Richy and I just got back from a week long vacation to Heaven on Earth – aka Lake Powell. I truly can not describe how amazing this trip was. Between the jaw dropping views, canyons, and caves, we felt like we were in a MacBook desktop photo the entire time. We spent the week hanging out on the house boat with friends, riding jet skis, doing water sports, going on hikes, and just lounging in the water in awe of our surroundings.
I can’t put this trip into words, so here are some pictures that will do it more justice than I ever could!
This chicken sandwich had to make the cut. To get to Lake Powell you have to go from Phoenix to Page, Arizona. In Page, there is this absolute mouthwatering gem of a chicken restaurant called Bird House. If you are ever in Page, Arizona and don’t go to this place – we can’t be friends because it is THAT good.
Moral of this entire post is you need to go to Lake Powell – oh and take me with.
To kick off the week I received my first package from Ora Organic. They are a sustainable vitamin company in Austin that caught my eye and they ship organic supplements straight to your door each month. I decided to go with “Appley Ever After” (Apple Cider Vinegar), “Be-you-tiful” (Hair, Skin, and Nails), “You’re Golden” (Turmeric), and “You’re a Knockout” (Sleep & Stress Support). So far I love the products and I was super excited to receive them this week!
I also got my Fab Fit Fun spring box this week! I am the biggest advocate for this brand because it is the gift that keeps on giving. Pro tip – ask for a membership as a birthday gift and you will receive trendy beauty, workout, and lifestyle items 4 times throughout the year. Some of my favorite products were discovered through previous Fab Fit Fun boxes. This brand knows what I like and how to keep me buying it. If you have not tried it out I highly recommend doing so, I can send you a starter box for only $5 – let me know if you are interested.
Friday night Richy & I went over to our friends’ new apartment and had a cookout night. I found this watermelon margarita recipe and it turned out really good! My go to margarita is a spicy jalapeño & pineapple, but this watermelon jalapeño is a close second. We grilled some burgers and threw back several margs (I forgot to take a picture of both) and had a wonderful night.
Saturday morning Richy and I decided on a hiking date at Bull Creek. It was about a 20 minutes from our apartment and the route was covered in vibrant green Austin hills. The hike was intense and we did not realize how many waterfalls & streams existed until we got there. Next time we are bringing swimsuits & chacos to cool off during and after the hike. It was a great spot, for a date or even a family trip, so if you are in Austin check it out.
After our healthy deed for the day, we stopped at Pint House Pizza for a sweaty and well deserved meal. Before we pulled up Richy said we were “going all out on the carbs” and he was not kidding. We ordered the beer mates (garlic cheese bread), 2 pizza rolls, and a large speciality pizza (half pepperoni basil & half honey pear). This honey pear pizza won me over after 1 bite because everything I love was involved – prosciutto, basil, blue cheese, caramelized onions, local honey, and pear slices. It was beautiful *insert chef’s kiss here*.
We also grabbed a $10 beer flight with these 5 – Old Beluga, Selfish Lover Coconut, Selfish Lover Maple, Burro’s Breakfast, and Bailing Room. My personal favorite was Bailing Room (a perfect day drinking beer) and my least favorite was Selfish Lover Maple. If you stop by any of the Pinthouse locations let me know your personal favorites! Overall it was delicious and Pint House has become one of my favorite restaurants in Austin because of this visit.
Saturday afternoon our friends Kennedy and Michael came over for fajitas and drinks by the pool. We ate our meal on the rooftop and had such a sweet evening. Also, if you have not tried pineapple with cinnamon on the grill then you have not lived.
Sunday was spent grocery shopping and meal prepping for the week. I fell off my health grind the past 3 weeks and I am determined to get back on track. Check out this week’s menu under the food category and then home cooking!
Hope you all have a great week – thanks for checking in!
Life in quarantine is getting pretty old after 7 weeks, but we are making the most of it. We have watched just about every Netflix movie, I finalized and launched this blog, we completed and gave up on several puzzles, and have gone on many walks. This weekend we decided to go on a quarantine date, try a new recipe, and support one of our favorite local businesses. Not the craziest weekend, but I told y’all I would update you on life so here it is!
I’ve mentioned CRU Wine Bar on another post, my favorite restaurant in Austin, and their fabulous deals. We took advantage of their buy one get one free pizza deal and set up a date night at the park. I also had to order their goat cheese beignets – if you go you have to get these as an appetizer.
