Okay I apologize in advance this is gonna be a long one! But I want to write it all down before I forget it! So here it goes!
The BFSC purchased some volleyball equipment from a sports facility in Plano, TX and needed someone to pick them up and bring them back. Jerry and I had been dying to go on some sort of vacation and this was the perfect opportunity. So we volunteered to go. I'll admit I wasn't looking forward to riding a Uhaul back from Texas when I am 6 months pregnant but that was the price I was willing to pay to get out of AZ for awhile. The kids stayed with my parents and then Jerry's mom and we will be forever grateful to them for helping us watch the kids while we were gone.
So we left early on thursday morning and flew into Dallas. We got there around noon, got our rental car and headed towards our hotel in Plano. (Plano is just north of the dallas area) The airport at Dallas/Ft Worth is HUGE and we had a little trouble getting out of there. But we only had to turn around once. That was good! It was too early to check in so we had lunch at "On The Border" (I get a discount since I work for Chili's) And then we went to look for the PSA (the sports facility we were getting the equipment from). We actually had the address wrong so we kept circling around where the complex should have been, but never saw it. Finally we called them and figured out we were on the wrong street, and we finally found it. Some of you have seen pics of our sports complex and it is going to be a pretty big facility. We knew the PSA had a lot more things going on and was more established, but we were not prepared to find this huge facility! It can easily fit 4 soccer fields side by side and then 2 more along the edges back to back. If that makes since. That doesn't include the indoor ice rink they had as well with an upstairs viewing area and classrooms! It was truly amazing. The people were so friendly and showed us the equipment we were going to pick up and we set up a time for the next day to come get it. That took enough time so that we could check into our hotel. . .
We picked this hotel, because on the website, you could tell it was ultra contemporary and modern and Jerry loves that style. I was a little nervous we wouldn't fit in, but it was fine. It was a beautiful brick building with exposed pipes and modern furnishings. They had egg chairs and lounge areas. The room was beautiful. Small but fine. Huge flatscreen tv, king platform bed, vessel sink in the bathroom. I found out that Daniel Vosovic from Project Runway actually designed their uniforms. (I am a huge Project Runway fan!) So we loved the hotel!
That night we got tickets for Medieval Times. We were so excited to go! We had never been. And have always wanted to! We felt a little ashamed for going without Jackson and Briana. Jackson is in love with swords and knights and jousting. And Briana loves anything with princesses. But we figured we would take them again someday. Anyways, it was so fun. All the workers always addressed us as "my lady" or "good sir". We got into the theatre and sat down. We were in the Red section, cheering for the Red Knight. We got ready for dinner. There was no silverware, we had to use our hands. They had tomato bisque soup which Jerry absolutely loved. He finished mine off. Then the main course was a half of a chicken, a short rib and roasted potato. It was a lot of food and very good. Then for dessert we had a apple crisp. While we ate, the show began. There was 6 knights and the king and princess watching on. They did different tricks on their horses, jousted and fought to the "death". At first our knight didn't do so well. He missed several events. But in the end he was the winner of the tournament, until the bad green knight came back and got him from behind! Then the good prince finally returned and beat the green knight for good and that was the show. It was such a good time. We can't wait to take the kids someday.
So Friday morning we picked up the Penske truck, then went and got the equipment. They were nice enough to have some helpers load up the truck. That is when we really felt the texas humidity. By the time we were done, Jerry could wipe off the sweat off his brow and make a puddle on the ground. It was quite gross. We dropped off the truck and then went sightseeing the rest of the day. Every place we planned to go took us along this road called Inwood Rd. This is the road where we fell in love with these huge beautiful houses. We went "dreambuilding" and comparing the different homes and saying what we liked and what we would do differently. Then we went to the "Sixth Floor Museum". This is actually the old Texas School Book Depository, where Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated Pres. John F. Kennedy. They have a museum on the "Sixth Floor" depicting JFK and a little bit of his life and then the events leading up to the assassination and all the evidence and aftermath of that historic day. The tour is by audio and you just follow the audio guide. It was a neat experience and gave you chills when they show reenactments and live footage of the event. We then went out onto Dealey Plaza and they actually have "X"s on the spots where the different shots occurred on the road. All around us was the busy downtown Dallas area, but at the same time you could feel the respect and wonder at this historic spot and it is something I will never forget.
