It's a Fiesta!

You all know of my love for Fiestaware by now, right?  And are also aware of my fondness for rearranging things in my house as well?  Alright, now that that's out of the way, you should not be surprised to hear that I moved everything around on my kitchen counters recently, and when I finished it was apparent, once again, that I needed an additional canister in the blue family.  I keep thinking that every time I bring out my blue canisters and then when I go online to see what my options are, I gasp at the prices and never end up buying anything.

Part of the reason we decided to go to Galveston was to check out the Fiestaware store there - along with a blue canister, I was also hoping to find some singles of the ball salt and pepper shakers that I'm collecting, and maybe a mini pitcher or two.

It doesn't look like much from the outside.

And it's quite festive on the inside.  It's owned by a mother/daughter team who couldn't be nicer and more helpful which made for a great time there.

And I found things.  Oh yes indeed.  However, when I asked if they had a turquoise canister, they said no.  But I poked around and found one that was tucked behind some other canisters and you can see by all of the strings of lights and flower garlands, how easy it was for them to miss.  I was extra happy to find it in the smallest size, which meant the price wouldn't be super high, whew!  Their price was actually less than it is when it's on sale at the department stores, which made me even more happy!

Aww, look how pretty!  

Every once in a while I like to clear my counters as much as possible so I can breathe.  We were keeping the outside bread here but discovered it would fit into the drawer just below this countertop, so ahhh, it's a zen-like counter in shades of blue.

Salt and pepper shakers?  Oh, I found a few.  They were sold individually which was perfect for me:

Meadow, Juniper, Turquoise, Periwinkle, Lapis.

My old Coke box is beginning to look so colorful!  And when I acquire a lot more colors, I will take out the doubles - I just have them in for filler right now.

Bullion bowls in Daffodil and Poppy.

Poppy, Daffodil, Lemongrass, Turquoise, Lapis, White.

Oh dang it, I just realized that my yellow bowl - Sunflower - is in the cupboard with my warm-colored dishes!  I would have included it in the picture had I remembered.  Anyway, I love this size - they are great for holding the perfect amount of granola, or some nuts, or Parmesan cheese at the table on pasta night...so many options, yet I have never actually used one for bullion!

I love the mini disc pitchers and wanted to add to my collection.  Well, if you can call owning one a collection.  I do.  Here's what I bought:

Scarlett and Meadow - welcome to the family.

OK now it looks like a collection.

Did you notice the reflection of the mini disc pitchers on my countertop?  Purely an accident, but when I saw it, I felt like a professional photographer!  Must have been the time of day - I'll have to remember that for my next photo session.

Gavleston Oh Galveston!

Jeff's birthday was last Friday, and he had the day off, so we decided to take a day trip to Galveston, which is about a two and a half hour drive south.  We left around 8:00 am to avoid hitting the work commute traffic in Houston, and we did pretty well with that, arriving in Galveston about 10:45. 

First thing we did was to hit the Yesterday's Best Fiestaware store!  This store has a lot of the retired Fiesta colors and pieces, along with current colors.  I had a few items in mind that I was looking for, plus anything wonderful that I happened to see.  I got what I wanted, which I'll show on Friday's post.  Oh, I did happen upon something wonderful - a lilac mini pitcher.  The lilac colorway has been retired for over twenty years, plus it was only in production for two years, so it's pretty expensive when you find it.  The mini pitcher was $99.  Sold!  No, haha - it was so pretty but it was most definitely out of my price range.

Next we wandered around a bit:

This place caught my eye for the name, obviously.  But afterward when I was looking at all the pictures that I took, I had to laugh at the couple trying to figure out how to do the street pay-to-park because that was Jeff and I.  This made me feel better - I kept thinking that we were just country bumpkins who didn't know how to work these newfangled parking meters, LOL.

We ate lunch at the Sunflower Cafe, which was good, but saved room for the real treat later on:

LaKing's!  Home of the best ice cream and taffy made right in front of you!  We happened to arrive during one of the taffy pull times so that was fun to watch.

I got coffee chip (if there is a flavor with coffee in it, I will always order it) and Jeff got strawberry.  He said it was the best strawberry ice cream he'd ever had and if he wasn't so full he would have gone back in for another scoop!

We poked around in a few shops and art galleries - we are always looking for something to hang on the walls just outside of my office, but nothing that we could afford sparked joy.  Then we spied some graffiti walls and beelined over to them:

Jeff's workplace had a superhero summer camp last week so he loved this.

Another fun one!

We drove to the Seawall so I could revisit the place of my first half marathon.  I took a picture of this and sent it to my old running buddy Jenny, who I ran the race with:

She responded immediately with the laughing/crying emoji - we spent so much of that race just trying to make it to the next trash can!  You can read the story of the race and the trash cans here, if you're interested.

We decided to park and go to a restaurant/bar to sit outside facing the water:

...but first, a drink selfie, of course.  We were lucky that it was overcast most of the time - when the sun peeked out, it was hot.  We reapplied sunscreen liberally while we were sitting there.

Jeff with Pleasure Pier in the distance.  First, that name sounds a little dirty.  Second, they charge $10 per person just to walk around!  What the what??  I thought it would be like the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, where it's always been free to wander around and if you wanted to go on rides, you would buy a ticket.  So this is as close as we got to Pleasure Pier.

I didn't connect the name of the restaurant/bar, Float, with a pool until we walked by one as we headed upstairs, but there you go - we could have worn our swim suits and had our drinks in the pool!  Next time...

We had enough of Galveston and left early to avoid most of the Houston commuter traffic.  We decided to head over to The Woodlands, where Jeff happily relaxed in a comfy chair at Nordstrom while I bought a lip crayon.  He was sitting in the shoe department and I pulled a pink sandal off the display to try on while he sat there - it was cute, I loved it, and he said "buy it - you can't wear your running shoes so this is a good replacement":

A quick picture while we drove home of my new Birkenstock Mayari sandals!

Oh - one last picture of Jeff with his birthday mudslide dessert (because you can never have too much ice cream on your birthday):

He shared - and it was yummy.  A nice way to cap off his birthday!