lisamoe: (daytripper)
I'm back from out of town. The trip had it's high points and low points, but it was pretty much better than hanging around Tulsa anyway and I saw a lot of stuff. I brought back lots of wine, cheese and fudge, plus I bought a knife block at Chicago Cutlery to finally replace the one that my grandmother gave me and my first husband kept when we got divorced. I loved those knives and am really looking forward to using my new ones.

Tonight

Jan. 5th, 2007 08:42 pm
lisamoe: (Jesse and Dingo)
I now have a high speed connection at home, thanks to [livejournal.com profile] oldmanpops. At least I have a connection when it's connecting, which is fortunately most of the time. It's pretty cool. On my email and lj I don't really notice a huge difference from dial-up, but on Neopets and when I was surfing travel sites for our spring vacation earlier it was very noticable.

This evening we've done essentially nothing. I ran a couple of loads of dishes and a couple of loads of laundry and other than that the kids have been showing me selected Avatar episodes and explaining the plot while I look up hotels in San Antonio, which is where I think we've decided to go. It has a SeaWorld and a Six Flags and plane flights aren't overly expensive. I offered the kids Mazzio's for dinner, but they wanted me to make them spaghetti instead, which is cool, as Mazzio's would run me $20 and spaghetti costs about $2.

Ok, off to the bath and some cinnamon scented bubbles. The kids are watching one of the same Avatar episodes again and really, the first time was enough for me. After I get out of the bath, I'm sending them to bed so I can watch an episode of Foyle's War.
lisamoe: (Jesse and Dingo)
Tonight I'm moving furniture for my folks. Tomorrow night I'm taking the kids to the fair. (Let me know if you want to come along, anyone.) Friday night I'm probably staying in and catching up some DVDs, Saturday morning I'm taking the kids to OKC with R, Saturday night I'm invited to a dinner and party (if I can get a sitter for the party.) Sunday I'm going to the fair without the kids, Monday night I don't have plans, but do have kids, Tuesday night I'm having dinner with some other friends. I haven't planned beyond that, but I seem to be keeping busy til then. One night next week I'll probably be taking the kids back to the fair as we did get those mega ride wristbands and might as well get our money's worth, so if you can't go tomorrow but want in on that, we're flexible on times.
lisamoe: (Default)
Ok, the trip to Six Flags over Texas this weekend. We got there before the gates opened and when they opened the ropes we ran in to try to go on the Titan, which is a steel coaster about 255 ft. tall. It was closed however, because there was a severe weather watch from the national weather service. Same with the Texas Giant (a wooden coaster 143 ft. tall.) We let the kids ride a couple of small rides and then they closed every single freaking ride in the park! We all had to go in the theater for the Spongebob 4D ride and wait out the weather, as it had actually started storming by then. The kids were whiny about not getting to ride anything and R and I were worried that it would be like this all day, but eventually it cleared up and by noon they had most of the rides going again, aside from the big coasters. We took the kids on the Runaway Mine Train, which is a classic small coaster and Jesse (9) loved it of course. Dingo (5) thought it was scary, which is just bizarre as he's ridden Space Mountain, Expedition Everest and the Tower of Terror with no problem at all, but whatever. He rode the Mini Mine train a number of times though and loved that.

We rode several of the small rides like the swings, the train, the sombrero, the Mine Train again, and the Yosemite Sam Gold River (a boat ride) while waiting for the coasters to open. We let the kids play some ganes too and Jesse won a giant Bugs Bunny that we then had to haul around the rest of the day. We rode the Runaway Mountain ride too, which is somewhat Space Mountain-like. It's a twisty indoor coaster in total darkness and was great fun. You can't get a good impression of how high it is when you're in the pitch black, but I understand it's just about 50 feet tall. We actually rode the Spongebob 4d ride too, which was a lot more fun than just using it as a weather shelter. It was a pretty active simulator 3d kind of ride/show.

