4th of July

It's one week from today!
And I have ZERO decorations for it!!!
It's time to start printing/creating...tonight. But while I'm on the internet, I will patrol Pinterest and maybe go look at my own pins on my Summer/4th of July board. Let me know which things you think I should make. I'm thinking of a wreath, a few printables, some tabletop decor, and maybe a recipe or 2.

Here are a few ideas I have found.
I love these letters & the idea from BHG.

This mantel is cute! I found it on the Landeelu blog. This link will take you to her post where she talks about this mantel and the pieces on it.

I love the simplicity of the mantel below from the blog (eighteen25), that I love soooo much!! They have a tutorial for those stars, everything. Here is a link to their "Past Projects: 4th of July" post. It has links to their tutorials for everything you see in the picture below!

They just make you want to be creative, don't they?! Ok, I'm off to plan for craftiness!

Road Trip Days 8-10

Day 8: June 15

Today, we drove (and by we, I mean J). 9 hours. I slept 1 hour. We got to Arlington/Grand Prairie around 6 o'clock, checked into our hotel,

Can you guess what hotel we went to?

& immediately started to do research on where to eat nearby. We found a place online and put the address in our GPS. Yeah, apparently, we didn't have to do that. It was in the same shopping center area as our hotel. Good thing we kept that secret to ourselves; how embarrassing!

It was a buffet line of ingredients. You got to fill 2 bowls with anything you wanted. Then, 2 guys put the ingredients on a screaming hot "flat top" to "stir-fry" your food. They even had a board telling you how much of each of the provided liquids you needed to make your food hot, medium, or mild. It wasn't that bad! I just put Siracha sauce all over my stir-fry after it was cooked. =)

Then, we got in touch with our friends from college, changed clothes, and drove 40 minutes to Plano (north of Dallas) to hang out with them. Let's just say we had a good time & loved catching up. =) We left Plano at 3:15am. =(

Day 9: June 16
We woke up at 1pm. That's what happens when you get back to your hotel room at 4am. (don't tell mom!) We got dressed and walked across the parking lot to IHOP. Pancakes sounded really good after a late night with friends.

Then, we went back to the hotel to change into our Rangers shirts & headed off to the game.

Someone was excited!

We got to the game 2 hours early. Dallas Cowboy Stadium is really close by!

So we could watch batting practice & get the free shirt they were giving to the first 25k fans. Don't worry, we both got that one AND we both filled out a quick survey to get another free shirt each. =)

Our seats were in the outfield so we were able to try and catch a few balls before the game started. They only problem was that it felt like 100 degrees & we were sweating buckets within 5 minutes! Amazingly, we didn't get sunburned! The only consequence was that I got a blister on my elbow from resting it on the metal armrest for too long. Grr!

The lady sitting behind us noticed me taking pictures & offered to take some of us with home plate in the background. She said she had the same camera as me so the pictures turned out great!

The game was actually pretty good. As I predicted, once the Astros' bullpen came in, the Rangers started winning. They were down 3-0 and scored 5 runs in one inning to take the lead. The 3-run homer hit was only one section away from us!

This is the Cruz homerun swing! I was taking pictures "just in case" he hit one!

Final score!

Day 10: June 17 (Father's Day)
We got up, ate breakfast at the hotel, and started driving around 9:30. We saw 2 new license plates. Our total was 34 different state sightings, 3 were not documented, only 5 are on 18-wheelers.

How cool is this?! I made it with all the plates we saw!

We got back to Houston at 12:30, just in time to say bye to Mom as she left for Kid's Camp, hop in brother's car with him & Dad, and go to Uncle P & Aunt M's for a Father's Day BBQ.

Road Trip Day 7

Day 7: June 14

So today, we really slept in. We left the hotel in time for lunch. =) We went to a Triple D location called Happy Gillis Café & Hangout. It’s a quaint little neighborhood spot that got really busy & full as soon as we sat down.

Inside, there are only 5 four-person tables, a sofa & 2 chairs around a coffee table, and 4 barstools in a window. Outside on the sidewalk, there are about 6 wrought-iron tables for two people each. The episode showed that this location used fresh ingredients and was pretty creative with sandwiches.

J got the Whole Hog.

I got the Shrimp Salad.

Don’t those look soooo good? Well, they tasted as great as they looked.

After that, J & I searched Foursquare (a social check-in app/site that gives to popular places near you to visit) on where to go. We drove by J. C. Nichols Memorial Fountain.

Then, we drove to Crown Center (which we later realized we could have walked to from our hotel). It’s a small mall area with an Aquarium & Legoland across the street. These fountains flanked the entrance.

