Wes and Erica's vacation photo album // Carrollton, TX // December 2023

I was so excited when I learned that there is a Meow Wolf exhibit within driving distance!!

We took our annual trip to Carrollton, TX for my birthday a few weeks ago. We sampled as many restaurants as we could, I got my stationary haul from Daiso, and we spent a day at Grapevine Mills Mall (Meow Wolf, baby!! 😍). 

This post will be 90% pictures of the weird trippy Meow Wolf exhibits. 

We got in a little after lunchtime and started at H-Mart. This was our first time on the Korean side of town. (We also saw a strip mall with all East Asian restaurants; that'll be bookmarked for next year's trip.) There is a food court in the grocery store so we had lots to choose from. I decided on a spicy octopus bento box from Noblu Bento Express and Wes got tofu soup from Chan. 🐙I naively thought I'd get a giant serving of stir fried octopus with my rice, but it was chopped up octopus pieces mixed in a ton of onion and kimchi. I was worried at first since I don't really like kimchi (but there was still a generous helping of octopus), and it ended up being really good (I realized that I do like cooked kimchi). We each got portions of banchan with our meals; Wes said the kimchi from my restaurant had more garlic and tasted better than the portion from his restaurant. I don't really like the side dishes so he got all of mine. 

We walked around H-Mart after lunch, and drooled over all of the cuts of meat used for Korean barbeque. I always want to buy so much when we come to Carrollton but it's never feasible since hotel refrigerators are tiny and we have to leave everything in the car. We went to Somisomi for dessert where I got the best ice cream.🍦😋 The fish was filled with red bean paste and sat atop my matcha soft serve, which was topped with Oreo crumbles, sprinkles and a strawberry.🍓 Wes got their house cold brew, which he said was good. 

After a quick rest at the hotel, we headed to Carrollton Town Center for some shopping. It was probably 8pm or later, and the shopping center was hoppin'! I was surprised at how busy all the stores are, I think I notice this every year and still cannot get over how all these people have the energy to be out and about after working all day (I do absolutely nothing on weeknights because I'm a tired old lady👵). Wes always likes to look in the Kinikuniya bookstore. It was completely remodeled from when we came last year. It barely had any books left in it! It's mostly collectables and anime merch now. They've also reduced their tokidoki section😒 still got a super cute Unicorno, though. 

We got the turnip cakes as our appetizer and while they were tasty, I have to say that the ones my mom makes are better. 

We went to Thai Noodle Wave for dinner. The food was average ... neither good nor bad (Wes agreed with my assessment). I got their monthly special, which was a chicken noodle stir fry dish. 🐓It was 95% chicken and 5% noodles; I would have preferred much more noodles. The most notable feature of the restaurant is that they had a Justin Bieber playlist going all night with selections from his entire body of work.

We stopped in 7 Leaves to get some drinks for dessert and headed back to the hotel. I got a mung bean milk tea. It was good but had a lot more mung bean than I was expecting. And thus concludes day 1. Wes said his tofu soup we had for lunch was his favorite meal and I liked my ice cream best.

Day 2 is literally an entire day at the Meow Wolf exhibit. We had tickets for 1:20pm but got an early start (I was very excited) so we hung out at the arcade at Grapevine Mills mall to pass the time. Wes got to play some games that we don't have here - Marvel v. Capcom 2 - and I "learned" traditional Japanese taiko. 🥁 (I actually didn't score that high but all the instructions were in Japanese so I had no idea how to play.😅) 

Before I forget, we had breakfast at Paris Baguette. I felt a tinge of regret abandoning 85℃ Bakery Café, but we go there every year so I wanted to try something new. Luckily, our pastries from Paris Baguette were really good (if they weren't, I would have insisted we return to 85℃ for second breakfast. 😂LOL). I liked my savory one better than my peppermint mochi donut, and Wes preferred his twist to the cherry Danish. 

