Tour of Dallas - History

The stop on our Tour of Dallas was History. One of the most important pieces of history that is associated with Dallas is “The Day Stephanie Moved To Dallas.” Just kidding. Actually it is the day that JFK was assassinated.

So at 9:50 AM, Ben and I walked down to the Sixth Floor Museum. I was sure we would be the first ones in there if not the only ones for a while. I was wrong. Did I mention that our Tour of Dallas happen to coincide with the TX/OU weekend festivities? No? Yeah, that is because I am trying to forget about it.

Anyway, sure enough we walk in and I see a cluster of Burnt Orange. Ugh… We hurriedly buy our tickets, grab our headset and take the elevator to the Sixth floor. Lucky for me, there was more Burnt Orange. :-/ Oh goodie.

Aside from trying to see around some people, it was a good time. If you have never been to the museum, I highly recommend it. It takes you through the early days of JFK’s administration, through the few days before, obviously day of the assassination and also goes into some of the theories surrounding his death. You see videos, pictures and even some memorabilia from the day.

We ended up spending about an hour and half walking through. I have been before I took Ben, but I assure you I learn something new each time I go. Once again, this is a really great museum and only $14. Completely worth it!

And that concludes our Tour, Ladies and Gentleman…

Tour of Dallas - Entertainment

We woke up Saturday to perfect weather for the Entertainment portion of our Tour. Since Ben was nursing a mini hangover from his fun on Friday night, we decided to grab some lunch before we headed off to my tour stop.

If you live in Dallas and you have never been to Jimmy’s Food Store you are missing out on the best Italian sandwiches in DFW. They are amazing. Since they are super filling and you can pick up some other awesome stuff in the store, Ben and I headed there for lunch. I ordered their amazing meatball sub and Ben got something crazy and Italian. While at the register, I told Ben that I would pay since he was the ‘Birthday Boy’ and when the man at the register heard this he decided to give us our meal and drinks for a whopping $1! Plus Ben got to pick out a free hat….lucky boys. So the real message of this paragraph is Eat at Jimmy’s!

My meatball sandwich

From Bens Birthday

Ben’s Italian sandwich

From Bens Birthday

His free hat!

From Bens Birthday

After lunch it was off to the Entertainment portion of our trip. Since Dallas has quite a few locations for entertainment, Ben was stumped. Unfortunately for him we weren’t going to any sport games, or any movies or any live performances….we were off to the Entertainment that made Dallas famous! That’s right, we went to Southfork Ranch where they filmed the TV show Dallas.

From Bens Birthday

Neither of us have ever seen an entire episode so most of the outing was lost on us. We did check out the Museum, got a horrible picture taken with Cowboy hats on, we went on tractor ride over to the ‘Mansion’ and then took our own tour of the ‘Mansion.’ All I can say is the mansion is TINY! As is the pool and everthing else (besides of course for the conference center that they built). It is amazing what camera angles can do! Oh yeah, and the fact that they hardly ever filmed inside the house. Maybe two episodes/scenes?

The “Mansion” from the street…I zoomed in

From Bens Birthday

So we learned a little Dallas TV Show history, we pet some horses and also saw the famous car that one of the characters drove…..I think it is a 1970ish something car with only 27,000 miles on it…..oh yeah and it was also 19’ long. It was a beast.

From Bens Birthday

From Bens Birthday

After the Ranch we met up with Ben’s brother again at Hard Rock Café. We had some crazy drinks and overpriced nachos. It was good, but I don’t need to go back.

Needless to say we had a fun, random Saturday with plenty of Dallas entertainment…..

Tour of Dallas - Live Music

Ben’s third stop on the tour was to see some live music. I tried to throw him off by mentioning awesome venues like the House of Blues, American Airlines Center, Deep Ellum…so all day he was trying to figure out where we were going and who we were going to see….

Lone Star Café & Club was the winner for the night! Wha? Never heard of the rockin’ venue? Neither had I, until I found out a Led Zeppelin tribute band would be playing there. Since Led Zeppelin is Ben’s favorite band, we had to go there.

On the way there, through the country Ben was completely stumped. Even when we pulled into the strip mall where the ‘Club’ was I think he still thought I was kidding. Finally we walked in and he saw the ‘stage’ and band’s equipment with all of the LZ symbols on it. Needless to say he was excited.

Little did he know that earlier in the month, I sent out an evite inviting our friends to join us for the surprise birthday stop. He was ready to have an evening out with me, when Jessica and Brent walked in. That’s when he figured out the plan. Not only did Jessica and Brent make it out for the random fun, so did Ryan, Clap, Jon and Erych. It also worked out that his brother happened to be in town and made a surprise visit as well.