Pizza without wine is basically a crime so I grabbed a bottle of Tempranillo and my wine bag. This wine bag was a Christmas gift from Richy’s parents and makes to go wine possible. It includes two wine glasses, a bottle opener, napkins, a bottle stopper, and insulated slots for 2 bottles – so basically it is the best thing since sliced bread. I could not find the exact one they got me, but this gives you the idea if you want one for yourself! We headed to Zilker Park and set up a picnic for the sweetest Friday night date.
On Saturday I woke up with an intense buffalo chicken craving and had to act on it. I winged a recipe from the ingredients below and ended up with 3 cheese buffalo chicken quesadillas with rice and beans & celery/carrots with ranch. The celery and carrots are kinda random now that I think about it, but in the craving mindset I was thinking Wingstop’s buffalo sauce – which pairs great with these two veggies & ranch. I mixed the Frank’s Red Hot, cheese, green onions, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and taco seasoning in a bowl with the shredded chicken. Then I heated up the HEB Bakery tortillas, the best kind, added more cheese, and voila – the craving was satisfied.
After we gained ten pounds from the quesadillas, we walked it off on our 4 mile route around East Austin and ended at our favorite small business, Dolce Bacio Gelato. I have to tell y’all about this place – best gelato in Austin & the sweetest owners straight from Italy. They are in this pink food truck on East Cesar Chavez, but they also do catering and have a traveling bike downtown. She uses only natural authentic ingredients and has the best flavors that are bold & real! My favorite are the stracciatella, Nutella, and coffee. Richy loves their almond, salted caramel, and vanilla. Go check them out if you are in Austin, follow them on Instagram, and support this sweet small business. Truly the most genuine business owners I have ever met with the cutest Italian accents!
Overall it was a good weekend & fingers crossed that next weekend is another step closer to normalcy in this weird time we are in! I am going to work on some posts in other parts of my blog menu this week and have some more content up for y’all. Stay safe & I hope you have great week!
Hey there! Not a weekly update since we are in quarantine and puzzles/Netflix/working from home gets old. Our Easter weekend was different than we envisioned, but we made the best out of the situation. We decided to stay in Austin due to everything going on and cook our own Easter brunch and had the best time doing it.
We woke up around 6:50 AM so we could catch the sunrise on Lady Bird Lake at 7:03AM. We started this tradition of seeing the sun rise on the morning Jesus rose. We said our prayers and spent some time looking at the sky is awe.
Then we put on our chef hats, with mimosas in hand, and started slaving away at our brunch. We made steak eggs benedict with hollandaise sauce (my personal favorite breakfast meal), cinnamon roll waffles in the shape of Texas (because what other shape would they be?), and seasoned diced potatoes. It was heavenly. It took us 2 hours, one broken glass, and a large mess but it was a good time. Also shoutout to Karen for the Texas waffle maker via Amazon Prime – love you!
Next we started our other tradition of our own Easter egg within the apartment. My family will probably have an Easter egg hunt until my sister & I are 50 so naturally I could not pass up an Easter without it. We bought 12 plastic eggs from Target, divided them by colors, and hid 6 for each other in 10 minutes while the seeker walked Bailey May around the block. Now this is where it got intense. We timed each other, took this very seriously, and hide each egg in the most ridiculous place. Once we found each egg there was a piece of paper with some funny thing we love about each other that had us dying laughing. Highly recommend Easter egg hunts if you and your significant are as competitive as us.
We finished off the day with a feel good Disney movie, Zootopia, and a vegan peanut butter & chocolate pie I whipped up the night before. Here is the recipe!
All in all a good weekend. Even though we wish we were with our families we were thankful for our health, our home, and Jesus’s ultimate sacrifice. Happy Easter!
Wow this past week was phenomenal. It was filled with so much joy, love, and the people that mean the most to me. I am so thankful for the friends and family that made this birthday so special. Here are some highlights from a fun filled week!
Tuesday October 23rd
If you are an AT&T member and don’t know about the Movie Tuesday perk you are missing out. Richy and I take advantage of this every week and use the “AT&T Thanks” app to get a buy one get one movie ticket each Tuesday at the Alamo Draft House. This week we saw the Addams Family post 5 or 6 happy hour margs from Maudie Too’s. We also may have snuck a famous “purple marg” in from Baby A’s which is so strong that there is a 2 marg per person limit. Margs & movies, what a combo lol
Maudie’s Classic Frozen Marg & it is $5 at happy hour!