Alright, back to the mall. We played arcade games and walked around some, but still had about an hour to kill. #bored I ended up calling Meow Wolf and got our ticket time changed from 1:20pm to 12:40pm. (Their booking service is top notch, by the way 👍)

Now for Meow Wolf - when we presented our tickets, our "portal guide," Moon🌜 told us about the strange happenings in the house. The story centered around a pre-teen, Jared. One of his relatives (an uncle, I think) got admitted into the hospital for a bad cough. Jared has an imaginary pet flying axolotl named Happy Gary. Happy Gary told him about a place called the Real Unreal where he can find a cure.  Jared wrote a get well card for his uncle telling him not to worry because he'll be back soon with the cure. Then he ran away from home... supposedly. 

Our job was to investigate the house (touching and opening everything, Moon said) and search for Jared. 🏡We enter the house and look for clues. Jared's notes and drawings are strewn about, and there are various laptops and phone/tablets with short video clues. Wes was much more invested in solving this mystery than I was. I was curious, but mostly wanted to experience the art. Because of this, I lead us astray and we didn't really get to fully explore the house. (and thus missing a lot of clues)

There is a giant refrigerator in the kitchen. Once you open it, it leads to a hallway into the portal aka the art exhibit. 👽I was super pumped to find this and took us inside. We hadn't finished looking through the house, yet, and I kind of took us through the exhibit backwards. There are a ton of different places to explore in the Real Unreal universe. There is a two story garden🌿🌸, a neon room with a stage, an arcade👾, and tons of twisty hallways that lead into other rooms. My favorite room was a vintage looking one with lots of severed hands and heads. Wes liked the goopy black slime monster statue. 

My favorite room.

Wes's favorite and my second favorite character.

After walking through the Real Unreal and not finding out what happened to Jared (I honestly kind of forgot about his disappearance), Wes reminded me that there is an entire section of the house that we didn't even walk through. 🏠So we went back through the second story of the house in search of more clues. The "correct" way to enter the Real Unreal is through the bathroom. There is a weird monster sitting on the toilet and once you walk through the bathroom, you're in the neon art exhibit.

Some people were wearing black light glasses. I didn't know how or where to purchase them or else I would have gotten us each a pair. I asked a guy what they're for and he leant me his for this neon garden. It just enhanced the colors. Wes thinks that there were secret black light clues we missed.

We walked through the ENTIRE house & every single one of it's portals probably 3 or 4 times and were none the wiser about Jared's whereabouts. 😕We found out that time somehow stopped at 7:06pm, Jared walked by the toilet sitting slime monster and his house turned into a psychedelic neon art installation. Tickets were pretty pricy so if there was an end goal, I didn't want to miss it. However, if there is no answer, I can suspend belief and accept that Jared is just enjoying life in another realm... but Wes really wanted to solve it. In the end, we decided that its not meant to be solved and no one knows what happened to Jared or his sick uncle. I went home, did some Googling, and found out that all the Meow Wolfs are connected. They're each a portal to each other so Jared can be anywhere. 

We wanted to do some Christmas shopping when we were roaming the mall before our ticket time, but I know that Meow Wolf has a no bag policy and I didn't want to leave our stuff in the car. So, we walked around the humungous circular mall another 2 or 3 times trying to remember which stores we wanted to get stuff from. 🛍We decided we needed a snack after all that walking so I got some sour cream & onion curly fries from the Potato Corner. (Wes just got Taco Bell.) 

A place that only serves fries!! 🍟😋

We were also thirsty after all that walking so we grabbed some drinks on our way back to the hotel and then I sat my ass down. 😫I think that is the most walking I've done in a while. LOL I got a lychee coconut water with rose from Coconut Paradise. Funny story (okay, not "haha funny" but "humanity sucks" funny)- The man in the picture in the top left walked up to the counter, asked for a free sample, ate it and walked away without a reaction or thank you. The guy working the counter looked so sad & dejected. Wes got a coffee from 85℃ Bakery Café since we missed it in the morning. 

