November 24, 2009

Dallas

We had an exciting family trip to Dallas this past weekend. Despite of all of Little A's ear woes, we put on our game faces and made the (surprisingly short and painless) 5.5 hour drive down.

Here's the back story- in college, I was assigned to work football through athletic training. This afforded me the chance to form some fabulous friendships with athletes from all over. One of my best, best friends is Bastian, who came to Iowa State to play football from Germany. He and his fiance, Nicole, are getting married in a traditional German ceremony in April, but they decided to combine their trip to Dallas for Thanksgiving into an impromptu Texas Wedding, i.e. legalized marriage in the states to celebrate with Nicole's family and some friends from college. Hence, the trip to Dallas...


We arrived and spent a brief few moments catching up with old friends from college. Next, we congregated in the suite that they acquired for us to socialize in- Little A thought it would be funny to "hide" under the glass-top table.



Next, we attended the "rehearsal dinner" at a new place in Dallas called Gordon Bierch's. We laughed together, told stories, reminisced, had a few drinks, lamented over the insane amount of garlic that they put on their fries, and laughed some more. Here's one of Bastian, doing what he does best...



Then, it was back to the suite. Seeing as we are a bunch of post-graduate scholars living a very sophisticated, adult life, we certainly would never do anything like this:



We're classy like that.

After some more reminiscing and laughter, we headed down to the lobby to accompany a couple of our friends. I left my ID in the hotel room (where my girls were sleeping with my mom), and they refused to serve me a drink, so I just watched.

Our friend, Brandon, has been participating in the great facebook holdout since 04-05ish. We believe that we have finally coerced him into joining, and he deemed me responsible to attain the coveted facebook profile picture for him to use. I think I will choose this one:



Here are the 4 Musketeers: Bastian, Brandon, Ashley, and myself. It was so good to be together, I can't even put it into words. We may span the country (and the Atlantic), but we all agreed that it is absolutely necessary for us to make a better effort to see each other more often. And, hey... my peeps live in Munich, San Diego, and Vermont. Can you say vacation?!?




The next morning, we awoke and prepared ourselves to meet in the lobby at 9:00 for a group breakfast. Sassy was beyond preoccupied with the wedding, and she just couldn't wait for it to get here so she could wear her pretty clothes. She had to settle for starting out in something more casual, but she insisted on having her hair blown out and wearing her pearls:



Sassy and Little A played for a bit in the hotel room:



And, it was back down to the lobby for us...

Everyone enjoyed some coffee. My Mom and Dad traveled down for the wedding, too. They became close to Bastian during our college days, and he and my Dad bonded instantly over their German heritage. Oh, and it was great to have a built in baby-sitter once we deemed it necessary to bring the girls... Her name is Nana.



Everyone got some cuddle time in with the girls, and it was off to breakfast. We found a little dive near the hotel called Oasis, and I had a spicy, jalapeno-y breakfast that screamed Texas (Or Tex-ex, as Sassy calls it)...



To be continued...

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