And the festivities continue all through the weekend

So we had a wonderful anniversary weekend, beginning last Thursday. We started off the day the way any couple would, really, with a visit to a surgeon to discuss removing my implants. 'What?!', you say? 'But they're hardly even noticeable!'

I know, I know, but they've been driving me crazy since the day I had them put in. And they really haven't given me the quality of life improvement I was hoping for. They may be small, but the battery pack and leads under the skin just rub me the wrong way. I'm talking of course about the spinal cord stimulator system that I had put in last year. I guess you would just call it one implant though I have two incisions for the two surgical sites. To put it mildly, it hasn't helped at all, so I've decided to have it taken out.

Anyway, back to the anniversary. You may remember we've booked a cruise in November as the actual celebration - a sort of commemorative trip, since that's what we did for our honeymoon. And the hurricanes should explain why we waited til November to travel to the Caribbean.

But it seemed a shame to let the occasion go without some type of celebration, so this weekend we thought we'd go out of town on a little mini-vacation. Only we really didn't feel like traveling since we have so many other trips going on this year. Instead, we stayed in downtown Austin, which turned out to be just perfect. A little "gettin' to know ya" for this new city we now call home.

We stayed at the Embassy Suites on South Congress, Friday through Sunday. After letting them know it was our anniversary, we found ourselves in one of their best rooms - a corner suite with spectacular views of the city, Capitol building and river. The first night we enjoyed the hotel happy hour and reminisced about how we stayed at an Embassy Suites resort for our first anniversary - where I'm pretty sure I broke my butt by doing a canon ball into the shallow end of the pool. Ah, the memories. I kept the festivities under control at this happy hour though, and we didn't go swimming.

On Saturday we walked all around town, beginning with lunch at a new Irish pub we found in the warehouse district. Very enjoyable, but too dim to get any good pics. After that, we hiked the rest of the 14 blocks to the Capitol and enjoyed a self-guided tour like regular old tourists. That afternoon we did go swimming, sans canon balls.

Saturday night we hit the town. We started at the historic Driskill Hotel on Sixth Street. We enjoyed a piano concert in their lounge. Next, we went to the Speakeasy, back down in the warehouse district. This is our favorite find so far. There is a rooftop terrace, with a great view of the city and tons of big loungy couch-type seating with big pillows. Finally, we had a bite to eat at a place called Saba next to the Cedar Street Courtyard, where perhaps the best 80s cover band ever to play the earth was rockin' out, mullets blowing in the breeze of the fans on stage. By then it was midnight, a good two hours past our bedtime, so we called it a night.

Sunday we walked all around the retro shopping district on South Congress ("SoCo") and enjoyed another great band at an original coffee shop named Jo's. Can't recall the name of the band, but they were probably the best music we heard all weekend. We finished the day by visiting the legendary Whole Foods downtown, and having lunch at the Waterloo Ice House.

Ok, I'd say that's more documentation of a weekend than anyone would ever want or need. We had a lot of fun, but believe it or not, we're about to have an even better weekend coming up, because our best friend in the world - Bob Sherwood - is coming to visit. CAN'T WAIT!!

PICS FROM THIS WEEKEND AT THE GALLERY.