Off to the city for another day of staycation

I love that saying where you can't take the country out of the girl or however it goes but for me, you can't take the city out of the girl. I love big cities. Yes it's true. I will admit it here once and for all. For a girl that grew up on a ranch and pretty much has lived most of my life in the country, I am very much a city girl. I use to take the ads from the Sunday paper when I was little and just daydream looking at them of how when I was grown up I was going to go shopping all the time! I always wanted to go to the store right then after looking at the ads but that was when we had "Black (or maybe it was Blue??) Sunday" and no stores were allowed to open. I would beg my mom to take me shopping to no avail. Now I understand why! It costs money to go shopping and when you don't have any....well, shopping becomes kind of difficult. So I get excited when we get to into downtown Dallas. Call me crazy but I love the city life.

Our adventure today began with a trip to the Science and Natural History Museum. Luke kept saying we were going to the "night at the museum" place like in the movie. That brought a smile to my face. He was cracking me up. He does this often to me so thats not new. Once there the girls were so excited to show me around. They went on the day of my certification test without me. Mike went ahead and bought a family membership because by the time he paid for everyone to get in it was about the same price to pay for the membership and heck why not what a great place to spend a day or afternoon when its really hot or rainy and cold outside. I hadn't been there in many, many years and let me just say...Wow! What a terrific place to take the kids. I was very impressed.

Our first stop was at the dinosaur dig. Luke jumped right into that spot. You get to go run through two huge sand boxes with paint brushes and "pretend" you are digging up dino bones! What 4 year old little boy wouldn't love that!! They even do birthday parties there....hum...note to self maybe next year??? We only stayed there a short while because we had tickets to the planetarium showing at 2:15. Well that wasn't all that much to write home about...kind of neat...kind of not. I could have skipped that part. We went to one when I was like Leah's age and I remember it being really cool, this one wasn't like that.

Next was a stop for a snack....next time we will pack our own snacks because we could have eaten a meal for what we paid for snacks for all of us....so another note to self....pack snacks for the next trip. But a pretzel dipped in nacho cheese sure was yummy. We had popcorn too and had to share just two drinks between the five of us. The next item up for business was the spy kids adventure. Mike took Luke downstairs to the little kid area while I went spying with the girls. Lets just say I wouldn't make it as a spy. I got busted like 3 times as a little spy guy! The girls kept laughing at me. What a cool way to spend an hour or two.

Next was a stop into learning about the human body. Wow. That exhibit was cool!! My personal fav. They had a video with a catchy little tune about the digestive process and how your body makes poop! And the best one was showing you how you vomit! Coolness! Yes, I love gross stuff too. Makes me laugh. So guess your figuring out I have a very sick sense of humor. But actually it talks about how the brain makes you throw up. Pretty neat but the demo of it cracked me up.

Ahh and then the kids area! It reminded me of the children's museum in Memphis that Mikes dad use to take us to when we would visit him. I think going to these places reminds Mike a lot of his dad and things he did with him when he was little. I see this smile on his face like its bringing back memories. And trips to the zoo do this to him too. I love it. I love to see a smile on that man's face.

So anyway the kids area has all of these neat things for little ones to do like work on a farm (pretend), construction, firetruck with firemen suits (Lukeman's personal fav today) and animals.

They even have a pretend spider web that kids can crawl through. Luke made me pretend like I caught him in the web and I was the spider coming to get him. The giggles coming out of that little boy are priceless.

We closed the museum down for the evening. Luke was sad because he didn't want to leave. I had told Mike earlier in the day that I would like to take the kids to dinner at Spaghetti Warehouse. Not his favorite place but he said ok, he liked the idea. In the car Luke kept telling me he was oh so hungry and thirsty. His favorite thing to do in the car right now is point out all of the octogon shapes he sees and tell you what color they are. I love that too and its a good thing because we were getting a cultural drive through downtown because Mike didn't want to get on the highway at 5 pm so we saw lots of octogons! We showed the girls where JFK was shot...Leah was more interested in that.

Finally we arrived at our destination. As we are walking up to the restaurant a black man selling flowers starts in on Mike. Of course Mike just keeps on walking past him and tells him I don't like flowers. Ha. We all passed by him except for Luke. I turned to him and called him my way. He came running to me and said he wanted to give the man a hug. I said a hug? Ok. So I yelled back to the man and told him my son wanted to give him a hug. Wow the look on this mans face was priceless. He just looked at me and said ok. Luke went running up to him with open arms and gave the man a huge hug. The man loved it. He gave Luke a hug and patted him on the back and kissed him on the head. Luke ran back to me with a huge smile on his face. The man had one too. I don't know what that was all about but God knows and I felt good about it.

