Staycation: Part 2

After experiencing a very difficult evening with the loss of our beloved dog, we knew we had to stay distracted and keep our spirits lifted. Thankfully, we had a fun day planned for Wednesday.

Craig and I didn't tell the kids what we were going to do. We wanted to keep everything a surprise. We drove to Dallas for an early dinner and ate at the famous Hard Rock Cafe. The last time Craig and I went to one of these restaurants was on our honeymoon in San Diego in 1999!!!

When we pulled up, the kids loved the guitar on the outside of the building.


Unfortunately, the air was out in the building but it was still somewhat cooler than being outside. Here are the sliders that I ordered. Yummy!

We walked around the restaurant after we ate to look at all the memorabilia. Here's Tom Petty's guitar.

This is Billy Gibbon's guitar from ZZ Top. Yes, it's really fuzzy.

This is a guitar from the Christian rock group Pantera.

And my favorite, Elvis memorabilia. The hat was worn when Elvis played in Houston. The outfit is from one of his movies.

Just down the street was the American Airlines Center where we were taking the kids to see the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus!!! They still had no clue what we were doing until we went inside the building.

The Ringling Bros. was one of the most exciting shows we've seen in a really long time. It was over 2 hours long but kept our attention the entire time! There was even a 1 hour pre-show where you could meet some of the circus stars.

It's hard to tell, but those are 3 ladies folded on top of each other. They were the contortionists of the show.

Preston loved this part. All those flashes you see in the cage are actually motorcycles. At one point, there were 7 motorcycles in there at the same time.

Motorcyclist on a high wire with a girl sitting underneath him. Pretty cool.

The tigers were in this cage with their tamer. Some of the tigers seemed very unhappy to be there.

The hit of the show was the elephants. They were pretty awesome.

Has anyone seen the movie or read the book Water for Elephants? Yeah, that story was in the back of my mind the entire time we were at the circus! lol

We got home late that night but so enjoyed our day!

Thursday, was pretty low key again except I had a great lunch with one of my closest friends. Love times like that!

Friday, we had another movie to watch as part of our Summer Movie Camp at Harkins Theaters. Cats & Dogs was playing, and well, we thought it was a boring movie. :/

We took the kids to lunch, I had a voice lesson, and then on to my in-laws house for dinner. Our niece was visiting from California and we usually only get to see her once a year. It was nice to see her outside our annual Kelley holiday "Thanks-Christmas-giving."

Saturday was super busy. I had a long rehearsal all morning and then some of my family came in town. We went to one of the bigger malls in the area (I now remember why I like to avoid malls) and spent all afternoon there and then had dinner. We got home about 8 pm and were so tired! But our weekend wasn't over.

Sunday was back to church. We started a campaign called "iServe" to try to recruit volunteers to serve in different ministries in our church. Our first focus was the preschool area since I needed 5 volunteers. The campaign was mentioned during announcements and then our wonderful evangelist that was visiting just happened to mention our "vibrant Children's Ministries" as well. As a result, we immediately had 4 people sign up to help! God is good and I know we will still get one more person.

We ate a very quick lunch with my family and friends and then off to see Laurie Berkner!!! If you have a preschooler, then you more than likely know Laurie Berkner. She sings such catchy preschool songs that even adults sing with her. She also appears on Jack's Big Music Show on Disney. I play A LOT of her songs in my music classes and every age loves it! Even my elementary classes were requesting her songs!

One of my sweet friends was able to get us free tickets and parking passes to a suite at the concert. Here is a picture of the suite. It was all pink!

We also had snacks in the suite.

Laurie Berkner and her band are singing "Rocketship Run".

Kaitlyn is posing with her friend that came with us.

Preston's being silly with his friend.

It was a fabulous concert and such a blessing that we were able to get free tickets.

So, even though we stayed home, it was a very eventful week, but still relaxing. We are already back to reality and hopefully planning a big family vacation next year.