In the mood for a melody...

Our view of the jumbotron (the speakers obstructed our view)

Tonight was the night! We went to the Elton John/Billy Joel Face to Face concert and it was AMAZING! Together and alone, EJ and BJ sang all of our top favorite songs...Good-bye Yellow Brick Road (my all time favorite), Piano Man, Uptown Girl, Just the Way You Are, Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me, I Guess that's Why They Call It the Blues, Scenes from an Italian Restaurant, Moving Out, and so much more. Not only can they sing well, but they are both quite entertaining. Who would've guessed that Billy Joel is so witty? We hope they return to SA soon.

Us waiting before the show...yep, we're up pretty high (the 2nd row from the top)

Both on stage

That's Chacho's

We LOVE Chacho's! It's greasy, affordable, and just plain good (did I mention that it's greasy?). Not to mention that ordering food from Chacho's is always an experience (especially when we order through the drive-thru).

For instance, every time we order our meals we're never really sure what we're going to get. Opening our to-go containers is almost like opening a box of cereal and searching for the 1 out of 4 prize identified on the outside of the box. Remember how you felt as a kid? You always hoped for that one specific item, which sometimes you got and other times you didn't, but in the end you were happy because you always got a prize. That's our Chacho's experience.

I almost always order the 2 Beef Taco Plate. The plate always comes with 2 crispy beef tacos, rice, and some type of bean (I always order borracho but sometimes I receive refried). Then comes the mystery portion of my plate. Sometimes I receive guacamole, lettuce, and/or tomatoes, but I'm never certain which combination of the 3 I will receive until I open my container. Heck, I don't even know what's supposed to come in my plate because the items are so inconsistent, but fortunately the food is always spectacular! That's Chacho's for you!

Our Chacho's meals from Thursday. We both ordered 2 beef taco plates. My plate had lettuce, tomatoes, and guacamole; Jacob's was missing the tomatoes. Despite the variations, we both loved our meals. (I shared my tomatoes.)

Pizzaria Tijerina!

My sister gave us 4 personal deep dish pizza pans for Christmas this year and we finally tried them out 2 weekends ago...and then tested them again this weekend. Hmmm...should we quit our day jobs and go into the pizza business?

Catchin up...

We're slowly but surely catching up on all of the movies we've wanted to see over the last few years but didn't have/make time for.


This past weekend we watched "The Notebook." It was such a great movie! We can't believe we waited so long to see it.


Next on our list...


..."Wall-E." Hopefully it lives up to our expectations. :-)

2 Saturdays & 2 Breakfasts

Breakfast foods are my favorite types of food; I could eat them morning, noon, or night.

So, for Valentine's Day, Jacob took me to Nicavid's for breakfast. Nicavid's is a cozy cafe/bakery off Fredricksburg Rd. For breakfast on Saturdays, they offer an all-you-can-eat, made-to-order breakfast that includes, pancakes, french toast, omelettes, biscuits, gravy, sausage, bacon, and fresh fruit. We both had omelettes, pancakes, biscuits-n-gravy, bacon, and fruit. Plus, for Valentine's Day they even gave us 2 chocolate covered strawberries. Everything was delicious and I can't wait to go back to try some of they fresh baked pastries!

Then this past Satuday, Jacob took me to I-Hop to spend the I-Hop gift card I received from the DEO team as a going away gift (thank you DEO team!). Breakfast at I-Hop was as spectacular as usual! We each had a pancake combo. Jacob ordered his with the Harvest Nut-n-Grain pancakes and I ordered mine with the traditional buttermilk pancakes! The pancakes, eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns were declicious! Did I mention that I LOVE breakfast foods?

Taking it too far...

A few pictures in a suit was all we needed...

before I knew it, it turned into an all-out photo shoot...

Giddyup!

As he walked into the building, the adults and 10 year olds knew that there was a "new sheriff in town." Armed with blue jeans, a borrowed cowboy hat, a huge aluminum foil belt buckle, and a package of pencils, Jacob walked down the dusty path that led to his school. Ok--seriously, it was just Western Day at the local elementary school.

Saturday Highlights

This afternoon Kelly and Charlotte stopped by for a grilled cheese and veggie soup lunch. It was nice to see them again because I hadn't seen them for a few months. Casper was very excited to see them too; fortunately, Charlotte likes dogs and didn't mind all of his barking and slobbery kisses.

Kelly & Charlotte

For dinner, Jacob and I enjoyed Double Dave's pizza buffet with salad, pizza, pepperoni rolls and chocolate chip dessert pizza (d-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s!).

