The Lee Family: Fun Weekend with Chuck

My college buddy Chuck came in for a quick visit on very short notice since he's about to start a new job and has a few weeks off. The last time he visited, Olivia was just a few months old and we had fun driving around Dallas then. It was so much fun to hang out with him this time and also to visit sights in Dallas that I've never been to, despite living here for nearly 8 years! Chuck arrived on Wednesday and Olivia and I picked him up before we drove home and met Sofia right as she was getting off the bus. Perfect timing! After he got settled into our guest room, we decided to go out to sushi since CK was at a work dinner and wouldn't be home until later. The girls and I took him to Sushi Sam, which we haven't eaten at in a long time. It was delicious and the girls, mainly Sofia, hit the California Roll pretty hard while they both ate a lot of edamame and their miso soups. We headed home and I put the girls to bed before we watched the movie "Boyhood" with CK, who got home just as it started. "Boyhood" is nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, so I wanted to see it even though the story sounded a bit boring to me. In fact, it was quite dismal and boring and all three of us agreed it was a waste of time.

On Thursday, I took Sofia to school at her usual 7:45am time and after breakfast Olivia and I took Chuck to the Kimbell Art Museum to see the Faces of Impressionism exhibit which included portraits by Manet, Degas, and Renoir as well as other painters of that period. It was a cold and rainy day so we figured it would be perfect to see the exhibit. However, so did a lot of other people! I ended up taking Olivia out of her stroller and carried her through the exhibit room since we could hardly walk through. The exhibit ends this weekend and apparently it has been very busy since it opened. It was a very interesting exhibit but we didn't see all of it since it was so crowded. We took Olivia over to the kids play area, which was really interesting and fun and hung out for a few minutes. From there, we decided to have lunch and drove to Sundance Square to decide where to eat. After driving around, we decided on CK and my favorite restaurant, Reata, which is also a good example of "Texas" food (I think). As always it was delicious and Olivia's grilled cheese was possibly one of the best I've ever had. She had fun playing with her little horses and making up stories while Chuck and I ate and talked. From lunch, we drove to another favorite, Buon Giorno Coffee Shop. We order coffees and headed home. A babe sitter arrived around 5pm to hang out with the girls while Chuck and I headed back to Ft Worth to the Stock Show to watch the rodeo. I had grand plans to eat somewhere downtown but we were both so full from lunch still. CK was in Austin for the night, so he missed out on the rodeo. We grabbed a quick and light bite before going to the arena where we found our seats. Our seats were almost in the very last row of the arena, but they were actually still very good. I was impressed at how well we could see all the action! It was a first for Chuck and I think he was surprised how much he enjoyed it. Sofia was upset that she couldn't go with us, but we have really great tickets for us to all go in two weeks. It's always so much fun though and the rodeo was as fun as ever.

On Friday morning our baby sitter came to hang out with Olivia while Sofia was at school so Chuck and I could go to the 6th Floor Museum, which focuses on the life and death of President Kennedy. I've never been and didn't feel like it was an appropriate museum to take a 3-year old. We arrived and parked just after the museum opened and it was already crowded! Thankfully, the entry is timed so we were able to get in and enjoy the exhibits without it being overly crowded. The museum was fascinating, especially having not grown up during that timeframe. The entire exhibit actually takes place on the 6th floor, although the window that was used to gun down President Kennedy is restricted and can only be looked at through glass. However, we walked up to the 7th floor where we could stand exactly one floor up from where Lee Harvey Oswald stood and we could also take pictures on this level. The museum was well worth the visit.

We left the museum and wanted to visit Reunion Tower and decided to try and walk there since it isn't too far away and we already had a great parking spot. By contrast, it was pretty much empty even though the weather was great for seeing the area from the tower. We had our "official" picture taken and then took the elevator up to the top. It has great views and the interactive computer screens are great at providing context to what you're looking at. We walked around on the inside and outside and then walked up one floor to Cloud Nine, a casual lunch place that is just below Wolfgang Puck's (overpriced) Five Sixty Restaurant. The floor at Cloud Nine rotates which was really fun and it was also pretty empty, so we picked our seats nearest the view of CK's building, Fountain Place. We ate lunch which was quite good really and reasonable priced. It was really a lot of fun and I need to bring the girls for a visit on a nice weather day. I know they would love it. WE still had about two hours until we needed to be back home, so we decided to visit the Arboretum since I'm a member and it would be nice to walk around a bit. It was interesting to visit it in mid-January because it is definitely in the middle of Fall and Spring with just the barebones trees and shrubs and not a lot of beautiful foliage as I'm used to. However, it was also pretty much empty so we enjoyed strolling through the Arboretum before returning to our car. We headed home in time to meet Sofia at the bus stop and hung out until we met CK at Baker's Ribs in Grapevine. We wanted to take Chuck to a good, authentic Texas BBQ joint and Baker's Ribs is great.

The next morning, I drove CK back to the airport for a conference he had in Arizona. Chuck was scheduled to leave a few hours later, so we drove to Irving where our friends and neighbor's had a grand opening for Premier One Emergency Room. I wanted to stop by and see the facility before we headed for a quick lunch. We visited Premier One, got a great tour of the facility (it's pretty incredible) and the girls got balloon animals and their face ad arms painted. It was great fun! From there, we drove the short distance to LA Burger, which Chuck found on Yelp. It is a Korean-inspired burger joint which was incredible! Very delicious and the buns were perfect. After eating, we drove Chuck to the airport and said our goodbyes. Now that he'll be in Los Angeles instead of San Francisco, we will very likely visit him on our next trip to California! What a fun few days!!

Chuck and Olivia in the child's room of the Kimbell Museum