Wednesday October 23rd
This is a monumental day because Richy told me I only had 1 hour in Target and I finished at checkout the moment his 1 hour timer went off so this was truly an important day in history. That is all.
My cutie telling me I had 1 hour in Target. Challenge accepted.
Thursday October 24th
We got to see Richy & Hayley’s favorite rapper, Skizzy Mars, and although we were the oldest people there by at least 5 years we had a blast. If you have not listened to him hurry up and get to it. He has a fun vibe that is not your everyday rap so check him out. Also happy 28th anniversary to my sweet parents on this day!
Front row at Skizzy Mars. He is such a good live performer!
Friday October 25th
This is the was not only the date of my first time seeing the Goo Goo Dolls (my life long dream) but it also happened to be my dad’s birthday! My parents came up for the weekend and we ate good food, drank strong drinks, and had a blast. Speaking of food- the restaurant we wanted to go to was closed we ended up at a hidden gem called Brick Oven Pizza and had the sweetest server who was also named Dani (Shoutout to Dani you were the best and we loved the chocolate mouse cake.) Also PSA if you are a biker (my dad) trying to go to Base Concert Hall at UT (us trying to see Goo Goo Dolls)- you are not allowed to have a wallet that is connected to a chain? So after figuring out that fiasco with a very sassy doorman we got into the concert. Our luck turned around when we got asked to come up to the private bar of the music venue and I got a special drink named “Black Ballon” after one of the Goo Goo Doll’s famous hits and we had the sweetest bartender (Shoutout to Liz I hope your birthday on Sunday was nothing short of amazing we loved you!) After the private bar we saw the most amazing show that kicked off the Goo Goo Doll’s tour where they played their new album “Miracle Pill” and all the classics which included “Come to Me” which is easily in my top 10 favorite songs in the world so naturally I cried. After a rocking concert we made our way towards Rainy street and shots. I will never forget this night being with my parents and Richy to celebrate my dad’s birthday while listening to the best band. Happy Birthday Daddy!
Goo Goo Dolls KILLED this concert. It was a dream come true.
Saturday October 26th
23 was kicked off perfectly with this day. I honestly thought I was in the matrix because everything was so perfect. To start off, my favorite breakfast is steak eggs benedict but I wanted to make it at our apartment with my parents. So we did! I now feel like the queen of Hollandaise sauce and Karen was crowned queen of poached eggs. What a birthday breakfast with a raspberry lemonade mimosa birthday toast! From there we hung out at the apartment and later got free lunch at Chi’Lantro (the best Chipotle style Korean BBQ you will ever have in Austin) because Mateó is the absolute best Chi’Lantro employee and wanted to treat us for my birthday. Then we got ready for the highlight of the night- our drunken bike ride around Austin with our biker gang. If you have a birthday coming up and need plans I highly recommend doing a pub crawler which is a massive bike with about 15 seats where you have a designated driver but you all peddle to make the bike move, here is the catch, while getting hammered. We used Austin Hipside Peddler, they were for sure the best option in Austin, and did the East Side Tour. It was so much fun and theming it Harley biker could not have been better. Shoutout to my dad for dressing mom, Richy, and I because harley attire is his daily attire lol. We had an absolute blast, ended up going out with bottle service, and had one hell of a night. I could not have asked for a better birthday with better people. Thanks to everyone who was came out!
Just a few of my 15 Harley hunnies who made turning 23 a wild ride!
October 27th
I am going to start off by saying that if you are in Austin and have not been to CRU wine bar then you are missing out. Ramon is the best manager and server and they have to die for food at the most reasonable prices. Sometimes they even do buy one get one entrees and it just so happened that they did that for my birthday brunch! Truly my favorite restaurant in Austin. The weather this past Sunday could not have been any better 75 and clear skies with the sun shining down. And to top it all off there was Jo’s Coffee Shops “2nd Annual Ugly Dog Contest” going on on the entire street CRU is on so we got to see the cutest “ugly” dogs from our outside table (who are we kidding every dog is freaking cute.) Live music, mimosas galore, and high quality food with my sweet friends made for the most perfect day. I truly don’t think I will ever get over how spectacular this day was.
Thankful for such wonderful friends that made this birthday one to remember and force me to take solo photos lol
Well there you have it – my first official weekly recap and my birthday weekend all in one! Thanks for all the text messages, phone calls, pictures, and sweet words. 23 has been the best yet!
Daily Danielle 