A lazy Saturday

Here it is 4:30 in the afternoon and I just got out of the shower. I am pretty sure that is about as lazy as you can get on a Saturday. Our morning consisted of catching up on our TiVo and then watching random reality shows. It is possible that I could still be sitting on the couch flipping back and forth between Food Network and some fishing show, but I have very exciting news to report. Last night Catherine's grandpa called and asked us if we would like to join them for dinner at...(drum roll please)...Swingin' Door BBQ in Richmond, Texas. What is so special about that? Well the Swingin' Door just happens to be the same place that we had our rehearsal dinner for the wedding.

A little bit of a back story on this place. Lesli (our wedding coordinator at the place we got married) recommended this place to us after we told her that we just wanted a casual, laid back dinner that had some Texas flair to it. Since I am from Indiana (and still lovingly referred to as a Yankee after almost 5 years of being out of the great North) I wanted to share some Texas food with my other Yankee guests and who doesn't like good BBQ. So my parents booked our dinner at the Swingin' Door and Catherine and I had every intention to go to the restaurant and try the food before we had our close friends and family there for our rehearsal dinner. Well as many of you know, the closer your wedding gets the less time you have to go out and try new restaurants - you are just struggling to get everything done before your guests start to arrive. With that being said, we never got the chance to go eat. So the night of the rehearsal came and I was a little nervous about the food.

No one in our group had ever ate at Swinging Door... but we were pleasantly surprised with how awesome the food and atmosphere was! My parents had reserved an entire private room for us and arranged for us to be served family style, where each table got their own dishes to share. It was great! We had a wonderful time. Of course, Catherine and I had a pretty big day the next day, so neither of us ate too much. The day of the wedding, we had a pretty fancy meal including prime beef tenderloin, mushroom risotto, crab cakes, empanadas, wedding cake, grooms cake truffles, southwestern egg rolls, chicken tenders (Cat's favorite), imported cheeses and fruits,... etc. We had a real spread! But all of us in the wedding party kept mentioning how great the barbecue was from the night before and how we couldn't wait to go back.

Well... now we'll get our chance! We're just about to make the thirty minute drive over to Richmond and have a fun night out with Catherine's grandparents and mom. Just another rockin' Saturday night in our life!

Hopefully we'll get some pictures to share from our meal tonight.

Here's some pictures I took this week on some of my adventures.

Just down the road from our Brahman showbarn there is a house that always has an assortment of animals, both large and small. I was driving to Wharton to meet Catherine and Larry's for lunch and when I drove by this place the goats and mini horse were close to the fence so I took a quick picture.

Right next to Larry's restaurant there is a little park and the Wharton Art Club has painted some really cool flowers on the side of a building. I have not noticed this place in all the time I have been in Texas, but the other day I drove by and saw this neat place.