Road Trip Part 2

I've decided that we should try, once a year, to go somewhere with my siblings. I know that it'll be too crazy when our families grow and etc., but while we can, anyway.

We'll probably take our kids with us when they get a tad older, but for this time it was wonderful to have a full 36 hours with just adults! There was so much less stress in my life on our trip, even when Art made a Q-turn. (You'll have to ask him about that.) It was nice to know that my children were safe and happy with their grandmas, and I didn't have to worry for the whole time about the state of their bladders, noses, stomachs and etc.



We left Friday morning and went to the Dallas Museum of Art in the afternoon, when we arrived. I wanted to see the King Tut exhibit. but I ended up quite annoyed with it, actually. It cost us approximately $30 a person to get in (that included the rest of the museum too) so I was expecting something fairly spectacular, like, oh, maybe some of the artifacts on all the signs and posters. Although they did have a few room of artifacts from Tut's tomb, there were just as many rooms of artifacts from other "relatives" of Tut. They didn't have the actual sarcophagus, or that beautiful mask, or anything belonging to the mummy itself except a bit of jewelry that had been in the wrappings. Those large, thin animals that are such an iconic part of the Tut photos and story were also absent. I was quite disappointed with the exhibit.

However, the museum did have a section of Winston Churchill memorabilia in connection with the Reves family. (Good friends of Churchill's and subjects of a large exhibit themselves.) That made the trip worth it. They even had a set of his paints and some of his paintings done at the Reves' home on the Riviera. (He was a better statesman than artist, I'm afraid.)

We went to the Celtic Thunder concert that night; just us and the uppity Dallas PBS crowd. Musically it was great. The songs were well done, and the instrumentalists were all very skilled. However, the venue was disappointing. The Nokia Theater in Grand Prairie did not inspire me. We were seated up in the nose-bleed section, (It's like a huge pie wedge, and we were up in the crust.) and they did not have any kind of screen or cameras, so we could hardly see what was going on. You could see people, but not facial features, really. Sometimes I would forget that I was at a live concert, and then be suddenly jerked back to it by someone interacting with the crowd down near the stage.



All in all, I had a great time and I would definitely do it again, but if I could've had a little chat with my future self I would have skipped the museum and used the extra money to get seats much closer to the front of the theater. Then we could've gone to the combined Ripley's Believe it or Not and Louis Tussaud's Wax Museum, the gaudy facade of which was down the highway a bit from our hotel. It probably would've been more interesting than the DMOA, and much cheaper. We're from Oklahoma after all; it's not like we demand high class entertainment.

On the way home Saturday we stopped at IKEA, my favorite store of all time. We bought a computer chair, and another POANG chair with ottomans to go in our soon-to-be den. (She said with hope.)(Ours are navy blue with birch wood, so slightly different than the photo.)



Oh, and Elijah seranaded us in the car with a little throat singing. I should have videotaped it, but here's a picture anyway. He's dressed like a hobo; not on purpose, I think. We weren't sure if the rich, Crown Royal guzzling, concert-goers would let him stay in the theater on Friday night, but apparently they'll let anyone come to those things as long as they pay.


In fact, he sang for quite a while, and my sister and I started singing Celtic Thunder songs in self-defense. The guys got a real kick out of the fact that we both knew the entire Old Irish verse of "Come by the Hills." (below) What can I say? It's cool!