TSO

Yesterday Tyler and I went to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra at the American Airlines Center.

We had dinner at Avanti Ristorante for some good Italian food.

The concert was a bit strange to me, especially at first. There was just something weird about them singing about Christ with heavy rock to it. It's like I was like ACDC/Gun n' Roses meet Pentecostal church.

It was the heaviest light show I have ever seen. I actually think it was more of a lights/pyro/laser show as much as a music concert. Cool? Very much. Especially for this ex theater techie.

Nobody does what they do. They're very talented. heavy rock just isn't quite my cup o' tea. and I definitely could have done without all the hair flipping and immodest back up singers. Enjoy the videos (you'll see what I mean).

29th Birthday

The day after Christmas Tyler turned 29.

We started out the day by going to lunch to Costa Vida that is about 45 minutes from our house.

Burritos of happiness!

After the meal we went to the Grapevine mills outlet mall for a little after Christmas shopping. This was an event for me. :) I tried to be fast though.

We then went to what Tyler wanted to do for his birthday. We went to the Gaylord Texan at Grapevine for their ICE! exhibition.

We got our tickets (barely) for the last show. Everything else was sold out and we were there at 7:00pm, so we walked around the beautiful hotel to look at their lights and decorations.

I think it'd be so fun to stay at one of their hotels one of these times.

Gingerbread house

We were going to eat dinner, but neither one of us were hungry after Costa Vida. So we walked around the gift shop, took pictures, and got in line an hour early to get into the exhibit.

It was so full of people it was nuts.

I was freezing as soon as we got in there, in spite of them giving us nasty coats that get reused over and over without washing, germs much. yeah.

Tyler was determined to slide down the ice slide. I was ready to get out. But since it was his birthday and all I obliged and waited patiently for him to sit in line for thirty minutes and then slide down.

Now if I was thinking straight I would have waited in line with him, slided down first and then filmed him coming down... but no.. instead I just waited at the bottom the whole thirty minutes freezing my bum off.

At the end of it they had an ice nativity.

Was it pretty cool? Yes

Will we go again next year? Yes

But next year I'll dress appropriately so that my fingers don't hurt once they were defrosted. skinny jeans and boots just didn't cut it. We'll also go sometime during the week so it's not jammed packed full of people. bring hand warmers. and get online tickets.

Christmas

Christmas was so low key, it's like it didn't even happen.

It snowed in Dallas Christmas Eve and it stuck through morning. That was a Christmas miracle and brought me great joy.
Tyler took this picture on Christmas Eve.

I was scheduled to work Christmas Eve and day.

So when I got home on Christmas morning after having a rough night at work (manic bipolar patient does that to a nurse) I came home to a Christmas breakfast made by my loving husband.

Please excuse the exhausted face, crazy hair, and lovely scrubs.

This is the extent of our Christmas pictures. We filmed gifts and I showered and crashed shortly after that.

We got a Wii fit plus and some nick knacks, namely food.
The real gift was paying off another credit card on Christmas Eve. We are now down to only one card with a balance. And that is the reason of the low key Christmas. :-)

I ended up getting canceled on Christmas day. I got up, showered, and had every intention to do something with Tyler. However he had a baptism to attend, and I chose to stay behind. I got back into jammies, browsed the net, and went back to bed to read... and ended up sleeping again until the next morning which made for a total of 18 hours of sleep in 24 hours. Night shift is rough. Tyler watched some TV when he got home and attempted to get me up without success.

Christmas Dinner

This year we started a new tradition.

A Christmas Eve fancy dinner.

Now the only problem was that I worked Christmas eve, so we did it on the 23rd. We invited some of Tyler's co-workers over for it.

I spent all day preparing for it. Big dinners, or parties like this make me very happy and I just love planning for it and doing it.

The fridge halfway through the day:

Veggie tray, chocolate cake, apple pie dough.

The pups dressed up for the party (I told you we were going fancy)

The appetizers

The bird

I hate to say this... but my bird was fabulous.

The table

The guests

Jen, Tyler, me, TJ and Jacky behind the camera.

The menu:

Appetizers - crackers with salami and cheese, cheese cubes, black olives, veggie tray (tomatoes, broccoli, snap peas, celery, carrots), almonds, cashews, peanuts, wasabi peas, pstachios.

Main course - Turkey, roasted aspargus, corn, rolls, mashed potatoes, gravy.

Desserts - Chocolate cake, homemade apple pie

Drinks - Sparkling cider (non-alcoholic), coke, root beer, fanta orange.

We had a great time with good friends and good food.

I look forward to doing this next year again, and if I have to work on Christmas eve again next year we'll follow the same plan.