We went to Mad for Chicken for dinner. It served hot, fresh, twice fried Korean chicken wings. 🍗They were SO GOOD, my favorite meal of this trip. We got complimentary chili dusted popcorn, and ordered some dumplings for our appetizer. We got a mix of spicy and regular ones. They were both good. Everything was made-to-order so it came out piping hot. 🔥They had sports & popular tv shows on, but one of the tv's had random trivia about anime, country flags, and movie titles spelled out with emojis. I did terribly but it was still fun to play along. 

The next morning, we got breakfast at 99 Ranch and did our grocery shopping before heading back to Oklahoma. They have the best black preserved egg congee and I can't have a birthday Carrollton trip without it. 🍚One of Wes's coworkers requested strawberry Choco-pies so we grabbed some for him one our way out (they didn't have the Choco-pie brand but we got a comparable substitute).

What I would give to swim in those vats of congee!

We stopped in Buc-ee's for some more groceries and Christmas shopping on our way out of Texas. Nothing too exciting except for that I saw Santa Buc-ee! 🎅

Ironically, I didn't take any pictures of the stuff we got at Buc-ee's. But look at the awesomeness I got from Daiso, Teso, and random other shops!!

And now I am 39 years old. The first few times we took my birthday trip, we just ate and stayed one night. Then we started staying a few days and adding other activities into the mix. Last year we went fabric shopping, and the year before that we went to Rainbow Vomit. It is a similar installation art exhibit where you wander around a building looking for clues. Rainbow Vomit had more unique art and the puzzle was actually solvable (I got a magnet for my prize!) so we both liked it better. I did still really also enjoy Meow Wolf. Now to plan for 2024... what adventures will we have?

Last view from Meow Wolf gardens.

Wes and Erica's vacation photo album // Tulsa, OK // December 2023

We went to one of my friend's weddings in Tulsa. Wes absolutely hates selfies. 

One of my childhood friends got married on December 2nd and we got to celebrate with her. 🎉 The wedding was on a Saturday afternoon in Tulsa (only a 2 hour drive), so we could have just went and came back... but why waste a chance to take a mini vacation and eat out as much as we can??!?

A suitcase Christmas tree... very appropriate for a hotel lobby. We stopped in Barnes & Noble after dinner for my Unicorno. They had the sky mochi series, which I've been wanting! 🦄

My friend, Chinh, and I met as alter-boys (are they called alter-persons now?) at St. Patrick Catholic church in middle school. (She's a bit younger than I am so I think I was in high school and she was in middle school... regardless it was a loooong time ago). I haven't talked to her in ages so I was pretty surprised when I got the wedding invitation from Zola. I was so surprised that I texted my mom to make sure she also got an invitation, and to make sure that it wasn't spam. LOL My mom texted Chinh's mom and confirmed that yes, we are all invited to celebrate this happy day. 👰 

Our first meal in Tulsa was dinner at Zogam Café, a Malaysian restaurant. The restaurant was a tiny spot in a shopping center. It was really hard to find since their sign was unlit and we came when it was already dark. This was my first time having Malaysian food and it was really good. 🥘My favorite part was the runny egg on top of my fried rice. (Wes said he would have preferred his egg fried.) I also liked the bits of anchovy mixed into my rice. The only thing I didn't like too much was that the sweet & sour sauce for the tofu was way too garlicy, but I'm not a huge garlic fan so that's on me and not the restaurant. The restaurant had pictures of Malaysian landscape hung on the walls. One of the pictures showed two men looking off into the mountains, it didn't show their faces but I swear one of the men in the pictures was our waiter. 🌄