They finally opened Titan at 3:30 and we left Jesse watching Dingo on the Sidewinder (a scrambler type ride) and gave him $20 for concessions and inbstructions where to meet us while we waited through the 30 minute Titan line. Titan was just awesome. It's the tallest coaster I've been on and that first drop was just exhiliarating. (Before that my tallest coaster was the 205 foot Mamba in Kansas City, I think.) It ran you back up through more really tall drops and curves and was just well worth the wait to get on. Very scary and fun! I would have gone again immediately if not for the line. R had had a chili dog for lunch and didn't feel entirely well after we rode though, so we retrieved the kids and went off to ride more kiddie rides and shop a little. By late afternoon, the lines were starting to thin a little and R volunteered to watch the kids on their rides while I went off to ride Batman: The Ride, as he still was not feeling like riding another coaster. Batman is one of those rides where you're suspended under the track in seats with your feet hanging down and it turns you over a couple of times, plus has about three areas where you corkscrew around the track. I loved it of course and have never been on that style of coaster before. After I met back up with the boys, Jesse and I went to ride Judge Roy Scream, which is an older wooden coaster about 67 feet tall that I remember from my own childhood. It's just about Jesse's speed right now. He won't go on the biggest coasters, but he does fine on wooden coasters under 100 feet. We went back to the mine train area after that and let the boys ride their respective mine trains several more times.

We were getting pretty much ready to pack up and leave then, but it turned out R and the kids wanted to go up in the Oil Derrick observation tower and since I don't really like heights like that (funny, huh?) I ran off to see if there was a line at the Texas Giant while they went observing. There wasn't and I got to walk right up and get on the first train. I have ridden the Texas Giant before, but I guess I had forgotten just how much it rattles you around. VERY rough ride, even for a wooden coaster. I guess because it's faster than most wooden coasters I'm used to or something. It was fun and exciting, but I just felt jarred by the end of it. I was pretty much ready to go after that. R's pedometer said we had walked almost 9 miles and it was almost park closing time, so we made our way up to the exit. I'm disappointed we didn't get to go on La Vibora, which is a bobsled style coaster and Jesse said he was willing to ride with me. I've been on it before, but I wish he'd gotten to go. Still, after a very disappointing morning, we had a fabulous afternoon and evening and I feel like we got our money's worth even if we missed a few things. The kids seemed very happy with the day.

So anyway, Mr Freeze and Flashback were closed for the season, and we missed another big ride or two, but I did make it on Titan, the Texas Giant, Batman: The Ride, Judge Roy Scream, and the little classic Runaway Mine Train which is a nostalgic favorite of mine, and that seems like a pretty good coaster day, no? If you want to look up stats for any of these coasters, there's links at http://www.aceonline.org/census/parkDetails.aspx?id=2093
lisamoe: (Default)
So our trip this weekend. I think I'll post it in two parts, one for the trip to FenCon and one for Six Flags, so I can crosspost the Six Flags section to a roller coaster community I'm in.

We left Friday after work (R, the kids and I) and ate at the Okmulgee DQ on the way. We also had to stop at Walmart and for gas and we had to stop at a 7-11 for Jesse cause he loves 7-11 and we don't have any in Tulsa. We found the hotel with no problem and the trip took right at 5 hours even with stops, so that was pretty good. My folks were already there and we found them right away. R and Dingo pretty much went right on to bed, but Jesse and I walked around with my Mom for a little while and got drinks and snacks at the consuite, then came back and went on to bed. I woke up about 5:45 the next morning, which is unusual for me, but it was nice as it gave me time to have a nice long bath and do my makeup and stuff before the boys started wanting the bathroom. Jesse got up about 6:45 and we went down to the hotel breakfast buffet, which we both thought was very good plus they let Jesse eat free. After we went back to the room we sent R and Dingo down to eat and then just hung around a while before heading out to Six Flags.

I'll post about Six Flags next, but I will say now that we got there before they opened and stayed til they were making people leave, so I guess we had a pretty good day out of it. R's pedometer said we walked almost 9 miles there, which is what happens when you take two hyper kids with you. On the way out of Six Flags we bought my Mom a "Pink Thing" (which is a cherry ice cream on a stick) because she used to buy them when they lived in Ft. Worth, and I had to drive like a madwoman through the Dallas area traffic to get it back to her at the hotel before it melted, which turned out to be an adventure in itself. R almost got frostbite and I should have gotten a speeding ticket, but didn't, yay! After we got back, Jesse dressed up in his tux and we all cleaned up and then limped down to the hotel restaurant for dinner. It was past 9 by then and Dingo fell asleep at the table without even getting to eat. After I tucked all the boys in, I went out to a couple of parties and had a very strong margarita at one of them and came back and fell right asleep.