This was my favorite store in Crown Center. =) The whole mall was small but focused on kids.

This face is for the Crayola restaurant next to the store.

We then left to find the huge shuttlecock sculptures. They were in the Sculpture Park at Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

Some guys were playing soccer in the grassy area between 2.

This is the one above closer up.

See the limp soccer goal in front of the 2nd one?

That's J standing next to the 3rd one!

We went back to the hotel to change into blue for the Kansas City Royals game. I saw this random fountain on the way back.

Before heading to the game, we stopped at a local joint called Grinders we had seen on a Triple D episode. 

We ordered the “Very Crabby” Rangoons and the Bengal Tiger Pizza.

It was really good for having non-traditional pizza toppings.

We headed to the Royals game and noticed that the Kansas City Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium was right next-door.

Kauffman Stadium was incredible. I have never seen a stadium like it. The whole outfield was "open" and their huge screen & fountains are most of center field. 

Notice a fountain theme...apparently Kansas City is known as the City of Fountains. I think I found where Mom should really be living. =)

We sat right on the foul line up the 1^st base side. There was almost no foul territory at all except for the stands. 

We were close enough to right field that the fans around us were able to heckle/interact with the Brewers’ right fielder. It was awesome! You could clearly see the right fielder listening, reacting, & laughing at what the fans around us were saying to him.

We left the game after the 8^th inning so we could avoid traffic leaving the game & watch the 4^th quarter of the Thunder game.

Unfortunately, we miss the best part of the Royals game apparently. They scored 2 runs in the bottom of the ninth in order to win the game 4-3. I’m sad we missed that but we had a decision to make & we chose the Thunder over a probable loss by the home team (we were wrong on which team would win last night but that’s ok.).

Tomorrow, a 9 hour drive to Arlington, Texas. Goodnight.

Road Trip Day 6

Day 6: June 13

For those who know me: my feet are trashed. =(

This morning J & I checked out of our hotel around 10 and started heading back the way we came to Eureka, Missouri. We were able to meet up with one of J’s high school friends. We ate at this cute little place called Michelle’s Café.

They serve breakfast until 2 every day so I got an omelet and J got some pancakes. His friend has a son who is the same age as our niece (literally, the same exact birthday). C was so cute! He enjoyed watching the trains passing through town outside and kept saying “truck” and “car ride.” So, while J & his friend were paying, I took C outside to see the “cool truck.” I put him in the driver & passenger seats as well as the bed of the truck.

Isn’t he precious?! Then, right before we left C’s mommy took some pictures with us. I’m so thankful she did. They turned out great.

C was still watching the train passing.

We left Eureka and started driving northwest to Kansas City. We were on a narrow, winding road for a little bit in order to cut north to a major highway.

Right before we got into Kansas City, we had our first sighting of Kauffman Stadium.

Reality set in that we won’t be walking to any more stadiums from our hotel. This means that tomorrow night, we might miss more than just the first 3 quarters of the Thunder game. That will be an “in the moment” decision on what is more important: our first experience at a Royals game or Thunder Game 2 of the Finals. (Good problem to have.)

We checked into our hotel, which turned out to be much nicer than the one in St. Louis. (Funny how they are the same chain.)

After staring out our window, we decided to eat. Since we hadn’t eaten at any Triple D locations in St. Louis, J & I decided that most of the places we will eat at in Kansas City would come from that show.

What kind of food do you think of when you think of Kansas City? BBQ! I’m not a fan of BBQ but J is so I thought I could take one for the team. I had seen on Triple D a place called Smokin Guns BBQ & Catering. They have won BBQ championships so I figured it would be good. Also on the show, they talked about this place having moist smoked turkey (something I would eat). It’s a small place but you could tell it would be legit (wood-paneling, plastic red & white checked tablecloths, Styrofoam plates & cups, plastic silverware, and their ribbons & trophies as the decorations).

J & I decided to get a combo plate so we could try multiple things & share. It said 3 BB ribs, 2 meats & 2 sides. $14.95. Yeah. That’s what we thought. This is what our food looked like when we got it.

Yeah. & then this happened.

Yes. That’s me. Eating BBQ. & liking it.

After eating our combo, we decided one more thing was required to taste test (at least that’s the reason we’ll tell you).

So worth it!!

At 6 o’clock (after dinner…yes, Mom. We ate early. Laugh it up.), we went back to the hotel and vegged out to the Yankees vs. Braves game on TV. I needed some time to let my feet recover & we needed to plan out tomorrow.

Tomorrow, Triple D food & Royals game.