We ate breakfast at the hotel restaurant, Daily Grill, the next morning. About the hotel - we stayed at the Hyatt downtown and the valet service was superb. 🚗 Like, seriously the best! The Grinch musical was performing at the BOK center when we arrived, and there was some sort of professional bull riding/rodeo convention going on at the hotel that same night. Regardless of how busy it was, we were still checked in super fast and my car was parked right away. And it was brought right back out as soon as we needed it. We came and went a lot so we got to know both the day and night valet drivers. Both were excellent. 👍 Anyway, back to breakfast. We originally were going to walk to Dily Diner. It was only about a 10 minute walk but it was 37℉, and I only packed a hoodie (silly me forgot my jacket in our haste to leave the house). I got an everything lox bagel and Wes got the steak and eggs. He said the skirt steak was marinated really well. I liked my bagel but I think the restaurant was pricier than the tastiness of the food. 

Notice how there are no pictures from inside the market because it was just a giant slow moving crowd.

We had some time between breakfast and the wedding ceremony so we went to the German Christkindlmarkt. 🎄🎅 It is an annual tradition at the German Association events center. The events center is very small and the market is very large. I've been a vendor at events that try to cram in as many vendors as possible and it is NOT an enjoyable experience. All the shoppers are funneled through like cattle since there is literally no aisle space and you don't really get to interact with anyone. I did not enjoy the Christkindlmarkt at all because there was zero room to browse & shop. I'm sure the building was 5-10 times over capacity and we'd all be in danger if there was a fire or any other sort of emergency. There were a few booths I would have liked to look in but I couldn't get near them because of the crowds. It was awful. Even so, we still managed to support a few local vendors. We bought honey butter, Wes bought a bookmark, and I bought Christmas ornament (pen pal gift). One of the German association members collects nativity figurines which she displayed in a tiny room (probably a broom closet) called Bethlehem village. She had so much stuff!! All the figurines were laid out in a cityscape on a table. 

Now onto the wedding of Chinh & Steve. 💗 This is by far the nicest and most elaborate wedding I have ever attended. Chinh was flanked by 3 photographers and a videographer everywhere she went. She also had a drone circling overhead for the outdoor events. The ceremony was held at Holy Family Cathedral and the Bishop of the Tulsa & northeastern Oklahoma diocese presided. ⛪ It was a traditional Catholic wedding with a full mass. No cell phones were allowed so I didn't get any pictures but it was a beautiful ceremony. We had a sendoff afterward and a 3 hour break before the reception.

We went back to the hotel to grab a snack at Topeca Coffee. I got a strawberry Italian soda (good but I wish it had whipped cream on top) and a salted chocolate chip cookie. 🍪☕Wes got a juniper berry latte which he said had too much berry and not enough juniper. (He got a cold brew from the café previously and said it was good).

Reception time!! 🙌We all gathered in the foyer of the Big 10 Ballroom for a meet & greet with Chinh and Steve. We got a turn to take a picture with them and sign their wedding book. Once the reception officially started, we were ushered in and found our tables. Wes & I weirdly weren't seated with my mom & stepdad. There were a few others from St. Patrick there but none of us were seated together. Wes says it's so we can mingle and meet new people, but I would have preferred sitting with old friends to catch up. The reception started with a traditional Vietnamese lion dance! 🦁

To all of my friends who plan on getting married soon -if your wedding reception doesn't involve a lion dance, I'm not coming. LOL

Then it was time to eat; there was a Vietnamese buffet on one side of the room and an El Salvadorian buffet on the other. 🍴I stood in line on the El Salvadorian side behind one of the groomsmen and got tips from him on what to get. He suggested the mixed pupusa (with pork, beans and cheese) and it was so good!! I ate from both buffets and enjoyed the Salvadorian stuff more. The reception had all the usual dances and speeches, and it was all very nice (and extremely organized!) The other neat thing, besides the lion dance, was a troupe of Salvadorian dancers came out to perform traditional dances. Around 9pm, we had a faux sendoff (drone awaiting) where Chinh & Steven got into a Rolls Royce, drove around the parking lot and came right back in. LOL It was freezing outside. It gave us oldies a chance to go home while the cool kids danced the night away. 