Sunday morning Jesse and I woke up early again and we repeated our breakfast routine from Saturday. After everyone had eaten we went down to the dealer's room and bought a number of things. Dingo got a kitty umbrella with ears and a very nice padded foam sword. Jesse got a print of some art he wanted and a very nice padded foam mace. I got some silver rocket earrings and a silver pirate ship necklace. R got some miniatures and the business card of someone he wants to buy a $275 collector HG Wells book from, which I confiscated, lol. We chatted with people just a little and then headed out to this Korean area near the hotel to let Jesse look at Korean stores (he likes Asian things) and go to lunch. We had intended to drive straight back to Tulsa after that, but as luck would have it, we passed a ginormous outlet mall on the way out of town and killed at least an hour and a half there. The kids got clothes and R and I got closeout books and fancy candy. Then we had to stop at gas stations looking for a certain kind of scratch off lottery tickets, at a McDonalds, at a DQ again, etc. The trip back just turned into an epic journey and we didn't get back til about 8, even though we'd left the hotel by noon. I was very glad to get back and just get to sit down and relax. I was pretty sore this morning though, what with the long car trips, the 9 miles at Six Flags, and the couple of miles at the outlet mall.
lisamoe: (Default)
We made it to Dallas fine. Jesse is very excited to be here. Dingo fell asleep on the way. R and I are just tired, though I did get out of the room and walk Jesse around a bit. He wants to get room service in the morning and if we're still tired we may give in on that. We ate junk food at DQ for dinner (We stopped at TWO DQ's) and I think we could stand to have a decent breakfast tomorrow.
lisamoe: (Default)
I had a mad scramble at lunchtime to get Dingo and myself packed to go to Dallas after work. ( Jesse packs his own self. ) I also had two free Six Flags tickets that I had an inkling where were but hadn't seen since spring and I found those too, by some miracle, which will save us something like $90 tomorrow. Hopefully I got everything else we need, but I guess we're only gone about 48 hours so if we have minimal clothes and toothbrushes and those tickets, we're probably ok.

I am not overly excited about this trip. I haven't had a weekend free for ages and I'd love to just stay home and nap and relax rather than hare off to Texas at the last minute, but I'm sure I'll feel better once I get to Six Flags. I do like amusement parks. And the hotel we're at has a hot tub and indoor pool apparently, which I might get a chance to go relax in. I should just make the best of it, even if it's not exactly where I want to be, right?
lisamoe: (Default)
It's 106 freaking degrees here today and it may still get a little warmer. My family called me this morning from Durango, CO to say that it was in the 50s and they were wearing sweatshirts. I hate them.
lisamoe: (Jesse and Dingo)
Yesterday we went to Eureka Springs as our last big fun thing before I go back to work. We had gone not that long ago, but Dingo had gotten a little ill by the time we got there and the whole trip just wasn't great because of that. Yesterday we took R with us, the kids were in a good mood and we had a much better trip. On the way there we stopped in Chouteau for snacks and baked goods. When we got to Eureka Springs we picked up all day trolley tickets and then took a trolley to the top of the town to walk down through the shopping district. We got about halfway through the shopping district then hiked down to the train station (it was a long way!) for the excursion train, stopping for a tex-mex lunch along the way. Along the train ride they let us stop and lay coins on the track and then ran the locomotive over them. The kids loved that. After the train, we caught a trolley back and finished our shopping. We got a huge sack of t-shirts, purses, candy, stuffed animals, a hat and another item which probably deserves its own post with a picture. When we were done shopping we caught a trolley back to the information center where we'd left the car, and headed out to Turpentine Creek and saw bunches of animals. The kids loved a blue and gold mccaw named Cecil, they had there that talked to us. He said "pretty bird, feathers, hello, hi there, and mccaw" They'd never seen a talking bird before. On the way home, we stopped in Tontitown for awesome homemade Italian food at the Venusian Inn. I brought half my chicken home and am going to eat it as soon as I get through typing here.

