Rotten

So, I am pretty horrible at keeping this updated in a timely manner. The past few months have been pretty rough with Evie and sleep, so I feel like I’ve been running on empty most of the time. So, let’s travel back in time a little…

I guess my last real update was around November on our short trip to Dallas. That’s a good starting point. Mid November, we took a three night trip east to Dallas. Since we live in a smallish town, we seriously lack some essential stores and restaurants, so these trips are fun for us to go places we can’t normally visit. This time I was hoping to get my Christmas shopping done.

The first day was mainly the drive, checking into our hotel, and dinner. The next day we had planned on hitting up Grapevine Mills, which is an outlet mall in Grapevine, Tx. Things did not go as planned. After breakfast and getting the three of us ready, we headed out to our truck to find one of our tires really low. We left in search of the nearest gas station to air it up, which took quite awhile since we stopped at more than one that was either lacking an air pump or it was out of order.

Finally we find a pump in working order. D is pumping it up when I see it. A nail. We just had found a screw in another tire the month prior and now we had a nail in a second tire. Since D was able to fix the other tire quite easily, he thought he would go down to the auto supply store and get a plug for it. He gets everything he needs and gets to work on it.

A long time goes by. I can hear him cussing and getting frustrated. Evie is getting upset that she is still strapped into her car seat. I get her out and we get some fresh air. D finally gets the plug in the now completely flat tire and buys an air pump to fill the tire. Unfortunately, the plug isn’t holding. Air is rushing out almost as fast as it is filling. We need a new tire, ASAP.

Luckily, there happens to be a tire shop right across the street. We barely make it out of the shopping center, through an intersection, and into the parking lot of the shop before the tire is completely flat again. They replace the tire and we are on our way finally, hours after we left the hotel. By then we are all hungry and grumpy. D is covered with dirt from laying on the pavement. We go back to the hotel for him to change and get back in the road.

When we go to the Dallas area, we usually stay in Addison. It’s a really lovely area, with lots of restaurants and is in close proximity to nice shopping. The only problem is the LBJ freeway. For the last 2-3 years that we have been going there, there has been major construction. It’s horribly congested because of that. We got the bright idea to take the surface streets to the mall to avoid the freeway. After all, it’s only 16 miles away. It took a bit longer than we planned, but we made it there pretty easily.

First plan was to get something to eat, since it was dinner time and we had only had a small breakfast. On our way we spotted Santa, which we had planned on taking Evie to while we were there. Since there was no line, we stopped and she got to visit Santa for the first time. She wasn’t fazed a bit. Of course, we had to buy the picture, only they were having technical problems and couldn’t get their computer to process the order. After fighting with it for awhile, they asked if we could come back.

We got something to eat and browsed a few stores. It was getting late and we had plans to meet up with some people at 8. We finally got our pictures and headed back to the hotel area. It was now dark outside and we got lost. We should have used the gps from the start of the drive back, but it had been so easy on the way there. After a few detours, we finally made it back. I was so ready for a drink or something by that point. It felt like everything went wrong that day.

The next day was Saturday and was the main purpose for the trip. Dave and I play a game called Ingress. Dave being the more hardcore player, while I’m more recreational. It is a bit difficult to explain the game in a few short sentences but it is a GPS based, real time, massively multiplayer game of capture the flag that you play on a phone or tablet. I will do a post about it soon, in case anyone is interested in learning more. Anyways, ingress has these special events (like a competition) and one was happening in downtown Dallas.

There was a lit of planning involved for the event in order to get a win for our “team,” aka the Resistance. We were in smaller groups among our team, and those are the people who we worked closely with before and during the event. It was an interesting experience, and very different than everyday, normal play. It took place downtown, so we were fish out of water with no clue where we were going.

It was a long, exhausting day walking alllllll over downtown Dallas. There was so much going on that D and I didn’t eat anything all day till after the event at 7pm. The next morning we packed up and headed home. I so needed a vacation after that vacation!

Well, I feel as if I’ve written a boring novel already, and I haven’t even made it past November! I will pause for now and say I have wonderful intentions to keep this updated in a timely manner. I think it just gets to the point where I say “where do I start?!” So much happens that I want to write about, but there is so little time (or so it feels). I will make time for it though!