Ben and his brother Lucho

From Bens Birthday

I think they had too many mini pitchers of Beer

From Bens Birthday

The Gang

From Bens Birthday

The Rockin’ Band

From Bens Birthday

Needless to say the band was very loud and played forever. Ben had a good time and enjoyed the music. He even stripped down a bit to show the lead singer is LZ tattoos. Not only did he get pictures but so did I (unfortunately Ben has banned me from posting them). I was just happy the club was still open and the band was still scheduled to play.

Afterwards Clap, Ben and I made our way to the Regal Beagle for so more drinking. It was a lot of fun and I even ‘attempted’ to play Ring on a Hook. In case you are wondering, you try to get a ring on a hook. Easy concept, hard (for me) to play. Clap, of course, did it in two tries. I had to physically walk the hook to the ring so I could ‘win.’

All in all it was a great night, I got to hang out with friends, listen to random music and even discovered that Clap and Ben have a college ‘friend’ in common. What a small world….

Tour of Dallas - Shopping & The Arts

There is one thing that people in Dallas love to do and that is shop. We have so many different shopping areas: North Park, West Village, The Shops at Legacy, The Galleria. I mean we are home to Neiman Marcus, JCPenney and Fossil. So needless to say we aren’t hurting for places to shop.

Since Ben loves ties, I figured I would take him to this tie shop that I saw in some random email. It was called Tiecoon. So while at work, I googled the place and tried to get some more info. That is when I found out it was closed. Yep, that was the whole reason we were going shopping. So then I found a place called The Tie Shop. That was to be our new destination….

So off we went after work to find The Tie Shop. Apparently it was in the Galleria, so once we walked in, I searched for it…only to find out that it too had been closed. So our shopping consisted of walking around the Galleria and looking at expensive clothing and TIES! So at least he saw some…

After the Galleria we headed on over to the Dallas Museum of Art. The best part about going on Thursday is that they have jazz in their atrium, are open till 9 PM and it is free! We had a great time and saw some super old art (as can be expected) and some newer stuff that I am still trying to figure out. All in all it was a good night and I didn’t feel robbed like I did when we went to go see King Tut (in case you didn’t go…he wasn’t even there nor was his mask nor anything really cool worth seeing for $38).

So even though there were a few bumps, Shopping & The Arts was a success and fun.

Tour of Dallas – Fine Dining

The first stop on Ben’s tour was Fine Dining. Believe it or not but Dallas has the most restaurants per capita, even more than New York City….so I had a plethora of restaurants to choose from. To whittle down the competition, I had to figure out what Ben would like to eat.

One of Ben’s favorite meals was in Vegas where he had Veal Porterhouse. So I googled the dish in Dallas and came across Del Frisco’s. I had been to Del Frisco’s in Ft Worth and highly enjoyed my steak and they also own Ben’s favorite steak restaurant so I figured this would be the winner. I checked the menu at the restaurant to see if the Veal Porterhouse was listed. It wasn’t, so I emailed. Sure enough, I got an email back and it was confirmed they had it. Score for me.

So I took Ben to the restaurant and he didn’t really get why I picked Del Frisco’s. So we sit down, look at the menu and I don’t see the Veal Porterhouse. No problem. I tell Ben we came for the Veal Porterhouse which is obviously not on the menu, but the waiter will know about it. So I ask the waiter…..he has never known Del Frisco’s to have Veal Porterhouse, but he’ll ask the Chef. Yeah, well I guess he never knew they had it either… It was official, my carefully planned dinner was not going to work out.

So Ben orders the Lamb Porterhouse and I order the Filet Mignon and two sides. Our waiter still feels bad about the Veal fiasco and asks if I still have the email. I do, so I show him on my phone. Right at that moment, the Manager is over the table and he sees the email as well…

Now commences one of the best dinners we have ever had. To make up for the misinformation, the Manager orders us another round of drinks on the house and 2 more side dishes. Oh man, the food was amazing. We were stuffed but saving room for the dessert I had at home. Too bad for us that the manager wasn’t in on this plan…..next he sends out a special dessert dish by the Chef. It consisted of the Butterscotch Cheesecake, Chocolate Mousse and the Lemon Tart Cake. Everything was so good.

From Bens Birthday

Then when we figured we couldn’t ingest any more, the Manager sent out a flight of Grand Marnier. Ben was in heaven. His favorite was a part of the flight.