Today I think we'll just hang out at home, clean, and go to the library, and then late tonight we're supposed to be going to the drive in with friends to see Pirates of the Caribbean.
lisamoe: (cantbuylove)
Today Mom and I took the kids to OKC to the Omniplex. Jesse got to hold a tarantula as big as his hand. He was very brave about it. I was brave to stand nearby and take a picture of it. Dingo got to play with lots of science exhibits and we all got to see the IMAX movie Fighter Pilot which was very good and exciting.

We went because the kids wanted to take a couple of day trips before I go back to work. We may go back to Eureka Springs too. Last time Dingo wasn't feeling well and it made the whole trip kind of a drag, so we'd like to try again and I won't have any more weekdays free for a while after the 17th unless I have more flextime than I'm anticipating.

Ok, off to get some stuff done.
lisamoe: (Default)
The last day of vacation, we got on up and had another hotel breakfast, plus leftover pizza from the night before, packed up the van, checked out and headed down to the Museum of Science and Industry.  Once again, a massive museum with more than you could see in a day.   I guess Chicago likes its museums big.   They were having a special exhibit on Leonardo DaVinci where they had built models of some of his most famous mechanical designs and some of them were hands on.  Jesse got to fire a catapult clear across the room.  He'd just been studying Leonardo in school so it tied right in.   My Mom took Dingo in The Idea Factory and I thought he'd never come out of there.   Besides that we went through a huge model train layout, the Colleen Moore Fairy Castle, an airplane you could walk through, an exhibit on genetics and one on toy robots, "yesterday's mainstreet", which had an ice cream parlor we had to stop at, and the U-505 exhibit.  The U-505 is a German U-boat from WWII, the only one we ever captured and just one of a handful remaining in the world today.  It's more enormous than I thought it would be.  They had to actually lower it into place and then build the building around it.   We paid the extra $5 and took a guided tour of the inside, which also explained how it was captured by Allied forces in 1944.  I think it was actually my favorite thing in Chicago, but I like WWII history anyway.  There was an exhibit of a lot of artifacts taken off the boat too.  Apparently capturing the classified documents , Enigma machine, codebooks, etc, from the U-505 may have hastened the end of the war by a significant amount.   I found  a Discovery Channel special on it from Netflix and am having it shipped today. 

Anyway, after that we went to Chinatown, which Jesse really wanted to do.  We had an excellent Dim Sum at the New Three Happiness restaurant and then we just walked up and down the street shopping and snacking.  We brought back quite a few souveniers as Jesse likes all things Asian.  By the time we were done there, we were running out of time before our flight, but I had promised the kids a beach, so we took 30 minutes at the beach near McCormick Place and let the kids put on suits and splash in Lake Michigan so they could say they'd been in a Great Lake.  Then we had my folks drop us off (they were driving back) at the el station at Chinatown and we only had to change trains once to get on the one to O'Hare airport.   The el was faster than driving though, I think, and we met some nice ladies from Pittsburgh to talk to on the ride.   We were cutting the time pretty fine  by the time we were underway to the airport and then we had some trouble getting cleared  for boarding passes once we got there, but the gate agent was very nice and the plane was delayed anyway, so all was well that ended well, even if we had some panicked moments and running through the airport the way they do in movies.

All in all, a very good trip, and I don't feel like we wasted a moment there.  I don't think that sort of non-stop activity is great for every family, but it suited us and we were glad to get to see so much.  I'll probaby put more pics of the Chicago part of the trip up in the gallery with the St. Louis pics tomorrow maybe.
lisamoe: (Default)
So, the third day of our vacation, I let everyone sleep a little later than I had the previous two days because we were going to the Sears Tower first and it didn't open til 10:00.  We got a  good continental breakfast in the hotel and then walked on over to the Sears tower, which was just a couple of blocks from our hotel.  We passed a Giordano's pizza on the way and two of my guidebooks had mentioned it as a good place to get Chicago style pizza, so we took note.    We got to the Sears tower half an hour early in case of lines, but there wasn't a line and they let us go on up to the 103rd floor.  The view was great even though it was a little cloudy.  We liked seeing our hotel from up high, as we'd been looking the other way just the night before.  We could tell which room was ours and everything.  At the Sears tower we bought bus/el passes for the day and hopped on transit to get down to the Shedd Aquarium.  

