A Visit About Food

This past weekend S, one of my best friends from college, came for a visit. S is a lawyer living in NYC, so she needed a break from her work and from the cold weather. Luckily, we helped her out with some nice weather and some relaxing activities.
When I say "relaxing activities," I mean activities that consist of a lot of eating. S is just like us--all about eating good food. We got food from 3 places that she ate at (and loved) during her last visit 2 years ago: Chacho's, Acenar, and Rudy's BBQ. These are pretty much staples for people who come visit us because it entails cheap Mexican food, fancy Mexican food, and BBQ. I also like to take guests to Magnolia Pancake Haus for breakfast because they have the lightest, fluffiest pancakes ever. I took S the last time she came, so this time I decided to change things up and take her to The Guenther House instead. See, my good friend, K, and I have this on-going debate about the best breakfast place to take guests to. I always take guests to Magnolia and she always does Guenther House. The Guenther House is part of a flour mill, so their breakfast menu is small compared to Magnolia because they mainly serve flour-based breakfast foods--waffles, biscuits, and pancakes. Sometimes I'm just in the mood for more, ya know? Well, a few weeks ago, B and I took the kids to Guenther House and discovered that it's actually quite yummy. B got the chicken quesadillas (which are absolutely delicious) and I shared waffles and potatoes with the kids. Everything was great. The other thing I discovered was how charming the location and the house were. It's an old house from 1860 that's located right on the San Antonio River, so it definitely has more appeal than the strip mall that Magnolia is located in. To top things off, they have the cutest gift shop on the 3rd floor. They sell so many unique cookie cutters and pancake molds. Now I can see why K takes her guests to Guenther House. I think I may be changing my tune as well. Needless to say, S loved the Guenther House, too.

Besides eating food, we also found time to run a few errands (how fun), visit the zoo, do a little shopping, eat Amy's Ice Cream (again with the eating!), watch "great" movies (e.g. "Step Up 2"), play Seinfeld Scene It, play in the backyard, and bake cookies (more food). S requested that we make lots of cookies during her visit, so we tried out my new America's Test Kitchen family cookbook and made some chocolate chip cookies and THE BEST snickerdoodles. Yum! (Why is it that we can never veer away from food??)

It was a nice, relaxing weekend and everyone had fun. The kids really enjoyed having Auntie S around. The first morning S was here, Elina literally showed her every single toy that she owned. Elina was showing her things that she doesn't even play with anymore. Wow. I had a great time catching up with S about life, friends, and family. We love that all of our college friends are rather low-maintenance. We might not talk on the phone or write an email for months, but when we see each other, we just pick up right where we left off. There are never any hard feelings because we all know we have busy lives. S knows that if I don't call or email, it doesn't mean that I don't think about her. It just means that Eli is probably dipping his hand into the toilet bowl and Elina is trying to negotiate more television time. Life.