So after the drinks, food and dessert we decided to have another after dinner drink in their lounge. It was nice romantic and they also had great live piano music. We finally left before they could offer anything else for us to eat or drink. Great experience!

From Bens Birthday

Of course, when we got home we had to eat some of the awesome cake that Jon made and Ben opened his presents. I don’t think we have ever been so full in our lives. We didn’t even have the energy to have any Wii fun. :D

So here’s to Fine Dining in Dallas!

Ben's Birthday!

As many of you know, birthdays are my favorite events, even if it isn’t my own. So lucky me (and Ben too, I suppose), we celebrated Ben turning the big 3-2 last week. I got him a few gifts and planned a fun celebration for him. Here is what the lucky boy got:

1. Star Wars Lego set from Sylvester. Ben’s favorite movie is Star Wars so I decided to run with it…..

2. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for the Wii. This was from my Mom. We have yet to play it, but even I am looking forward to it…and you’ll see why.

3. Two Light Saber Wii/Remote thingys that actually light up! From me. :D That’s right so now Ben and I can duel! I am also thinking they might work for some techno dancing fun. Stay tuned for pictures when we actually bust those bad boys out.

4. Amazing Chocolate cake with Banana frosting from Cakes by Jon. Jon is one of my good friends here and makes the most amazing cakes I have ever had. Trust me, I have had a lot of cakes and his are my favorite. So if you ever need a cake for a special occasion, contact him: www.cakesbyjon.com

From Bens Birthday

From Bens Birthday

5. Tour of Dallas. Since Ben and I couldn’t go anywhere for his birthday, I decided to take him on a Tour of Dallas. We were tourists in our City. The tour included: Fine Dining, Shopping & The Arts, Live Music, Entertainment and History. I’ll blog about each stop later.

From Bens Birthday

I hope he had a great birthday because I know I had fun celebrating with him. Can’t wait for the next one….

Da Fair

Last Saturday Ben and I went to State Fair of Texas. There is only one rule when you go to the fair: Stuff yourself silly with tons of crap so that you never want to eat again. Trust me, Ben and I adhered by the rule. Here is a list of what we ate in the 10 hours we were at the fair:

1) Corn Dogs – Regular and Cheesy Jalapeno
2) Fried Peanut Butter, Jelly and Banana Sandwich
3) Curly Fries
4) Fried Peaches and Cream
5) Funnel Cake with Cherry Topping
6) Slice of Pizza
7) Nachos
8) Banana pudding
9) Ice Cream
10) Fried Texas Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

Fried Peaches and Cream:

From Fair

I know, disgusting. That is why the fair is only once a year and I only go once a year.

Besides eat we also saw the Dog Stunt show and walked around and shopped. We also spent hours in the Midway section (Carnie Land). We played games where you squirt water in hole to win some race, a cork shooting game, fishing, horse racing, chicken toss, the huge hammer thing, ring toss, Color Gambling and best of all the token game. You know the game where you put one token in the slot and hope the bulldozer pushes 20 more off the ledge. Yeah, we played that bad boy for at least 2 hours. We were addicted. We ended up with tons of toys for Sylvester! It was our gift to him since he had to be locked up all day.

Sylvester and His New Toys:

From Fair

From Fair

From Fair

We also played some Texas Lottery fun at the very end of the night. We ended up winning $24 dollars and who knows how much in the TX lotto ( I am keeping my fingers crossed).

Needless to say it was a great day (except for the weather) and I wanted to puke for the next 3 hours after we got home. Can’t wait for next year!

New Orleans - Work and more work

After being in 4 states and 3 planes, I finally made it to New Orleans, LA. One of coworkers was kind enough to pick me up at the airport and bring me to my hotel. After driving around for an hour or so (he had lived there all of his life) and finding out very little history, I finally made it to the hotel. I checked in and made my way to Luke’s restaurant….apparently some famous guy from some cooking show runs the place. I ate at the bar with my two new friends and we judged people in the bar ….especially the people from New York. Oh man, that was fun. Anyway, I had a burger (I know, I know….New Orleans food is lost on my because I don’t like seafood). It was good…but the cocktails were better. Especially since the bartender let us try a few that he was making.

The next day I walked over to the Convention Center so I could supervise the booth we were building for my client. Little did I know that the minute I stepped outside my glasses would fog up and I would be covered in water (not sweat) from the humidity. Man, that 15 min walk took forever. Then lucky me, I spent the whole day watching the booth go up. The clients finally made it for the last bit of the day. We worked some more and then made our way to dinner. I had Cajun Injected Chicken. I don’t really want to know how they can legally take a Cajun and mush him down to a green goo and inject him in Chicken….all I know is it tasted pretty good. Oh yeah, I also had the “World Famous Onion Rings” and an oyster (I was forced!). I finally made it back to my hotel where I am pretty sure I passed out within seconds of hitting the bed.