At the aquarium they were having, in addition to the regular wonderful exhibits,  an exhibit on Lizards and the Komodo King.   We spent quite a while in there because I like lizards.   The Komodo was lazy and wouldn't come look at us, but you could see him behind a log.  Big lizard.  We also saw a dolphin show.  We watched half from the top and then went to the underwater viewing and watched the dolphins swim there.  We also saw OTTERS!  Sea otters and river otters.  They were lively and fun.    We didn't have time (as was the case most places) to see everything, but we made it to the Amazon area, the coral reef, and the penguins also.   ANd the gift shop.  We didn't miss a gift shop on this trip, lol.   Leaving the Shedd, we went down the street to the Field Museum.  

The Field is a massive natural history museum and I don't think I could even begin to talk about what we saw there, except as a list.  We saw Sue the Tyrannosaurus, many other dino skeletons, a room full of gems, a beautiful walk through exhibit on the South Pacific complete with a Maori meeting house that had been moved to the museum, an ancient Egypt walk-through exhibit, and in passing, some Tibetian and Asian items.  There were two special exhibits (besides  Tut) that were of note.  One was a display of photos from a photo album that someone managed to save from Auschwitz that showed the person's family and friends and documented the processing, sorting, work, and even people in the minutes before the gas chambers. (though there are no images of actual killing)   It's apparently the only such photographic record.  I would have taken Jesse in because I think it's important, but his Dad wasn't comfortable with that, so I went through it by myself (My Mom went through it by herself too, we had gotten seperated.)  Anyway, it was a striking exhibit.   The other special exhibit was the Underground Adventure, which pretended to shrink you and you walk through a display of what it's like right under the surface of the Earth.  That was cool , and Dingo's favorite thing.  

At 5:30 we had tickets to Tut at Twilight, so we queued up for that, picked up our headphones and went on in.  It was several rooms of the most fantastic artifacts and if you get the audio tour, which we did, you even get extra information narrated by Omar Sharif.   The items were all in  astonishingly good condition and well worth seeing.  At the end they had a display on scans they've done of Tut's body to try to determine more about him and the cause of death, as he was only 19 when he died.   It was very interesting what new technologies have shown that weren't apparent in the scans they did in the 70's.  After Tut we caught a bus back to the hotel and then walked a couple of blocks over to the Giordano's we'd seen earlier that day.  I'd never had Chicago style pizza before and it was great.     Huge thick pizzas just full of cheese.  Yum.  We ordered too much though.  When it says the pizza feeds one or two, your whole family could eat it  in actuality.  After that, we walked (I don't know how as our feet were so freaking tired) back to the hotel and went to bed.
lisamoe: (Default)
City Museum--My kids disappeared into this fish 1st thing upon arrival City Museum--My kids disappeared into this fish 1st thing upon arrival

The rest of the pictures I've uploaded from the City Museum in St. Louis are here http://pics.livejournal.com/lisamoe/gallery/0000st56.  Well, I hope they are anyway, I'm no good at managing the Scrapbook function.

I cannot believe I climbed up in all those things too, but I forgot I was 37.  I sure remembered by the time we were done though, lol.  

I'm way behind on lj posting in general, I still have two days of vacation to get down here, plue the things that have happened since I got back and some commenting I need to do. 
lisamoe: (inconceivable)
So about that vacation...

The first night, Tuesday, all we did was drive to a small town near St. Louis and spend the night. We got in about 1:00 so we didn't really get enough sleep, but we got a little. In the morning, we drove on into St. Louis and went directly to the zoo. It's a great zoo. The highlights were the penguin and puffin exhibit. Much more awesome than Tulsa's. It was indoor and freezing cold and had a number of different kinds of Antarctic penguins. You could get right up close to them too, so close they splashed you. We rode the train all the way around, went through the great ape exhibits, and went through the River's Edge exhibit, which was a walking path that took you through a bunch of cool river animals. We also rode the carousel and the dinosaur simulator machine. After we left there, we went downtown to the arch. R and the kids had never been up in it, so that was very neat. Personally, I don't like the tight little elevator capsules to get up there, but I managed not to panic and once we were up the view was great.