Once in the restaurant I made everyone go wash their hands since we touched all of the stuff at the museum and that is one of the things that only God knows what was on all of that stuff. Yes see I'm a good mom. With swine flu and all you just got to be careful you know....see...I'm a good mom :) I could hear Luke in the bathroom with Mike crying because he didn't want to wash his hands! Still I'm a good momma!

I asked the waitress if we could sit in the train car. She took us to the end of the train and Luke loved it because he could pretend he was driving us around.

The girls were so well behaved at the restaurant.

Even a lady came over to tell me how well behaved they were. Ok so maybe she wasn't a lady .....a young girl but you get the just of it. We had an appetizer and that was yummy then salads and bread. Paige told me she was full before she ever got her meal. Luke ordered cheese pizza and they make theirs with real mozzarella cheese so it was loaded with cheese. When he picked it up (the cheese) he said "uuuuu mom, I'm eating brains". BRAINS??? He said yes mom. I said ok as long as it will make you really smart then ok. He kept laughing saying he was eating brains over and over again. Then the pizza sauce started getting on his hands and he said "uuuu mom its blood, its bwweeding". I just laughed since I had no clue what else to say at this point. I was proud of Leah, she tried a new dish tonight and she was proud of herself as well.

So the drive home was another cultural experience. Maybe I should rename the title of this as a "culture" day instead. Mike didn't want to get on the highway because the traffic would be bad. Dude its 7 o'clock, get on the highway already. His excuse was its Friday afternoon and well people stop for happy hour and get on the highway late. Ok, whatever was my thought. So we ended up....well I have no clue where to tell you but we learned some interesting facts about the south side of Dallas today. A cultural experience at its finest. Finally I started getting my bearings and said we should eventually run into I20. And we did. Took us probably 45 mins to get there but we made it. I never felt like we should get out of there its not safe. I never felt that way at all, just the opposite like we were suppose to be there. Interesting but I don't know I rambling now.

Last stop on the way home, Wal-Mart or as my friends like to call it around here....Wally World. We have a going away party, two birthday parties and a wedding to go to tomorrow (Saturday) so I needed to make a pit stop for some gifts. During the shopping expedition Paige gets mad because I won't give her her allowance for the week. I go through the usual questions of the week. Did you clean your room this week? "No". Did you do all of your chores this week? "Yes". Did you get in trouble this week? "Ummm". Her head started to hang low. Mike comes up and asks me whats going on.

Now normally, Mike doesn't have any patience at all when it comes to Paige being mad. He usually blows up which makes Paige blow up and over and over again...its a vicious cycle between the two of them. Hum...wonder where Paige gets her temper from....wouldn't be me :) Also keep in mind that I have been praying about this for some time now. Because the tempers flying in my home here of late have been about to send me through the roof. See, I still have all of my temper so I'm convinced she got hers from her daddy.

Can you say family meeting on aisle 9 at 8:00 pm in the middle of Wal-Mart? And that is just what happened. We all collaborated around the grocery basket as Lukeman wore an iron man backpack and ran up and down the aisle. We talked to the girls about how they have been getting their allowance and how it was changing. Leah in her little 12 year old ways started really getting into the collaboration while Paige had her arms crossed, head down, pouty lip stance. She wasn't hearing it. She wanted her allowance and she didn't care that she had got in trouble this week or that she hasn't touched her room in oh about a couple of weeks. We should just give her her allowance since she empties the dishwasher for me and thats it. Leah wanted to look at something and we sent Luke with her. We had a pow-pow, come to Jesus meeting with Paige right there in the middle of Wal-Mart. Good thing it was there and this was all an act of God because I promise you had it been at home or in the car it wouldn't have been pretty and I can just hear Mike's yelling right now. It was actually a very good talk and I don't know how long it lasted but it felt like a long time. (just as this blog is getting long!)

Amazing thing! Paige's whole little attitude changed 180 degrees while in that store. And it has stayed that way since being home. She even cleaned Luke's desk off for him so they could play school tonight....to bad it was time for bed but she did a great job. She came into the bathroom and asked me did I notice her attitude had changed. I just gave her a big ole hug and kiss. I love that little girl and I explained to her that no matter what she did in life I would never stop loving her. I was her momma and I would love her no matter what. She skipped off to bed with a smile on her face. I love my Leah too.....I didn't want to leave that out.

What an adventure today was. Wonder what awaits me tomorrow. So to be continued about the 3 parties and a wedding. Isn't there a movie with that title or something???