The best thing to ever come out of girls weekend

Three years ago, before Daniel and I headed to East Asia, Sarah and I had a girls weekend in Fredricksburg, Texas. It was amazing!! And we loved the B&B we stayed at. 

Since Daniel and I are headed back to EA this fall, we figured another girls trip was in order. We realllly wanted to go back to Fredericksburg, but with me in Illinois that made it a bit more complicated. So we decided to go to Branson, Missouri. We both had never been there and we found another cute B&B to stay at. We're a sucker for a good breakfast. 

We stayed at Hummingbird Inn. It had an amazing view and yummy food. Also, probably the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in!!

We drove down Wednesday and stayed 2 nights. The first night we went to The Landing and walked around.

We ate dinner at yummy mexican restaurant and found a few good deals we couldn't pass up. As we were driving home that night, the sun was setting and we saw fireflies as we drove. We both haven't seen fireflies since we were about 8!! 

Thursday we spent the entire day shopping at the outlet malls. We were both giddy about shopping! We found some great deals, and had so much fun!! I can't remember the last time I shopped that much! Which brings us to the best thing EVER to come out of girls weekend....

Sarah kept talking the whole day about how much she loved her new leggings. Newsflash: I have never worn leggings (unless you count my early childhood). I was convinced they only look good on really skinny people, and I just don't understand how to wear them. But Sarah went on and on and on about how comfortable they were. So while were shopping I tried a pair on and let me tell you-I have seen the light! Where have these been my whole life?!?!?!!?

 (more on this pic in the next post)

Random picture, yes. But let us appreciate the leggings!!!!! Oh my goodness a whole new level of comfort! I want to wear them every day. The only problem is I only have 2 shirts that are long enough, something I will remedy quickly. So I need your help-where do you buy shirts for your leggings? Any fave legging brands, especially for shorties like me?

So after shopping all day, we went and got a pedicure then went to a late dinner at Shoguns. The chef guy instantly knew we were sisters and thought we were too young to have kids. Bless him. We have been getting a lot of people saying how much we look alike. But neither of us really see it.

We ate dinner at 8 pm at night and were some of the last people to leave. I asked Sarah when the last time she closed down a restaurant compared to opening it? Having little ones, we usually don't go out too much, and if we do it's at 5pm. It was such a treat having a late dinner out!

I love my sister and loved getting quality time with her. I can't wait to do it again! :)

Staying in St. Louis

My parents live in South Illinois, about 45 minutes from St. Louis. Daniel and I had a few extra points at Marriott, so we decided to leave the little pipsqueak with my parents and have a few nights away.

We stayed downtown and just did fun stuff. It was supposed to rain the whole time, but we ended up having great weather. We spent the first afternoon just walking around.

I of course missed our little pumpkin, but it's great to get away sometimes too.

We went to dinner that night and then went to the movies-one of my many love languages. We saw the new Spider Man movie. It was really good, but I might've had to close my eyes a few times-just a little too much action for me.

We found a GREAT restaurant right around the corner from our hotel. It's call Roosters and it was amazing. i'm seriously drooling right now just thinking about it. One thing you should know about me, is that I am a lover of all things Smores. (sidenote DQ has a Smores blizzard out right now and it's so yummy). Roosters has a Smores crepe which I paired with mint coffee. We actually went two mornings in a row.If you live near St. Louis-go to Roosters!

Later, we hung out at the pool, then went to the Cardinals game. I did love the location of our hotel-it was perfect walking distance! We walked around the Arch before the game.

It was just a quick 2 nights away, but it was so much fun to spend time with my love and have real conversations and be able to eat without having to cut up someones meat first. :)

Come Away with Me

Last Thursday, Daniel and I boarded a train (Daniel's very first train ride ever, my first train ride in-country). We took a little vaca to a city just a few hours away. We didn't have any huge plans other than eating and relaxing. I believe we were successful.

I missed doing my 17 week recap, but i'll post the 17/18 weeks together this Friday. I did weigh myself before we left and realized I had lost a pound, but don't worry after these past few days, I should definitely be back on track for putting a few pounds on!

Our whole goal for this trip was to just relax. Not to try to see everything in the city, but to really just take some down time. It helped, that it rained Thurs-Saturday. And by rain, i mean torrential downpour almost the entire day. Which was lovely for us. We had a gorgeous hotel room with a great view, and english movie channels. The hotel had an indoor pool that was heated, which we went to a few times. I was pretty excited that my bathing suit fit!

We slept in, ate out, watched movies, ate ice cream, read, and went to Starbucks almost every day. It was SO nice not to have a plan or anything to do. We did splurge one night and had a steak dinner. It was the best steak I have EVER eaten! 

On Saturday we did decided to walk to a "nearby" restaurant. The city is laid out with lots of hills, it reminds me of what I imagine San Francisco would be like. Anyways.....we walked for a few hours and finally found what we were looking for. I woke up the next day and my calves were so sore....lame I know. 

When we got lost, we found the river. 

