On Thursday, November 12th (Mommy’s birthday), we packed up the car and headed down to Texas. Dallas/Fort Worth area to be more precise. The plan, to visit (and stay with) close friends from TCU, give Kinley her first tour of her future college (TCU) and to take Kinley to her first TCU tailgate and football game. GO FROGS!!!
This drive was very different from Kinley’s previous trips (Colorado and Minnesota) because we did the entire drive during the day. Kinley handled the change quite well. She must be getting more comfortable with her forward facing car seat because she actually took two naps. She also ate decently, as well as can be expected from Kinley when she is in a new place. We made sure to feed her outside of the car to avoid any chance of “back fire” in her car seat. Kinley’s choice of dining establishments were McDonald’s (on I-35 turnpike) and McDonald’s (somewhere in Oklahoma). We were able to arrive at our friends’ (Kevin and Candice) home in time for our dinner and Kinley’s bedtime meal. Traveling during the day was not an issue with Kinley, but stopping to feed her (twice) did add 2 hours on top of the already 8 hour drive.
On a personal note, Kathy and I are not fans of the toll highways surrounding Dallas. Luckily, Kevin and Candice gave us excellent directions to follow whenever they were not actually with us in the car.
Our first day in Texas, Friday, was a pretty busy day. Kevin and Candice (only a half-day) had to work, so after breakfast Kathy and I packed Kinley up and headed to TCU. TCU, like many other colleges, tends to have some parking issues. This was not helped by the fact that it was a football game weekend and that ESPN College GameDay was on campus. Luckily we were able to find a spot in the TCU Bookstore parking lot. Once Kinley was situated in her stroller we headed into campus to take a look around and show Kinley where mom and dad went to school. TCU’s campus is pretty compact so the tour didn’t take too long, but there was plenty to see because a lot of things had changed since mommy and daddy were there plus, ESPN was setting everything up for College GameDay. In fact, there were already some students claiming spots for the next day’s show.
We also stopped to pick up our football tickets for Saturday’s game. Before returning to the car we had to stop at the TCU Bookstore, so we could all get some new TCU apparel. Before heading back to Kevin and Candice’s we stopped at one of our favorite restaurants in Fort Worth, Charleston’s, so Kinley could eat lunch. By this point Kinley had become pretty comfortable eating out at restaurants.
When we arrived “home” we found that Candice was home too. We “grabbed” Candice and headed to the local mall to do some more shopping. (Don’t worry, Kinley took a nap both to and from TCU.) I dropped the ladies off so I could take our car in for an oil change. When I joined back up with the ladies I found that Kinley had completed her shopping so Kathy and Candice were free to shop for themselves. (While in Gap, I ran into my K-State baseball teammate/roommate’s wife.) Once we had all had our fill of shopping we met up with Kevin and went out to dinner at Abuelo’s. Kinley absolutely loved their tortilla chips.
Saturday was definitely more of a day for dad and Kevin. We woke up extra early to go to TCU and be a part of College GameDay. I won’t bore you all with details, but it was an amazing experience.
Kinley hung out at “home” with Kathy and Candice and they all joined us that afternoon, once the tailgate was all set up. We set Kinley’s booster seat right on the asphalt, in the middle of a circle of chairs, and she ate/tried just about everything we gave her. She was definitely showing off for everyone. After she was done eating we let her roam around, but she always ended up walking down hill and never wanted to walk back up. We figured too much walking around (and visiting other tailgates) would wear her out and make her cranky, so we put her in her stroller and I walked her around the parking lot. Game time finally rolled around and we all headed toward the stadium. The game was completely sold out, plus TCU sold an additional 5,000 standing room only tickets. Needless to say, it was packed.
Photos above courtesy of Kevin and Candice.
We had purchased end-zone (cheaper) tickets because we were not sure how Kinley would handle the game. She made it through the national anthem and the first five minutes of the first quarter, but then she decided that was enough. We placed her in her stroller and decided to walk around the stadium. The downside of walking around was that we couldn’t see the field due to all of the standing room only tickets. We decided we would head “home” and watch the remainder of the game there, but before we could go mom and dad had to get some Dippin’ Dots. Kinley confirmed that she is definitely our daughter because she could not get enough Dippin’ Dots. Her mouth was open and ready for more just seconds after we had given her a bite.
After arriving “home” we were really depressed, for two reasons. The first was that the TCU game was not nationally televised and therefore we couldn’t watch it. We did listen to it though. The second was that we realized that we are not very experienced parents. We forgot to take any pictures of Kinley at her first TCU tailgate and football game. Here are a couple pics after we realized we were bad parents.
Sunday ended up being a day of relaxation. For the most part we simply hung out at the house, but we did take Kinley on a walk around the neighborhood. We couldn’t pass up the gorgeous Texas weather. It was 78 degrees, in the middle of November!
Monday morning we packed up the car and headed home. We all had a great weekend and are hoping to do it all again in 2010.
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