After the arch, we went to the City Museum, which contained...geez, there's no way to really describe it. It was an interactive museum that was designed by artists instead of by pedantic children's museum curators. Outside, there was a massive several story play structure that consisted of welded wire tunnels, huge slides, two actual aircraft, a castle turret, walkways, ball pits, secret passages and more. It was truly a work of art. Art you could hurt yourself on, lol. I'm providing a link, http://www.citymuseum.org/home.asp and I'll post some pictures, because I just can't really describe how wondrous it was. I followed the kids through every one of those freaking tunnels and staircases and slides, btw, except a couple that weren't big enough for adults. Most of the adults were just watching, but I never said I was mature or had any kind of good judgement. When we entered the museum, the guy selling tickets told us "If your kids disappear in a hole anywahere in here that you can't fit in, they'll come out in the same room, but if it's big enough for you, you should follow them because they could come out anywhere else in the museum." That's the kind of place it was.

Upstairs in the city museum they had an art space where the kids could make all sorts of things, a shoelace factory, a small kids area, a slide that went down the three stories of the museum and a weird carnival/soda fountain/corndog art/robot nougat factory/sideshow. There was an aquarium too. And a ride on train for the little kids. And a "puking pig." AND...another mass of labrynthine tunnels, stairs, slides, and fantasy dinosaurs known as the enchanted caverns. It was in an old shoe warehouse many stories tall and the caves use 5 or 6 stories of it. There was a really long spiral slide starting near the top, which we all went down, even my dad. We all got an injury or two in the caverns cause they're made of metal and concrete. SO worth it though. And so enormous and twisting you can actually get lost in there. All the caves and the play structure outside (which is called Monstrocity) are made of recycled and scavanged pieces from other buildings in St Louis that had been torn down. Every surface in the museum is covered with mosaics, walk through sculptures and weirdness. There's a little log cabin with a bar in it right off the playground for grownups too. The employees are wacky artist types who urge your children to climb through unknown holes in the floor and stand under the puking pig. We all LOVED THIS PLACE. GO THERE NOW! HURT YOURSELF ON THE ART! YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO! Um, sorry, we just really enjoyed it...

On our way out of St. Louis we ate at a hippie coffeeshop nearby the museum that was recommended by a museum person. The food was good and it was a relaxing respite after the frantic four hours at the City Museum. When we left there, we drove straight through to Joliet, found a nice motel and took Jesse swimming, then went to bed.
lisamoe: (Default)
I'm back from Chicago. I am tired and just stunned with the sheer amount of stuff we did the last four days, so I'll maybe post it tomorrow instead of tonight. It was a very good trip and I'm glad we made it home, which was by no means certain after we got caught in a traffic jam this afternoon and got to the airport nearly late for our flight, only to find out we were on the NO FLY LIST! We got it cleared up, but it delayed us another 20 minutes or so. Our plane was delayed 30 minutes though, so it all worked out. I still have no idea why we were on the list. We just flew in February. Maybe it was because Dingo made too many bathroom trips on that flight, lol.
lisamoe: (Default)
Well, there is so much to say about this trip so far, but the part that's cool to me right now is that when we got to our hotel, which is a downtown hotel at the top of the Stock Exchange Building, they didn't have the kind of rooms that we'd reserved so they put us in suites instead. One of the suites, the one we're in with the kids, actually had a nameplate on the door that said "English Suite." I've never stayed in a hotel room with a NAME before. And as it turned out, we have a picture window on the Sears Tower, a bay window with a view of of the river and lots of Chicago another bay window in the bedroom with another great view. It has a dining room table and a stereo system and couches and a four poster bed and a marble bathroom and terrycloth robes. This is NOT the kind of place we stay. We stay in Super 8 motels, yanno? My folks room isn't QUITE as grand but it's still wonderful and spacious and fancy. I'll probably never stay anyplace like this again, so I'm really enjoying it. And Jesse, bless his luxury-loving little heart, is in heaven.