 Our last day we were walking and we saw a guy with a GAP bag. Be still my heart!!!! We asked the guy where the store was and found out it was kind of far away. I could not believe there was a GAP in the city the whole time and I didn't even know it! We raced to the GAP, which was only about 10 minutes by taxi. 

The GAP was 2 levels.....i was so excited. It didn't disappoint like the one in Malaysia did.

I asked if they had maternity clothes, and they didn't, but insisted on helping me find something. They showed me all of the weird long loose shirts that I would never wear, and then their stretch pants. I wasn't too disappointed that they didn't have anything for me, it was a long shot. BUT Daniel did find some jeans on sale, and after arguing persuading him to buy them, we all left pretty happy. 

Daniel let me hold his bag. 

We had an amazing time and it was hard to come back. It was a wonderful low key vacation and i'm so thankful we did it!

We've already hit the ground running, and started back to class today. 

love

laura

Headed to Houston

After spending about 10 days with my parents in Illinois, I headed south to Houston to see Sarah and the boys. I have to admit, I was pretty excited to be going to Texas. No matter where I live, somehow it always feels like home.

But first, here I am with my dad on Father's Day!!

I ate really good at Sarah's-she is an amazing cook and is totally crunchy, I love it! She cooks with qinoa, chia seeds, flax seed, and a lot of other organic stuff that I've never heard of. 

Chickpea pasta, bruschetta, salad:

Salmon, green beans, and qinoa:

Ethan (3) and Grant (5):

Me and the boys before church:

Almost every night, after the boys are tucked in, Ethan comes down and sleeps on the bottom step until Mike and Sarah go to bed. One night, we found him asleep like this. Crazy kid!

Whenever I would try to kneel down to get a picture with the boys they always tried to sit on me:

Me and Sarah-we were both in our pj's so it made for a strange pic.

I had a wonderful time in Houston. The heat wasn't too bad, and I had a wonderful time playing with the boys and eating yummy good food!

I've been back a week here, and we're leaving again today for a week of travel!

Stay tuned!

love

laura

Go Fish

Daniel and I (mostly me) wanted to do one excursion or little activity while we were in Malaysia.

We found a really good deal on a half day private fishing trip. We had a guy take us out on the water, give us lines and bait to fish, and then brought us to a small private beach where he cooked lunch for us. It was a pretty sweet deal.

These pictures aren't great, I was just pretty excited to be out on the water and see green anything.

Our guide gave us fishing lines with 2 hooks and shrimp for bait. We were pretty surprised how much fish we caught!! I'm sure our guide thought we were a little crazy, because each time we caught a fish I screamed and took a picture. Clearly, we're first timers.

The first fish I caught was a poisonous blow fish. It actually "blew" it self up when I caught it. Again, this caused some screaming because I thought it was a self-defense mechanism and was going to explode fish guts all over me.

Here's Daniel catching 2 fish at once!

Look at all our fish!!

After an hour or so we docked at a small private beach and our guide cooked us lunch while we hung out.

It was so yummy!

Good thing we aren't vegetarians, because it was nothing but meat!!

After lunch we walked by the beach and these sneaky monkeys stole our bag of snacks. This is why I really don't care for monkeys. (which totally random, in my class this past week we did a book on monkeys)

I can't believe this was just a few weeks ago!

I don't have a single picture from our last day. We pretty much slept, ate, and hung out at the beach. I haven't been feeling oh so great since getting back to our city...mostly sinuses from the weather I think. I'm hoping to get some energy and breathing ability back soon so I can run. Because for the love I need to get back into it.

Hope everyone is having a good Tuesday!

love

laura

Coffee & Chili's

Ya'll, I promise I will start back to running on Monday. Since we've been home I have been eating well but my body is very aware of the lack of exercise it's getting. So...my promise to you, blogworld, is to get it together on Monday!

And.....cue vaca day 4.

Ya'll know I love me some coffee. And because marrying me has made Daniel a better man, he is now addicted as well. So we were pretty shocked when we realized that almost everywhere in Malaysia serves instant coffee. This is just unreal to me. Even nicer restaurants, the norm was to serve instant (not so great) coffee and if you wanted freshly brewed (ummm yes) then it cost extra and you had to pay by the cup.
Anyways......there was this company that has several coffee and tea shops all over Malaysia that has a coffee showroom where you can sample.

So Tuesday morning we took the bus to the showroom to get our coffee fix. The first sampled I tried looked very carmelly like something was in it. It tasted GREAT, but I was convinced it wasn't just black flavored coffee. So I asked the girl who worked there if they had put anything in the coffee, and she said no, this was it naturally. Me thinking, oh wow! However......then I looked at the coffee they were selling and it was instant powdered coffee that had milk and creamer added. The whole showroom was for instant flavored coffee!!! And when I asked to try the actual coffee beans that they sold, they said they didn't offer samples!!! What world am I living in?!?!!?!?

However...the coffees were pretty tasty so we bought 2 bags to use when we're travelling or don't have time to make coffee at home. Because they were pretty tasty!

