Dallas, TX

Today we decided to head to Dallas (or somewhere nearby)  to celebrate Jacob's 9th birthday.  It's a place called "Dave and Busters," and let me tell you, it is crazy!  It's sort of like Chuck E. Cheese's on steroids. (sorry Chucky).  It was wild.  Our favorite game (and the one that gave the kids the most tickets, was the one where you pop in tokens at a rapid-fire basis and hope to knock off many precariouly perched tokens so you can win more tickets.  When we frinished that game (and allowed all the kiddies an equal opportunity to try their luck), we cashed in Jacob and Lauryn's tickets.  This is all very strange...the way they "count" the kids' tickets is you place them in a plastic bucket and they "weigh" them.  Right.  Jesse said we need to get the tickets wet next time so they'll weigh more :)  All in all, they came away with a huge pink kitty (Lauryn), a baseball cap with Dave and Busters' logo on it (Jacob), and various other treasures such as a Tinker Bell wallet, a pencil box/calculator combination, and so much more, I forgot the rest.  The important thing is the kids had fun and I really think the adults did too.  I'll download some pictures from this event tomorrow.
We also went to the mall that was attached to Dave's, and boy it was a mall on steroids, too.  There really must be something to the size of everything in Texas.  Go Longhorns!, or Oilers, or Rockets, aw heck, go everything Texas.  The only thing I'm not impressed with in Texas is a long standing tradition of the steaks in Amarillo, TX.  We ate there last spring when we helped Jesse and Erin move to Wichita Falls.  The steaks were the draw (especially the 72 oz. one), but we really weren't impressed.