch of the stores have gone out of business.  So that was kind of a bust, but the restaurant The Oasis had great views and pretty good food, of which I apparently forgot to take any pictures.  Also, the picture above is the only picture of me from the entire trip and it was taken after another one when I asked David to take another one where my arms didn't look so chubby and he said "how?", WHICH, I know he was asking "how do you want me to take this?" but I definitely took it has "HOW IN THE WORLD DO WE NOT MAKE YOUR ARMS LOOK CHUBBY?".  Pregnancy hormones are so fun.  

We did take a little walk around the town Bee Cave, which we both agreed would be kind of the worst type of cave to be in (stinging in the dark!), where they have a little outdoor shopping plaza complete with an Amy's Ice Cream and a Whole Foods. I made sure to check with Tracy to see if being in Austin in a Whole Foods automatically turned me into a hippie, but thankfully not all the criteria was met.  (Not showering was one of them...) When we were walking around my eye caught this little lamp and I have been semi obsessed about it ever since (for some reason it wasn't for sale in this particular store...).

After some serious Veronica Mars googling I found it on eBay for more money than I have ever spent on a lamp shade in our entire house so I've decided to let it go and see if I can find something more reasonably priced for this kid's nursery.  But seriously, how adorable are those puppies???  It also led me to the lamp shade below, which I hope someone who has a daughter will buy as soon as possible.

All in all, it was a fun trip where we spent a good amount of time in the total peace and quiet of one of the hotel's pools reading books which we have repeatedly been told will be a thing of the past once this baby is born.  We have spent the rest of Memorial Day Weekend updating the baby's nursery with some real honest to goodness furniture, and by we I mean David, because PREGNANT.  End of story.