Weekend Update

Friday

Friday night we finally went to Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament. We tried going on my Birthday, but there was a storm right before we went that made the power go out so we got a rain check. I was planning on then going on our anniversary, but when I called that day they said they didn't have any showings for that night (bad planning on my part). So instead of going on a special night we just picked a random day that worked for both of us and went for it. This place is a show with medieval times themed games and staged jousting and sword fighting. Then obviously the dinner part of it too.

I read online that in order to get good seats you had to show up early as a "first come first serve". I think that was just a way to have you get there early to buy stuff from their gift shop and bar. There really wasn't a bad seat in the house. There was 6 different sections with different colors that represented the knight and their horse that you would cheer for. We were the yellow section (and of course we won).



101 things to do in 1001 days:  Go to a show/theatre performance.

Saturday

I have been looking forward to this day for about a year. When I first moved to Dallas I wanted to find some dog events that I could go do with Sequoia. Unfortunately I was not able to find any that sounded interesting except for this one, but it was a whole year away! Sequoia always loves her dog park visits but she especially loved cooling off in the pool. I wish this was more than just once a year but I guess until next year guys.




101 things to do in 1001 days:  Go to a dog event with Sequoia

Life in Dallas

Slide the City Dallas

The pictures are pretty self explanatory. There was a bridge that the city blocked off where they inserted a large slip-and-slide. When you got to the top of the hill, they handed you a bag with some keepsakes, which included the mouth guard. I figured I would get the most for my money and use it. Why not?
We only paid to go down the slide once, which good thing we did since a couple of the tubes popped. I wish there would have been more stuff we could have done there but it was still fun and worth it.

Pete's Piano Bar

I have actually gone here a couple times and both times were with my coworkers. I am not a big fan of going to bars to sit around in a loud area and try to hold a conversation. This bar, however, is an interactive bar which makes it more entertaining. There are two pianos at the front with tables in a half-circle around them. There doesn't seem to be a bad spot to sit in the whole bar. They play popular songs from all generations while mostly catering to the millennial generation. They also have Jello shots that are in a syringe which as nurses we HAD to get those. Plus it makes drinking more fun when you can pull up other drinks into the syringe, duh.

Katy Trail

I always like to find a good walking trail and now that there are no lakes its hard to do. When I googled "trails in Dallas" this is what I found. The drive was about 30 minutes, if it wasn't for that I would go here more often. This trail is where an old railroad use to run and instead of taking away the tracks and letting nature take its course, the city paved the trail to make it into a running/biking trail. It was a nice trail but there was construction going on in the buildings around it. Maybe I just walked the wrong way but it kind of took away from the tranquility of the walk. Of course I brought Sequoia along for the fun and at the end of our walk together there was a restaurant with a nice dog friendly patio where we had lunch. Jason insisted that we buy Sequoia her own lunch, so we got her a hot dog. He is such a sucker for her.




101 things to do in 1001 days: Do 3 things unique to Dallas

Exploring New Resturants

1. Waffle house 11/07/2015
It was something Jason and I have drove past all the time since it is right by our place. I have heard of it before but we do not have any in Minnesota (that I know of anyway). It was a cute little place that reminded me of old town diner. The food was good but nothing special.



2. Enzo NY Pizzeria 12/01/2015
My husband and I were feeling like Pizza, but wanted something different than the usual takeout. We found this online and thought we would try it out. The atmosphere was really nice. We found out that we drive past this area on the way to the gym. It is a cute little square of buildings with a grass area out front. Pizza was pizza which was good. I got Spinach Alfredo and Pepperoni and my husband got two Pepperoni. We like our basic foods/we are picky.


3. Peacon Lodge 7/02/2016
This was the restaurant I thought about when I made this "thing to do".  It is located in Deep Ellum  of Dallas so it consisted of a special trip. Apparently, this is the place to go for barbecue in the Dallas area. I asked multiple people at work where to go for some good barbecue and they all brought up this place. The line was about a 45 minute wait to order food but once you ordered it came out in about 5 minutes. While you were waiting in line there was news reports and stories of how this place came to be. There was a picture of Guy Fieri from the food network visiting this restaurant. I am on the picky side when it comes to food so I try not to set the bar too high but the food met and exceed my expectations. I went here with my sister and she liked it so much she brought her husband and brother-in-law back another time.



4. Kenny's Burger Joint 08/06/2016
This was another place that was brought up by one of my coworkers when I asked about good food in the area. He suggested this burger place that has lots of unique burgers. I think it is hard to go wrong with a burger, so I took him up on this offer. I went with my husband, my sister, and my brother-in-law. I got the black and blue burger that has cajun spices and blue cheese dressing on top. They also had some good parmesan fries on the side. There was a burger that had queso cheese on top but I got nervous ordering that one since the server said its so messy you had to eat it with a fork and knife. Who eats a burger with a fork and knife? Maybe next time...


5. Maggiano's Little Italy 8/29/2016
My hubby and I went here for our first Anniversary. I have heard about it from multiple people and noticed it was a big chain. I am always hesitant to go to any Italian restaurant besides Olive Garden because I love that place so much. I always get Fettuccine Alfredo when I have Italian, but I always compare to Olive Garden which it never compares. So this time I wanted to try something different. I tried the baked zitti and I wish I would have just gotten Fettichine :/ But you never know till you try. Who knows, it could have been the next best things. Then we ended the meal with a cheesecake that was AMAZING!





101 things to do in 1001 days: Go to 5 Restaurants I have never been to before.

Harry Potter

SPOILER ALERT! I will be talking in detail about some points in the books and movies.

I did it! 4,175 pages later, I read all of the Harry Potter books! I think that doubled the amount of reading I have done in my lifetime. My sister talked me into reading the books. I was not very excited to read them since I had already watched all the movies, but she convinced me. I remembered the first two movies very well so the first couple of books were not very entertaining to me. However, after the first two movies the rest of the movies I only remembered small details from. I am not the best at following movies, so I must have gotten confused and did not cling on to much information. Every once in a while, I remembered stuff as it happened or I remembered how the book ended but I did not remember the details working up to it. I knew some of the big events such as Sirius was actually Harry's Godfather who eventually dies, Snape is actually good but ends up dying, Dumbledore dies, and Harry some how dies comes back to life and defeats Voldemort. Everything else in between was a mystery to me.



It was no wonder I got lost in the movies. There were so many details in the books that it would be hard to fit all of that in a movie. When my sister handed me the fourth book, I was in shock. How could someone read a book that was 800 pages for fun? The first 3 books were normal sized and then she brought me a book that could just about fit the first three books in one book. I admit, it took me awhile to motivate myself to even start that book.



Lupin quickly became my favorite teacher and member of the Order. I don't remember him very much in the movies and I definitely did not remember him dying, so that obviously came as a shock to me. I thought I knew everyone that was going to die. I also didn't remember Mad-Eye being an imposter in The Goblet of Fire, and I don't remember him dying either, but I wasn't as attached to him as I was to Lupin. And Dobby. Poor Dobby. He grew on me in the books since they talked about him more. I forgot all about his death. RIP little elf. RIP.

So now that I am a Harry Potter "Fan". Who wants to go to London and Harry Potter World?!?


101 things to do in 1001 days: Read all the Harry Potter Books