We then found the Crate and Barrel Outlet store. (thanks lynette!) I wasn't too impressed. I expected it to be bigger, but at least we went. Then we headed to find the Dallas Temple. One thing that we noticed driving around Dallas/Plano, was that we could not find one LDS church. Being from here, it seems like there is always a church around the corner. We figured they were just back in the housing, since we mostly stayed on main roads. We definitely saw many a baptist church and other religions. So anyways, we found the Dallas Temple and it is beautiful! Back in the middle of subdivisions, you come upon the temple. It had beautifully maintained grounds and that special peace you feel at any temple. We didn't go inside, we didn't bring clothes, but it didn't look like it was open. There were only some maintenance trucks towards the back of the building. But it was fun to go see. We then headed back to our hotel to rest and get ready to go out that night.
Jerry really wanted a steak, since we were in Texas! We didn't really see any "steakhouses" along the main road we went on. There were many bbq places, but jerry wanted a steak. Anyways, there was this one place called "Mignon" that looked promising and said they served steaks. Plus it had a patio area along a little lake that had a water fountain and ducks swimming around. I thought it looked fun to go to so I talked Jerry into going there, even though, he wasn't quite sure. We should have gone with our gut and not gone! It was a beautiful place, don't get me wrong, but not a steakhouse. It was a fancy schmancy place and very expensive. I felt so bad dragging jerry there, but the food was good, but not what we had hoped for. Then even though we were so full, we really wanted to get some ice cream and this place called "Braum's". We had seen several around and it looked yummy, so we went anyways. Jerry got a banana split, which was huge and I got a double stack ice cream cone. It reminded me alot of Thrifty ice cream. Very good, but we were so full we couldn't quite enjoy it as much as we would have liked. All in all it was a good day, and we headed back to the hotel to get ready to drive out in the morning.
The first day driving actually went pretty fast. I was surprised. We got to El Paso in about 9 hours! With several stops along the way. We stayed for the night at the Hyatt Place. It was such a nice hotel. Our room had a huge flat screen tv, a separate living room area with a huge nice couch and nice comfy king size bed. We didn't want to drive the truck around the town and luckily the hotel had a little restaraunt we could order food from and take to our room. We ate dinner, watched tv and I even got Jerry to play Phase 10 with me! Then we crashed and got ready to drive home on Sunday. The Sunday drive was a little harder for me. I think because I knew we were almost home that I was impatient. Also, a second day of driving in the truck was not so comfy for a pregnant woman. Jerry drove the entire way, both days. What a trooper!
Some highlights from the trip and the drive, we saw cows (jackson asked us everytime we called if we saw any cows), horses, 3 tarantulas in the road (only jerry saw them!), and we drove on a tollway. They told us that was the best way to get through Dallas, so we took their advice and had saved all our change. It was interesting, we had 4 stops and ended up paying $3.40 to get through about 20 mile stretch. But we made it and can say that we paid our tolls! We saw an oppossum (alive) on the road, big belt buckles, and crazy texas drivers! THey would hardly ever use a blinker, if you had an inch in between you and the car in front of you, that was enough space for someone to cut you off and get in your lane! I am not exaggerating! It was pretty crazy! Also, most trucks had "Texas Bumpers". The grill additions to the front of their trucks!
So all in all it was a fun trip. It was so good for me and Jerry to have some time to ourselves. It has been a while since we have had that much time together without the kids. It was so fun, he made me laugh, we talked about everything, and just had a great time being together. Thanks again to all who helped with the kids, I was never really worried about them, We just missed them a lot! What more can I say, I love Dallas!
