Crazy Doesn't Even Begin to Cover It

Uncle Joe had an idea to go to Frisco, Texas to visit the IKEA store there so we could look around and hopefully purchase some nice barstools he found in a catalog. I was up for a road trip so away we went.

Hotel with indoor pool: check

Truck cleaned and gassed up: check

Google Mapped directions: checkmate

We headed out midmorning Saturday. The trip was estimated to be about 4 hours. It was a long 4 hours with little voices in the back seat singing loudly and asking every 5 miles, "Dad are we in Texas yet?"

Our Googlemap directions were not clear so we made one wrong turn, but eventually got to our hotel. I was embarrassed to admit to UJ that I had no idea what hotel we were staying at. I had looked at several and forgot which one I chose. I did however keep the phone number just in case we needed it. :o) Silly AJ!

We let UJ rest and the girls and I went swimming for a bit in the heated pool. Wow that was nice. If I had ever been a heated pool it has been so long I forgot about it. We splashed around for a while then went back upstairs and got ready and went to IKEA.

IKEA

There are not words in my vocabulary to express the confusion and near panic this place caused us both to feel. Escalators and elevators going up and down exiting on different sides, people elbow to elbow all over the place and The Joes wandering around looking for the stuff we came to look at.

I looked at Joe and said "This place makes me dizzy." He agreed whole heartedly.

We made our purchases: wine glasses, meat cleaver, apple corer, candles, candle holders, Swedish chocolate, fish roe, pickled fish, crackers and aprons and got outta there!

We had dinner with Sharon, our friend from Texas at TGIFridays and either we were really hungry or the food was exceptional. Joe had a thick cut pork chop that was very tasty and I had a steak sandwich with fried plantains!


Sunday we went on another accidental adventure while searching for World Market. It was recommended by my desk mate from work, Lynn. If I would have had her telephone number I sure would have called her! We got so confused. Apparently "on the corner of 121 and Preston" means the BIG corner....not the small street corners we could see. Apparently everything is big in Texas even the HUGE INTERSTATE that hid World Market from our view. The shops around this intersection were so plentiful that we could have visited one shop per day for one year and not have seen them all. It was huge!

World Market gave us our first large painting purchase. I loved the picture the moment I saw it and so did Joe, so of course we bought it!! I will post photos later. We will be repainting our living room to coordinate with it soon I hope.

Our tummies told us it was lunch time and our baby girl told us it was her turn to buy something so we headed to Stonebriar Mall where we at lunch at The Cheesecake Factory. (my only regret....$$ lunch!)We had our first gourmet appetizer: Ahi Tartare. Mmmmm! Very tasty!! We walked around the mall two times bought a few things and headed out for home.

Four hours later we were pulling into our home sweet home.

Our bed sure did feel good that night. It was a lot of fun crammed into 24 hours!

Spring Broke

It really really stinks for the kids for Mom to get paid the last day of Spring Break .

Our Spring Break was sprung broke.

Good thing I didn't procrastinate, as in past years, and got our taxes done and sent before Tax Day and we should have in our grubby little hands, a nice tax refund check and go on a little day trip with the girls down to Texas.

We shall be springing hither, thither and yon and will keep you posted on our progress and purchases we have planned. :o)

It Took Me

What a great Sunday afternoon at home.

I jacked up the fish I tried to grill....heretoforevermore I will let UJ be the Official Meat Griller. But the veggies were a success. Here is our menu:

Grilled Cod (well mostly grilled...then finished in a pan)
Grilled Zucchini and Yellow Squash (THE BOMB!)
Roasted potatoes, onions and carrots.
Lemon Cake with Lemon icing

Very yummy and light.

A nap overcame me once my tummy was full and I let it take me and I finally got caught up on some of my missed sleep.

oh. i. feel. good.

How was your day??

I think I need a cuppa coffee to wake up now.

A Bit of Sad Trivia

I was looking around on the Veteran's Administration website today and found the following facts:

• Since World War I, more than 142, 000 Americans have been captured and interned as POWs
• 93 of those were women
• 93,000 additional Americans have been lost or never recovered
• About 29,350 or one fifth of America’s former POWs since World War I are still living
• More than 90 percent of living former POWs were captured and interned during World War II
• At the end of the Vietnam War there were 2,583 unaccounted for American POWs
• As of September 1, 2006, 1,798 are still listed as missing by DOD—90 percent in Vietnam or in areas of Laos and Cambodia
• 126 Americans are still listed as missing in action and unaccounted for from the Cold War

The one with chocolate cake

I got to take the whole cake home too! Mmmmm

40 ain't so bad so far.......