"The One With...A Vacation to Dallas"

Watch out Dallas - here we come!

Friday morning found me packing my bags and heading to the airport to meet my friend Heather (HK) for a weekend in Dallas to visit our dear friend Deanna. We arrived before Deanna got off of work so we decided to sit in Chili's snacking on our favorite food - chips/salsa & margaritas until Deanna got there :)

She arrived in front of the baggage claim in style with the hip hop music blaring, a set of holiday antlers on her head, a X-mas necklace of red/green fuzzy balls around her neck with one for each of us to wear - we expected nothing less from this girl :) You might remember from a previous post that Deanna is also one that shares our love of the holiday season...I think even more so than HK and I! Anyway, we loaded our luggage in the car and away we went with all three of us wearing our x-mas accessories! I'm sure it was a crazy sight to see & I am bummed I didn't get a picture of us all! We definitely got a few glares from the public!

Our first evening in Dallas was a fun yet relaxing one. We got settled into D's apartment, visited for awhile and then headed out to a mexican restaurant called Chuy's for margaritas and some great food. After dinner, we headed to a cute little pub in D's neighborhood that was playing live music and enjoyed a beverage while listening to the band. We got back to D's house a little after midnight and settled in for the evening as we were all exhausted from the days festivities.

Saturday morning we all slept in late and didn't get out of D's house until well after 11am. We started our day at the cutest cafe & bakery called Bread Winners and enjoyed the best breakfast ever. This litte cafe had the biggest pastries in the display case I had ever seen and they looked SO yummy! We are talking sticky buns the size of your head! We just had to get a picture in front of all the desserts...

Next stop was The Sixth Floor JFK Museum. The line to get into the museum ended up being over an hour wait and we were pressed for time so we decided to decline the tour but were still able to look around the building, observe the memorial outside and see the "X" in the road where JFK was shot. It was so surreal to look around and see the exact window where Lee Harvey Oswald stood, the road that JFK and his wife were traveling on and see where exactly that one moment in history that the whole word changed. In the picture count six floors up on the right hand side of the building and that is the window where the shots came from.Next stop, the Dallas aquarium. When we finally arrived up to the ticket counter, it was $20 to get in per person and we only had an hour so we bailed on the aquarium but we did manage to get some fun photos outside:

The reason we were pressed for time all afternoon is because Deanna surprised us with a photo session at Glamour Shots at 3pm for that day and we were SO excited about her "surprise"! We bought some "beverages" for the occasion and made our way to the mall. Once we got there, they started doing our makeup and hair which was hilarious. We opted for the "dramatic" look versus "natural" and were expecting blue eyeshadow, red lipstick and big hair. Much to our disappointment, we ended up looking "natural" afterall and we soon realized that this wasn't what Glamour Shots used to be back in the day! There were no more "costumes" to pick from and change into and very limited "props" to use but we did manage to use a few of there items for our pictures :) Here is a pic of us "pre" glamour:

Our photo session was so much fun and we all agreed we hadn't laughed that much in ages. After it was all said and done, we took a seat in the viewing lounge in front of a huge flat screen TV to view our pics. We watched the slideshow, agreed on 9 poses and then the price of each package was discussed. We were not prepared for what was about to be presented to us. The super sweet gal went over all 3 packages with us and then told us the price of each one. I hope those of you who are reading this are sitting down when you read just how much 2 hours of fun can cost you because I'm glad I was! OK - here are the prices: Package A-$3695 Package B-$3195 Package C-$2695 YES people - that is three thousand plus dollars! We had to pick our jaws up off the floor after she told us that. Deanna, being the not-so-subtle one of our group told the gal "if you think we are paying $3000 for Glamour Shots pictures you are f*!#ing crazy!" Let's just say the super sweet girl was not so super sweet towards us after that. We asked how much pictures would be if we didn't want a package and she rudely said $45 per sheet with no airbrushing. Sounded good to us - we narrowed it down from 9 poses to 4 & even had a coupon for a free 8x10 so we walked out of there paying only $152 total! We get our photos next week and can't wait to see how they turned out!

After our Glamour Shots session, we headed to a super cute restaurant called Fireside Pies and enjoyed dining on family-sized salads and pizza. We stuffed ourselves silly and topped it off with a warm apple pie dessert with ice cream. Mmm Mmm good! We then headed back to D's and freshened up for our evening out on the town in Dallas. We went to a fun dance club called Tribeca and spent most of the evening out on the dance floor. We ended up getting home around 2:00am and spent the next hour up talking. We finally fell asleep around 3:30am and was back up at 7:30am to pack and head to the airport. We were exhausted but enjoyed every minute of our time with Deanna!

Sunday we landed in KC around 12 noon and were sad to leave Deanna but glad to get back home to our family and to our own beds. It was a wonderful weekend and we are so glad we made the trip!