The next day it was back to the Convention Center. The booth I never thought would be finished finally was. What a relief. I was done working around 3:30 so I walked the “Riverwalk” and did some shopping AKA bought flip flops for my throbbing feet, looked at the boats on the Mississippi and finally made my way back to the hotel. That night, I walked to Bourbon Street and decided it wasn’t the place for to have dinner by myself because we all know that my dinner would have consisted of hurricanes, margaritas and cocktails and I would have been out until around 2 AM if not longer. So I had a nice dinner on the corner somewhere, did some shopping afterwards and was home in bed by 9. I am such a crazy girl. 

Finally my last day in the city, I checked on the booth and the show. Everything was great, the clients were happy and I was officially done with time to spare. So I checked out of my hotel and walked around the French Market. I had a Mufalleta (ok, really only 1 and half bites….definitely not for me) and beignets at Café Du Monde. I also did more shopping and site seeing. I finished my trip off with more work and then the best taxi ride ever. Lucky for me I had an old tour guide as a driver. He gave me a history lesson of the city and told me all the restaurants I need to come back to when I return. Needless to say, I will be coming back but definitely not for work…

I finally made it back to Dallas around 7 PM at night. I never thought I would ever be ‘traveled out’ in my life, but I was. Thank goodness I didn’t have any where to go for the next couple of days…

Some pics from NOLA:

From New Orleans

From New Orleans

From New Orleans

New Hampshire and Boston

It all started with Ben, my mother and I hopping a plane to New Hampshire for my cousin Renee’s wedding. We landed in New Hampshire around 10:30 at night to 40 degree weather. That was a nice slap in the face to the 80 degree weather we left in Dallas. There wasn’t much fun the first night. We met up with my sister (she exists, Veronica) and Jimmy and unpacked and slept.

Then the next morning we all packed into the rental car and made our way to Boston/Weymouth. We visited my grandmother’s old place, played in the park next to it and then visited my grandfather. Then it was back to New Hampshire for Friendly’s and Renee’s rehearsal dinner. It was a very good night especially since Ben and I took advantage of the open bar. Yum!

My Grammie Gram’s place:

From Weymouth and Boston

Park Fun:

From Weymouth and Boston

Friendly’s!

From New Hampshire - Wedding and Fun

From New Hampshire - Wedding and Fun

Then the next day my Auntie Bea came to NH and we went shopping, ate more and drove around more….. After a short day at the mall, we got ready for the wedding. It was absolutely beautiful and Renee was gorgeous. Tim is a lucky man. I had a great time hanging out with my family and taking advantage of the bar…..again. 

Fun with Auntie Bea and Fam:

From New Hampshire - Wedding and Fun

Wedding Fun:

From New Hampshire - Wedding and Fun

From New Hampshire - Wedding and Fun

From New Hampshire - Wedding and Fun

The next morning my sister and her man left and Ben, my mom, Roland and my uncle all made our way back to Boston for some sight seeing and culture. Unfortunately it was raining and we couldn’t do the things we had planned, but it worked out in the end. We went on the Duck Tour (you hop in a WWII DUKW and tour guide takes you around the city and into the Charles River). Ben even got to drive the thing! Then we walked over to Faneiul Hall and Quincy Market for some culture and shopping. We then let my mom and my uncle go back to New Hampshire and Ben, Roland and I continued our tour. We ate at the Oldest Tavern in America, saw the only wood building (Paul Revere’s house) in Boston, ate cannoli’s and other pastries at Mike’s Pastries, had pizza on the North End along with a few cocktails, went back to Quincy Market for some more cocktails. We then decided it would be a good idea to go to the original Cheers. Along our extremely long walk, we stopped at some historical places, the Make Way For Ducklings statues and finally ended at Cheers for …that’s right…another cocktail. Then we finally headed back to NH.

Boston Fun:

From Weymouth and Boston

From Weymouth and Boston

From Weymouth and Boston

From Weymouth and Boston

Finally we woke up the next day at 4 am so we could make our way back to Texas…and I could make my way to New Orleans….

Paranormal Activity

Oh man, if you want to see a great movie this Halloween season, you have got to check out Paranormal Activity. Seriously, I was afraid to go to sleep last night after watching it. I even made Ben get up with me at 3 in the morning to take the dog out. It was a horrible night of sleep but worth the good scary movie. See it!