Today we went to Marshall Fields, Millenium Park, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Navy Pier. At Millenium Park we (the kids and I) played in the fountains and I got drenched but it was fun. At the Art institute, R, Jesse and I walked through the European galleries and the modern art and saw some armor and weapons, but we didn't even have time to go in the American or Asian galleries. It's just a huge place. At the Navy Pier we went to the Chicago Children's museum, shopped, ate at Bubba Gump's Shrimp, took a Lake Michigan skyline cruise, saw a magic show, rode a 3-D simulator ride and rode the huge ferris wheel. I don't like ferris wheels one bit. Just hanging up high in the air makes me panic though I don't mind when I'm in a building, or I don't mind when I'm on a roller coaster because you aren't up for very long. I was shaking by the time I got off, but the kids had a great time. Mom and R did too, but Dad is like me and didn't like it much. Of course it didn't help that it started raining and the wind blowing when we were almost to the top. Yipes! In the evening we had excitment trying to figure out the El.

I still need to talk about yesterday in St. Louis and what we did there, but I'm really tired and there's a marble bathroom and a terrycloth robe waiting for me, so it'll have to wait.
lisamoe: (Default)
We're in Joliet, Illinois. Both days driving was fine. The day in St. Louis was fanfuckingtastic. I'll post more when I'm at a real computer. This thing is hard to type a lot on.
lisamoe: (Default)
After this evening, my internet access will likely be sporadic until late Saturday. Boo hoo, I heart my internet. On the other hand, I will be at the King Tut exhibit in Chicago for the evening of the opening. So that makes up for not having constant lj for a few days, right?

After this though, I think I'm through with big planning-laden vacations for at least a year. I'm grateful to have been able to travel this year; it had been several years since an actual vacation, but still, the planning is a lot to do. Jesse is now planning us a trip to Cedar Point to ride roller coasters, but we told him it would have to be next summer. I'll be going to Kansas City in October and Dallas in November, but those will just be little weekend things.

Time to get packing.
lisamoe: (cartoonme)
Yesterday we took off for OKC and to the OKC zoo, Beverly's Pancake corner, Penn Square Mall, the Omniplex, and then drove up to Edmond because Jesse wanted to buy everyone diner at Fazoli's. It was a good, if long, day.

I haven't been to the zoo there in a couple of years and it's been/being extensively remodeled. There's a new zoo train that goes into some of the animal pens, which is cool. Unless it turns out you're allergic to those animals and your throat swells half shut while you're doing that, but that's a whole 'nother story. The best thing we saw at the zoo was a goose chasing a baby rhinocerous. Even a baby rhino is pretty freaking big, but it went and hid under it's rhino mama when the goose started after it.

We had lunch at Beverly's. It's a nostalgia thing. We've been eating there since I was a kid. I like the fried chicken. Last time we went to OKC we got there after they closed, so this time we made a point to get there at lunchtime. Then we let the kids look around Penn Square mall, which is across the street from Beverly's, and Dingo got to use his Godiva gift card he got for his birthday. Jesse bought me a tiny little box of chocolates with ribbons and flowers on. He's a sweet boy.

We only had about an hour at the Omniplex, but it was a good time. Dingo and I stopped and watched the Gravitram for about half an hour. He would have just stayed there if I hadn't made him look at other things. (The Gravitram is a kinetic sculpture made of wire that sends metal balls down a variety of different paths, using switches to send the balls different ways. They get taken back up to the top and go down again over and over.) When we left the Omniplex we were just headed home but Jesse said he'd buy if we went out of our way to take him to eat at Fazoli's, which we don't have in Tulsa, and we weren't really on a schedule so we said fine.

The evening was peaceful. Jesse went to my Mom's to watch TV and Dingo holed up in my bedroom to watch TV, so I got to watch House MD all evening in the living room. R loaned me the first season and I'm twelve episodes in now and something of an addict. The kids will be gone camping with R this weekend (Yay for father-son togetherness) and my current plan is to stay in and watch the rest of this box of DVDs.

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lisamoe

November 2014

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