Niko Niko's

Mike and I watch Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives with Guy Fieri on a fairly regular basis. We like to go to places he's featured when possible so when we were driving through Houston recently we stopped at Niko Niko's for lunch.

So good! I love their falafel and Mike got the Souvlaki Sandwich. For dessert we got the Loukoumades which are like little donuts dipped in honey and sprinkled with powdered sugar. Love!

San Francisco through Diana

Mike and I bought a Diana Lomography camera which the website describes like this: With each click of the shutter, a moment is captured in a unique and fairly unpredictable way...

I really like cameras like this. It uses film, is plastic and has a manual shutter lever. There's nothing fancy. No focus. No way to fix the photos. They just come out the way they are shot. Sometimes light leaks in and your pictures have streaks or shadows you didn't see when you shot them. That's all in the fun of getting the film back (does anyone remember what that was like... waiting to get film back from the store? its a lot more fun than just loading the memory card onto the computer. or so i think)

Anywho. Here are a few of my favorites. Some I took and some Mike took. Sometimes I forgot to wind the film and exposed two pictures on the same negative. All in good fun.

Scenes of San Francisco

Oh, how much I enjoyed our trip to SF. It couldn't have come at a better time! Here are some of my photos. Mike's editing his and some should be put on his blog and facebook.

love that sign!

sea lions... smelly

story of sourdough

mike's a ninja

are you lost?

chinatown

gelato

little italy

napa

streetcar

cute group of girls on the beach

Food of San Francisco

Its only fitting to start off depicting our San Francisco trip with food...

With some 3,489 places to eat, more per capita than any other major city in the United States, it’s no wonder that after scenery the second most popular reason for visiting this 47-square-mile culinary crossroads is “restaurants.” (source)

No shortage of food for sure. There wasn't enough time in the day to hit all the places we wanted (just an excuse to go back) but we made a pretty good dent in our list!

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(1) in & out (2) cherries (3) bbq pork rice noodle roll [not pictured], beef fried rice [maybe the best rice we've had] and kung pao chicken at sam wo (4) strawberry, vanilla bean and whiskey [not pictured] gelato at gelateria naia (5, 6, 7) honey bourbon sour, duck confit spring roll and vietnamese snapper sandwich at butterfly (8) meat cone at boccolone [we picked up peppered salami] (9, 10) [empty] clam chowder bread bowl and crab mac & cheese at boudin [delish sourdough bread also] (11) sweets at bouchon (12) caramel candy apple truffle pop at dean & deluca (13) rocket arugula pizza at calzone's (14, 15) green onion & cheddar biscuits with gravy and italian scramble at cafe divine where mike finally uttered "i just can't finish another plate of food" [if you know mike, you know that he is usually a bottomless pit so this was quite a moment]

Houston Weekend

Mike and I took off to Houston last weekend to visit my bestie, shoot some photos, attend a wedding and visit with our wedding photographer turned friend Julie (oh and eat and sleep too). I'm sure you can guess that we planned 100 things into our short weekend... not even realizing we were coming into town during a golf tournament and the men's final four! Not to be discouraged, we edited our plans and got down to business...

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(1) & (2) guava margaritas and brisket tacos thanks to el tiempo (3) & (4) a stop at laura's very local bar, rose's garden where we dropped in on an april fool's fake wedding reception and were offered sausage (that's what she said) and politically incorrect wedding cake then spotted this iguana (a real one that has been stuffed, ick) (5) lunch in cancun via juan mon's international sandwiches (such a cool idea, maybe nibbe could pull it off?) (6) & (7) antique shopping and gawking off taft (8) wiener dog (9) pulled pork taquito brunch at cedar creek (10) photoshoots


just a note... the hubs and i celebrated 6 months of married life yesterday!

Cabo San Lucas

Mike and I went on our honeymoon a few days after closing on the house... a very well deserved honeymoon I might mention. I was going through a serious lack of sleep due to the wildabeast and I slept SO much on our trip thankfully!

We went to a beautiful resort on a cliff-like side of Cabo San Lucas called Pueblo Bonito Sunset Beach. While the beach water wasn't swim friendly, it was quiet, sunny and incredibly relaxing!

Here are a few of our shots from our trip - You can see more on Mike's new facebook page (search for Michael Hardisty Photography) or check his blog in the next few weeks!

Mitzi & Danny Get Married!

The whole gang traveled to South Padre Island to watch our friends Mitzi and Danny get married. We had a great rehearsal dinner Friday night and then headed to the hotel bar to watch the "band" belt out some Lady Gaga and Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You." Saturday the girls got up early and headed out to get our hair done and spend some time relaxing before putting on make-up and heading to the church. Mitzi and Danny had a great ceremony then we hopped on the party bus and headed to the reception. We ate, laughed, danced, took pictures and had a really great time!

we're next!

aa

the bridesmaids

with the bride

the guys and the groom

time to head back!