Mini Vacation

I was going to post this last night, but both our internet and TV were not working.  Apparently, it was something with fiber optic cables.  I don't know.  It's working now, so that's all that matters.

After our Thanksgiving shopping shenanigans, Andy and I packed up our bags and headed to San Marcos on about 3 hours of sleep.  I know, we're crazy!  But we had such a great weekend!  We wanted to do some shopping at the outlet malls in San Marcos and then Andy wanted to go to Gruene.  So we figured, what the heck why not!  Andy's mom took Maddie Mae back with her so that we wouldn't have to take her to a pet resort or just not go anywhere.  I love his parents so much!  They are always so supportive of us and want to offer a helping hand whenever they can.

So, back to the trip.  We left our house at 4:00am.  I am so glad Andy drove because I definitely fell asleep at some point on the drive.  Poor guy, I know he was tired too.  He's such a trooper though.  Of course we had to stop at Bucee's on our way.  It was quite deserted at 5:30 in the morning which was so nice compared to any other time we have stopped.

We arrived at the outlet malls around 7:00, and I was shocked to see how empty the parking lot was.  All of the parking lots.  It was so nice!  I think there were less people at 7:00am on Black Friday than there are on any normal weekend.  One of the sales associates said that most of the sales started at midnight and that the crowd died down around 5:00.  So we arrived at the perfect time - not crowded and the sales were still going.  We shopped until about noon.  We got most of the girl Christmas gifts, and I got a lot of clothes as well.  Andy found some khaki pants at the Nike outlet which was awesome.  He really needed some new ones.

Andy and I split up at one point, and he surprised
me with a pair of Oakley sunglasses!  I love them!

Now we both have Oakleys!!

It was a good shopping day!

After we finished shopping, we ate at Panera Bread for lunch.  Then we headed to our hotel in New Braunfels.  We checked in, unloaded our bags out of the car, and literally passed out.  We woke up around 5:00 and started getting ready for dinner.  We were going to head to Gruene but decided we would do that on Saturday evening.  So we stayed in New Braunfels and ate at Johnny Carino's.  After dinner, we went to the movies and watched the new Hunger Games movie Catching Fire.  Oh it was so good!  (I promise I won't spill any details!)  If you haven't seen it, you should definitely go.  Andy and I rarely actually go to the movies, but we have seen two movies at the theaters this year.  I know, look at us go!

In the hotel room before our dinner and a movie night

Saturday morning we slept in until about 9:00 and went to work out in the fitness room at the hotel.  Then we showered and headed to Buda so Andy could go to Cabela's.  He said that was our trade-off since he shopped with me at the outlet malls.  But I like Cabela's too so it was a win-win for me.

He was happy!  We walked through the ENTIRE store.
We didn't skip a single section!

For the evening/night, we went to Gruene.  We stopped at the Winery on the Gruene and did a wine tasting plus had a glass of wine.  We had already been there before, but it was still fun.  After our trip to Fredericksburg, I have decided that one of my favorite things is wine tasting.  I'm pretty picky with my wine (imagine that!), but as long as they have something really sweet, I'll be fine.

Deer walking through someone's yard.  We were so close to it!

Wine tasting!

We had dinner at the Gruene River Grill.  It was delicious!  Then we headed over to another winery/wine bar.  They had free wine tastings, so we found something we liked and bought a couple of glasses of wine.  This place had a fire pit lit outside so we just hung out next to the fire and enjoyed each other's company.  There was a band playing at Gruene Hall that night, but we decided to skip out since there was a cover charge and we'd never heard of the band.

Gruene water tower decorated for Christmas

Gruene Hall decorated too!

It's soo good!

Enjoying the fire!

I love taking pictures of Andy and I... Well, I promise
we didn't drink too much wine.  The dang flash was on! LOL

Then Sunday we headed back home and back to reality.  Andy dropped me off at the house and we unloaded the car.  Then he met his mom halfway to pick up Maddie so that I could get stuff done around the house and ready for the upcoming week.  Now we have two and a half weeks until Christmas break, but I think that break is going to be consumed with basketball tournaments and practices - ugh!  But hey, a break is a break and I'll take anything at this point in the school year.