After dinner we headed to Border's to spend our gift cards from Christmas. New books, yay! I even started list of books I want to look for the next time we go to Half-Price books.

After the bookstore we headed to our favorite "healthy" dessert stop...Orange Cup! The Acai, with strawberries, chocolate chips, and almonds was just as good and refreshing as I had remembered! Jacob enjoyed his Acai with blueberries, strawberries, and kiwi.

Good Ol' Wok Inn

Today we had lunch at the original Wok Inn on Grissom Rd. Today's all inclusive $4.75 special was Mongolian Beef, which we both ordered. So, for $10.72, we enjoyed 2 drinks, 2 bowls of unlimited, serve-your-self soup with crispy wonton strips and green onions, and 2 plates of Mongolian Beef, fried rice and egg rolls. Yep, Wok Inn truly offers a good amount of delicious and greasy Chinese food for a small price. Plus, I have left-overs for lunch tomorrow.

2 Great Movies

Since we've been married, our trips to the movie theater have dramatically slowed. We went from seeing a new movie every Friday night, to seeing a new movie about 1-2 times a year. In fact, instead of seeing movies our weekend highlights typically involve trips to the gym and HEB. Sounds exciting, doesn't it?

However, this year has been different. We've already seen 2 movies since the year began and best of all, both movies were great! The movies were Gran Torino and Marley and Me. (Don't worry, we won't spoil the movies.) We both reacted strongly to both movies and came out of the movies discussing what we saw, how we felt, and how we connected with the characters. We highly recommend both of these movies.

Food filled weekend

Jacob waiting for our main course to cook (Melting Pot)

This weekend was packed with delicious food!

It started on Friday when we ate a Rome's onion and black olive pizza. It was so delicious that we finished the whole pizza. Normally we save at least 2 slices for lunch the next day but we hadn't eaten a Rome's pizza in so long that we were unstoppable.

Then on Saturday we went to Rio Mambo with Jacob's family. Jacob had 3 brisket tacos and I had 3 crispy picadillo tacos. Everything was delicious and again, we didn't have any left-overs.

Jen enjoying the cheese fondue (Melting Pot)

Finally, on Sunday, in celebration of our 6th anniversary we (over-) indulged ourselves with a 4 course meal at the Melting Pot. First, we had the Boston Lager Cheddar Cheese Fondue with veggies, breads, and apples. Next, we both had Southwester Cobb salads. Third, we had our main course cooked Coq au Vin with veggies, salmon, filet mignon, chicken, pork tenderloin, shrimp, spinach artichoke ravioli, and lobster tail. Then, we finished off our meal with Cookies-n-Cream Marshmallow Dream chocolate fondue with strawberries, bananas, cheesecake, rice krispy treats, marshmallows, brownies, and pound cake (we even had seconds on the bananas and strawberries). The food was spectacular and we were surprisingly stuffed when we left. We'll definitely visit the Melting Pot again but to save money we think we'll only focus on the cheese, salad, and chocolate the next time around.

Jacob enjoying the chocolate fondue (Melting Pot)

I married a younger man!

A few weeks ago Jacob and I took the real age test. Considering that we both eat healthy foods, we exercise, and we don't experience too much stress in our lives, we expected our real ages to be younger than our calendar ages.

Jacob took the test first and sure enough he was younger (by 5.3 years).

Then I took the test and I turned out to be older (by 1.5 years)!

I was shocked! Sure, I complain about the disgusting double fiber bread that Jacob buys, I sometimes choose to eat the easy to open candy bar over the pain in the rear to peel orange, and I usually stay home when it's too cold to walk but I had no idea that these few decisions would impact my age by so much. As result, I started drinking more water, choking down more double fiber bread, stocking our house with more convenient fruits (it helped that cherries were on sale last week), and exercising more by incorporating weight training and more rigorous cardio back into my workout.

Today, I modified the responses to my real age test and based on my improved healthy lifestyle, my age went down (a little). My real age is now 28.1. Yep, I'm still married to a younger man.

A Day at the Park

On Saturday (Jan. 3) Jacob and I hit the trails at Friedrich Park. Since my lung capacity was still low from the flu, we decided to "take it easy." However, because we hadn't been to the park for a year or so, we ended up taking a pretty good hike up and down several steep and winding trails. As a way to casually catch my breath, I would pull out the camera and suggest that we take a few pictures. Unfortunately, Jacob caught on to what I was doing and became a little annoyed that I kept stalling. However, because I had insisted that I was healthy enough to take a hike, I tried to hide my exhaustion as much as possible.

Jacob making the steep climb while I took a short break. :)