Drinks, Dancing and Crabs... All TOTALLY Unrelated!

This past weekend, I went to Houston to visit my brother and his family. Thursday night I went with my sister-in-law to her neighborhood bunco get together. They frequently need subs and I frequently have summer vacations where I can do so, so I do. I am happy to announce that I, for the first time, made it from the last to the first (and best) table for bunco (I was proud, even if I only got to stay for just one round)! I also made, not one, but TWO, bunco's!!!

But neither of those were good enough to win any sort-of prize, dang-it. Apparently, League City has some of the best bunco players that ever played. :)

But I did make it to the "after party." See the lady who hosted isn't big on partying, but the 60-year-old lady across the street is. So we all crashed her place for some more drinking. I made myself and my sister-in-law, Jennifer, my new favorite drink, Tito's vodka and Topo Chico (My brother swears it's just a vodka tonic, but Jennifer and I swear otherwise). If you've never heard of either, you wouldn't be alone. Tito's is a vodka made in Austin, ranked higher than Grey Goose in most taste tests. Topo Chico is made in Mexico and is extremely hard to find, well, when you are looking for the "twist of lime" version. But if you find it, BUY IT. It's practically worth it's weight in gold.

(Well, not really, BUT I have yet to find a place that carries stock in it steadily. But you can always buy the regular Topo Chico and add lime though, it's not quite the same, but similar!)

Anyways, she accused me, by the end of the night, of not putting vodka in her drink, and I tried re-assuring her otherwise. But all of us ladies had a great time talking that night. And thanks to the great vodka, we didn't have to pay for it the next day!

Friday I got the pleasure of going with my brother and Jennifer to my ex-boyfriend's apartment to say good-bye to him, his wife and baby as they packed up to leave the next day for Missouri. If you are confused by this, then you need to read this, this and maybe a little of this. There's probably about a billion of other blogs of mine on the subject, but I didn't feel like looking them ALL up.

To be honest, I am totally okay with them and really like her and their baby (haha, but not so much him, naturally.). And I thought about just staying home while they all went to say good-bye, but a part of me wanted to say good-bye too (and also, not be a pouty baby). So we went to their apartment, drank a magnum bottle of wine together (seriously), laughed at their way-over-weight baby (that is soooo cute!), took a shot of tequila (because they were going to throw it out) and I spilled a glass of wine (how could you even imagine after all of that alcohol that I could do that?) on their clean carpets that they were almost free of ruining even with a baby.

But I cleaned it and it was just like new! And we all said good-bye, not for good, I am sure. I do have a way of picking the exact weekends they are there or have plans with my brother and sister-in-law, so I am sure it was far from good-bye (and secretly, I am fine with that, cause their kid IS SO DANG CUTE!!!).

(Oh, and the cute-ness all comes from Michelle (his mom)'s side. Seriously, he looks just like her. So don't think it's cause of some crazy psychological thing here, baby looks like mama, and I don't actually mind mama.)

ANYWAYS...

My niece, Elle had her dance recital on Saturday. It was so cute! But, we got there 50 minutes early so we could get a good seat and still got the last row, AWESOME! When do you have to show up to these things to get a good seat?!?

I may be biased, but I think she was seriously the best dancer in her class! She actually did two dances, one tap and one ballet. We had her perform it at Michelle and Ryan's the night before, and she really knew most of the dance moves! Anyways, here she is with her sister, Grey, after the show. And if you noticed the burn on Elle's head, she was burned by the curling iron used for her recital photos earlier that week. Oh, the price of beauty.

And here's my video I took of the two dances:

(PS, I decided to watch the recital rather than try to capture the perfect video. Cause, as you'll see in the video, there is a professional that will take care of the video.)

(Oh, and in case you don't hear me telling the little girl sitting next to me, she is in the back row to begin with on the far left, it looks like she is second to the left. Then she's third to the left. And lastly, She's in the very front, alone, in the front of the line! AND she's definitely the kid that STOPS and looks out at the audience instead of leaving like the rest of the kids, she's not shy!)

(Oh oh, and in case you were wondering, we all questioned the validity of LET IT SNOW as a song to dance to in HOUSTON in JUNE, but whatever.)

And lastly, my brother and myself went to a fish market on Sunday. In case you have never been, it can be over-whelming to one that's never been. I basically froze up and let my brother look into all the eyes of those poor dead fish and decide with we would devour that night for dinner. (And by the time we did eat, I was not sad at all about it.)

But I did look at the LIVE crab with no such pity, and I bought (in addition to his Flounder) four crabs and Zataran's Crab Boil all for the whopping total of $5 bucks! I couldn't believe that!

And here's our adventure cooking up those guys:

And they were DELICIOUS!!! Best five bucks I've spent in awhile!!!

And that's the shortest version of this weekend that I could muster up...