Santa Baby

Dear Santa,

I've been a very good girl this year. You see Santa I graduated nursing school - that means I save lives for a living. We've been able to pay off a lot of debt (so much that we'll be debt free in a couple of months) - that means we're barely doing Christmas this year. I'm working Christmas Eve, Christmas day and New Years Eve - that means I deserve a good gift for all my sacrifices.

So santa my list from last year was pretty well accomplished. However... there are some things I still really want:

1. DSLR Camera

Ok... really this is the only thing I REALLY want. And while I know I won't be getting it this Christmas... maybe you could let the Easter bunny know and we could do it then?

Thanks Santa!

South Pacific

On Friday, Dec 18th, we had a date to the newest venue in Dallas - The Winspear Opera House.

We first went to dinner at Texas de Brazil for some good Brazilian food.

Then we went to the Winspear. I was excited to see the venue, there's been lots of talks about the new arts district in downtown so I was happy to get to go.

We got a deal from travelzoo through the mail for tickets at $35 each on the upper levels.

Now those of you who don't know... the deal we have is that if we can't have good seats to a performance, I'd rather not go. I know some of you think I'm crazy, but after this experience Tyler has strongly joined my corner.

However, I told Tyler I would be fine doing this deal so that we could check out the new venue and although I wanted to see South Pacific I wouldn't have died if I didn't. So in all this he went for it and we got left dress circle seats, and this is the view we wound up with:

As you can tell... we couldn't even see half of the stage! We were on the 4th tier of the opera house that is a horse shoe shape. I spent both acts perched over the balcony so I could see the play. It was sad.

The seats were uncomfortable and there is a huge drop off from the front row of the upper levels. The ledge is low and dangerous because there is very little leg room, so you have a hard time walking down the isle.

The venue is beautiful. It smells like fresh paint still. The sound is great, and the stage is a great size for several different type of performances.

South Pacific was beautiful. The actors were so good. Our main character, Nellie Forbush (Kate Fahrner), played Glinda with the Chicago company. The singing was amazing, the dancing was well choreographed and appropriate, the lighting was so pretty and the scenery and transitions the same. The story was good, but with like other Rodgers and Hammerstein's musicals I felt like it missed a big climax and more twists and turns to the story line. But then again... if we had better seats I might have been able to see facial expressions and feel more connected to it. :-)
It was a PG-13 show and some songs I wished weren't quite as crude, but I should have known since it's a story that has military in it and is during the war. The worst one was “There is Nothin’ Like A Dame" and the acting with the song was pretty insinuating.

All in all this was a good experience. We enjoyed a pretty good show. Accomplished our goal of getting to know the venue, and learned to never seat on the upper levels. I wish we could have seen it from the orchestra seats because I think I would have really liked it.

Dallas Symphony and Radio City

On Friday Tyler and I went on a special date to the Dallas Symphony for their Christmas concert.

We had never been to the DSO, and I had never been to a symphony ever. Tyler had attended it before in Utah. So we were both very excited.

Before the concert we went out to dinner at a yummy Italian restaurant called Terilli's that his co-worker recommended (thx Laura!).

They have these yummy Italian Nachos that they cleverly named Italchos. Laura said we absolutely had to try them, so we did.

It's kind of like pita chips with pesto, sun dried tomatoes, chicken, goat cheese, and artichokes. You can pick your toppings, but this was what we were assigned to try out. :-)

Tyler and I shared dinner and had the chicken terilli. He also had a cream of jalapeno soup that he loved... I found it too spicy.

The restaurant has a great atmosphere. It was so nice to go to a fancy restaurant!

Off we went to the symphony. We were early and it was good because we got a chance to walk around and take pictures.

We had very front row off to the side seats. We decided when we go next we need to sit further up and center.

We thoroughly enjoyed it. The beginning number was amazing. They had a choir and a children's choir. It was just neat and a good way to start the Holiday season.

After wards I was craving dessert. So my sweet husband took me to get some at a bakery in uptown that we found on our handy dandy phones.

Tyler got an eggnog cheesecake and I got a red velvet cake. I was so sad. It was the worst cake I've ever had, so dry and not chocolaty enough. Tyler wasn't happy with his either.

On Saturday we had tickets for the Radio City Christmas Spectacular with the Rockettes. We had tickets to the 2:00pm show because of an oops while searching/buying tickets. It was okay though. We survived. I had a hard time staying awake since I'm usually sleeping at that time.

We did enjoy the show a lot. It was much better than what we had expected and their live nativity is amazing. If they come back to Dallas next year we'll be going again, but next time I won't mess up our tickets and we'll go at 8:00pm!

After the show I was starving and craving Mexican. I took a chance and we went to a hole in the wall Mexican restaurant to another disappointing food experience. I need to quit believing the google places app on my phone!

It was a busy weekend, but so much fun.