After our coffee fix we walked around a bit and looked at some grocery stores. Whenever I'm out of country I always look at grocery stores for special import things we don't usually get.

Then it was time for lunch, and we found the Chili's!!!!!

Chips n salsa, bacon burger, and nachos!!!

After filling our tummies, we went to the beach for a few hours. Then for dinner we went to this little cafe near our hotel that was ranked #1 on tripadvisor.  And don't look too close...I'm not wearing make up.

After such a long hard day, I wanted to get a pedicure, so Daniel did the Dr Fish Spa again while he waited for me.

That was Tuesday in Malaysia! Next post will include a very fun fishing trip!

love

laura

Mind the GAP

Okay, so one of the big reasons we chose to go to Penang, other than being able to afford it (ha!), was that it had a GAP and Chili's. Who wouldn't want to go on vacation and eat real american food and buy real american clothes that fit?? Exactly.

So....the mall that had the GAP (and I thought the Chili's but had Friday's instead) was about a 2-3 hour bus ride away from our hotel. Sadly, it was probably only about 30-40 miles, but taxi's there are way expensive and buses are cheap. So we took a bus for the first hour and tried to get on the next one, but it was really confusing and we spent a lot of time looking for it, so we got a taxi the rest of the way.

Anyways......we hadn't had breakfast or lunch yet (shocking i know), so we decided to do it up right....to start I got a pretzel from Auntie Anne's-for a $1 people!!! $1!!!! is that normal???? I felt like I just got the deal of a life time.

anyways....Daniel got a hamburger meal from McDonald's.

THEN.....we finished it off with donuts and coffee.

Those donuts you see in that picture are the FREE donuts that came with our coffee-that we didn't know about. This is after we had already eaten the donuts we ordered. Waste not :)

The mall we went to is HUGE!!! It had over 5 floors and each floor was so big that the ends were labeled, N, S, E, and W. We started at the top floor, walked completely all the way around one side then made a second loop to see everything on the other side. I refused to miss anything. And we're pretty sure we walked at least 5 miles.

Anyways...after one of my many bathroom stops (and note to Malaysia...please provide toilet paper in your public restrooms in nice places), I came out and saw Daniel and for some reason just the way he was standing with the coffees and this cute smile....I had to take a picture. His adorableness is just too much.

And the point of all of this, is of course....The GAP.

Sadly, it all went downhill after this picture. I had such high hopes. But sadly, this GAP only carried really nice work clothes and none of their basic items or anything that really resembled the GAP, other than their jeans (which I just got 3 pairs of so...) It was also the size of a shoebox. Here's the low point....I didn't even find a single piece of clothing I wanted to try on. I know, I know......

Luckily, the Body Shop was there to rescue me and take some of my money.

After dinner at Friday's, we took our very tired selves and rode 2 buses to get back to our hotel. It has been a LONG day. Fun, but long! We did find some cute clothes though at some discount stores. One store even carried Target brands and had the exact same pair of shorts that I bought at a real Target, and had actually brought on vaca with me. Small world.

I was going to do two days in this post, but who knew I could talk so much about the GAP? :)

love

laura

Fish Spa and Sunsets

Day two of vaca was similar to day 1. Eating, walking around and exploring, and eating some more. I forgot to say that we did spend a few hours at the beach both days.

After breakfast on Sunday, we walked around for a few hours and explored.

And yes, we're both still tired. It took a few days....

And yes, we are wearing the same thing we wore the day before. We usually wear things 2-3 times in a row where we live, so it only seemed natural to carry this into vaca.

After breakfast, we walked along the beach and saw a sign for a waterfall near the hills, so we followed that path for a while. While we never actually made it to the waterfall, we had the best time just being out in nature and feeling the sunshine.

This morning, ended up being one of my favorites.

After walking around for a few hours (and getting a little sunburnt), we decided to eat...again.

I ordered this fruit platter, and it is seriously the largest bowl of fruit I had ever seen! It has fresh mangoes, green grapes, strawberries, and pineapple! It was soooo yummy!!! And the strawberries were some of the best I have ever had!!

We spent the afternoon lounging around at the beach and reading.

We watched the sun set over the hills/mountains before heading to dinner.

Where we live, we rarely get to see the sun, let alone a sunset. We were pretty thrilled about it!

Dinner was a mix of Indian, Chinese, and roti's!

After dinner we went to the Dr Fish Spa...anyone??? They have these places all over Malaysia and other places in Asia. Basically you put your feet in a fish tank, and the fish nibble on your feet. We only did it for 30 minutes, but some people do it for hours. It's supposed to be good for your health, but we really just wanted to try it for fun.

Daniels' feet:

It didn't really hurt, but it did feel SO weird!!! It kind of tickled, but you could really feel the fish giving you little bites. I was laughing and screaming so hard, it felt so strange!!

Look at then just gnawin away!

I would put this in the most fun we've ever had category. It was so great try something new!!

Class starts back tomorrow morning, so it's off to bed for me! Good nite!

love

laura