So, most of you already know that we are planning to move to Dallas Tx. Dan is already there having the time of his life working and working and house hunting and working and house hunting!!! He LOVES living out of his suitcase in a hotel and eating out every day & night! The rest of us are planning to join his FUN sometime in June.
This last weekend, Mckall, Alec and I flew out to spend a few days with Dan and SEE Texas. We had a great time. We stayed in the Hilton at Lincoln Square....Awesome...other than their pool was ffffffreezzziiinnnnggg! ;) We were on the 15th floor and enjoyed the Executive lounge & treats. We were also right across the freeway from the "Galleria Shopping Mall" ! I did NOT know this, but, according to Carrol Laub, the Galleria is the BIGGEST Mall in Texas and has EVERYTHING you could ever want!!! Yes, she was right! This mall was a MASSIVE 5-story building that had three "full-service" anchors....Nordstrom, Macy's and Sacks-5th-Avenue. It also had an ice-skating oval, 20 incredible sit-down NICE Restaurants, full food court with about 15 fast-food options, and SHOPS I had NEVER even heard of! It really was amazing & Mckall and I were in heaven! We did NOT get to see all of it because the "boys" were with us and continually whined about having to shop.....they will never understand!!! We did find a Sports-Bar Restaurant called Dave and Busters. It was great. Dan and Alec paid 25 bucks for an hour and watched the Spurs game and golfed and played pool while Mckall and I hurried through as many cool shops as we could!
One of the days we spent a few hours with our realtor. He took us to about 8 homes in different neighborhoods. The kids were really patient and enjoyed Brad (our realtor.... he is kind of a "hottie" with a tattoo and "tight" aviator glasses)!!! It was great having Mckall and Alec there giving their opinion and being in on a little bit of the decision making! After being with Brad, we did drive around for another few hours looking at schools and clubs and more houses until we were all starving! The kids wanted to eat at Chili's....blah! ....so we decided that we would NOT eat anywhere that we could at home...except for Mcdonalds brkfst! So, we tried a bunch of different, awseome, yummy restaurants! Our favorite ended up being ...dinner....Texas Land and Cattle........Steak & Garlic Mashed Potato's to die for! .....lunch.....Pey-Whey (PF Chang's fast food version)!! Another of Carrol Laub's fav's!! (she would know)!
We took a drive downtown and checked out the City. Very tall and beautiful buildings but seemed sooooo busy and traffic-congested and kind of grungy. We then ventured west through Irving and Arlington. We saw Six Flags over Texas, the Rangers stadium (minor league baseball like the Bee's), the OLD Dallas Cowboys Football stadium and then the NEW Stadium which is still under construction. The new stadium is GINORMUS and will have a retractable roof structure....it looks soooo cooooollll!!!! It will be done Spring of 2009. Maybe we will have to BECOME Cowboy fans??? ..........NAH!
Ok, this is kind of funny....but kind of NOT. Every night when we went back to the hotel it was about 8 or 9 pm. We were tired and just wanted to watch t.v. One night we did watch the Jazz obliterate the Rockets, that was great! The other couple of nights we decided to pay for a movie and just watch in our beds with drinks and a treat. So know the only delemia was what to watch. Mckall wanted to watch "Meet the Spartians" and Alec wanted to watch "Balls of Fury" go figure! Dan and I wanted to watch "Vantage Point". So we "rocked-off"....I won! Ya Baby!! Vantage Point ended up being a great thriller about an assination attempt in Italy of the US President! We all loved it!
The next night after annoying, begging, and pleading, and against our better judgement, we bought "Meet the Spartains" ....I did not know anything about this movie & had no idea what it was about.....Mckall said "mom, ALL my friends have seen it and said it was so funny"......ok, we started to watch and it was a spoof on all the other good movies that are out. Well, when the penguin (from happy-feet) came out and said "hey, ya p----! suck my baloutous.....(whatever the hell that means)!!!!! we all pulled our jaws off the floor and turned OFF that "funny" show! Dan then proceeded to lecture Mckall and the rest of us about our poor lack of judgement!
We all got to lecture him the next night when Alec said....mom, dad, lets watch Jackass2.....Dan said "rating anyone?" I said "think it's pg-13"....so before we could really say ya or nay....Alec pressed the buy button and the naked men with their private parts flailing about came on doing stunts that made your stomach churn! Needless to say, we did turn that one OFF too.....feeling embarrassed that we just let our kids "rule-the-roost" & PAY for something we knew was NOT right......I mean, come on, the title Jackass gave that one away! What were we thinking??? Anyhoo we did watch "I Am Legand" with Will Smith. It was intense and scary but a good movie! WHEW!!
Our hotel window looked out east. From there at night we could just see the Temple lights. We decided to drive over one night and check it out. It was a smaller temple, but beautiful. We walked around the grounds and took some pics. (maybe we should have done this before letting the kids decide which movie we should watch)!
Our trip was great. We got to see and do a lot. Mckall and Alec feel a little better about moving now and what to expect... even though, when the time comes, it will be dang-hard to go!
Taking family pics is ALWAYS a fun experience! Dan's mom arranged a day and photographer and we were all set! We went to this ABSOLUTLY BEAUTIFUL location just off Wasatch Blvd. It was someone's residence and horse property....someone with a lot of MOOLA!!
