Dallas Trip (June 2014) - Day 5

Our last day in DFW did NOT go as planned, but it turned out perfect! In more ways than one...

We woke up expecting to check out and head to Plano while Jay had class and get back around 1pm when his class was over. And then at breakfast we saw THAT was probably not a good idea. Lots of severe weather around the metroplex. So, after giving the kids the bad news, I got the kids packed up and decided to head to Arlington where we would one hour ahead of bad weather when Jay met us after his class. We hit up The Children's Place Outlet (soooooooo overdue) which was quite the experience. It was only 10:30am and with rain and everything on a weekday, we had the store to ourselves. And thank GOODNESS we did because my kids acted like they'd never been to a store before. Braden decided to play hide-and-seek with me...until I told him a trip next door to Chuck E. Cheese hinged on whether or not he wanted to behave himself. I am so awesome. That worked like a CHARM! One child down, but the other child was two and could not be bought off :( Oh, and they both had to go potty. Good stuff...

And, of course, we had tons of time to kill until Jay got out of class and the kids were hungry so Chuck E. Cheese was ideal. But, have YOU ever taken two kids age 5 and 2 to that place and you know NO ONE else? I definitely earned my Mother of the Year nomination that day.

 This is what Landri would do. She'd sit at a machine like she wanted to play. I would put money in, and as soon as it started, she would run off. BEYOND infuriating......enraging really. The good thing is I saved money by not paying for rides for her anymore LOL

And she was so fast and sneaky (I had about 6 heart attacks because she would vanish for minutes at a time while I would look to see if Braden was okay), that the biggest heart attack I had was when she disappeared for five LONG minutes (I was *this* close to contacting security) and I finally looked up and saw this:

 She had snuck under the bar to enter the Fun House that was DEFINITELY NOT designed for kids under four. But, what I saw on that screen also touched my heart because I witnessed three older girls (about 5-7 years old) who were helping her every step of the way to make sure she stayed safe and got out without getting scared. I watched them hop from screen to screen as the cameras captured a few diffferent parts of the House. I thanked them profusely when they finally emerged from the slide exit.

I also saw this:

B having trouble with the Hall of Mirrors

After an hour of playing I corraled them over to the front so I could order pizza for us. I have no freaking clue how I managed to do that plus get us all self-serve drinks and seated without crying and screaming, but that's why I will be named Mother of the Year I suppose ;)

We did a little more playing before Jay met up with us.

And she was so tired out and full, she actually sat still long enough for me to get this <3:

We were making awesome time until we got in the traffic jam in Ranger, TX. Ugh. Ridiculous construction lane closures on a road that is 50-75% 18-wheelers. But whatever. It only cost us about 20-30 minutes. We then stopped for dinner in Sweetwater and headed home.

The reason I said it was perfect was because if we had left 30 minutes later or been caught in traffic 30 minutes longer, we would have been driving through extremely strong thunderstorms with baseball sized hail in Abilene :o Thank you, God, that we didn't have to deal with anything other than traffic and a little bit of rain :)