Visit from Brother Bear

My brother, Aaron, flew out on Friday for a weekend visit.  I picked him up at the airport and we met Cliff and Jordan at Joe T's.  We hadn't taken Aaron there before and the best part... there was no line!  After filling up on margaritas and enchiladas (well, I ordered the chicken fajita salad and pretended like I was eating healthy while scarfing the whole thing down and then following it up with a cheese tostada and a few spoonfuls of refried beans), Aaron and I headed to the White Elephant Saloon for a little bit of the Stockyards experience.  Then we finished up at the Eagle's Nest near our house and listened to some tunes from Professor D (who coincidentally played at the housing association conference I attended last week... although I didn't stick around for the fun activities). 

A sibling pic at the White Elephant

Cliff set his alarm clock on Saturday morning so that he and Jordan could go fishing, so I made myself go to swim practice.  I wasn't super motivated, but I was glad I did it and I felt a lot better afterwards.  I made a quick Trader Joe's run on the way home and then took a long nap.  The four of us had some lunch at Boo Ray's and then spent a little time in the pool with GusGus.  That evening my brother and I headed to Dallas.  We met up with a college friend of mine for some drinks and then we hit up the dance club where we had our first encounter ever with "furries":

So needless to say, I had to scratch some ears and rub some bellies!

The next day was full of fat girl remorse.  We had a snack in the late afternoon and didn't eat dinner and then we didn't eat until about 1:00 the next day.  So that meant stuffing my pie hole with Sunday homestyle (fried) chicken, dumplings, and hashbrown casserole at Cracker Barrel and washing it down with blackberry pie a la mode.  After some drinks and snacks in the afternoon, we ate a late dinner at El Paseo.  I exercised a little bit of common sense and ordered the fajita chicken salad, but my stomach is still pretty upset with me over yesterday's events.  Plus I took a long nap yesterday and my sleep schedule was totally off, so I couldn't get to sleep last night until close to 1 am.  Fortunately I took the day off work since my brother doesn't leave until this evening.  So I'm about to hit the pavement for a run and burn off some of yesterday's grease.  And a visit wouldn't be complete without some love from the pups...