The next morning, we had brunch at Kilkenny's. I've always heard great things about this restaurant but have never been. It got the traditional Irish breakfast and it was SO MUCH FOOD!! I only ate half of it. It was really good but I think I prefer an American breakfast. 😅My favorite part was the grilled tomato - a whole tomato!! 🍅 I only expected a slice or two. 

After breakfast, we stopped in Hey Boba to get drinks for the road. I got a honeydew milk-tea with boba and Wes got a passion fruit oolong tea with boba. Both were standard drinks and pretty good. The owner is what made this café so cool. Aside from being a boba café owner, she teaches Sunday morning square dance lessons at the park and she is a horticulturist. 🌱🌸She grows Chinese plants in her yard and brings them to sell at the café. I bought a Chinese mum and she gave me very thorough instructions on how to take care of it. 🌺🌿She is the sweetest lady; she gave us a piece of oatmilk candy for being her first customers of the day. 

My plant is currently enjoying the weather on the patio. I'll take a post a picture in a few weeks if it survives. 🤞

And that wraps up Tulsa. We have to wait a week at home, and then it's my annual birthday trip to Carrollton, TX to eat at as many restaurants as we can at the Carrollton Town Center! Until then ✌

Saved the best picture for last: delicious wedding food!! 😋

Wes and Erica's vacation photo album // St. Louis, MO // September 2023

The reason we went to St. Louis in the first place - to see Babymetal in concert

This was by far the most leisurely vacation we've taken. Wes and I always struggle a bit with vacations; I want to see & do EVERYTHING so I cram our day full of activities, and Wes, on the other hand, likes to relax and take a more laid back approach to our trip. He is also more practical when it comes to timing. (I know we can't possibly do a million activities but just stubbornly refuse to accept it 😞) We didn't make it to a couple of things I originally planned for us to do, so we had time to meander around town and I actually really enjoyed the slower pace... maybe Wes is onto something after all. 

We had a late start to out of Bentonville to St. Louis (we slept in, had a late breakfast and then ended up chatting with the hotel clerk for ages) so wouldn't make it to the city until mid to late-evening. Instead of trying to rush, we spent the day at our half-way point -- Springfield, Missouri. The plan was to stop in for gas, our bathroom break and a quick snack. I also needed to get that tokidoki Unicorno figurine!! I was looking up where the Barnes & Noble is (I got my Unicorno -- the Sagittarius one♐) and there just happened to be a fabric store nearby. 😊 We went to FM Stores. It is a gigantic store with all sorts of fabric. There was a quilting cotton section (not my preference for designs, but I did enjoy all the dog prints. I got a border collie one to use for Athena's next dog bed), a tiny garment fabric section, and the rest was upholstery & utility fabric. I wanted to get some fabric for me & Andrea's matching outfits but didn't find anything that would suit both of our tastes. I was a little disappointed (mostly because it was so cheap... if there was fabric I liked, we'd be in trouble LOL) but still glad we got to go fabric shopping. We also stopped in the Battlefield mall and I got a puzzle titled "100 Pooping Pups," it is a picture of exactly that and I laughed and laughed when I saw it. Can't wait to make that to display on our wall! 😆

Dunaway Books in the South Grand district. The bookstore smelled so good, ahhh... old book scent!!

I originally planned for us to visit the Missouri Botanical Garden but it was another hot 🌞day when we arrived, so we explored the South Grand and Central West End districts instead. We still ended up walking around quite a bit outside but we got to take breaks in the stores with air conditioning. We stopped in Garden District STL (an adorable gift shop in South Grand). The owner was genuinely nice and not just trying to convince me to buy things, though I still ended up buying a lot. LOL She brings her dog, Oolong, to the store with her so that was an added perk. At first, he was a little shy but after some chin & ear scratches he became my best friend. 🐕 We stopped in Dunaway Books next and they had a shop dog, too! 😍🐶 Their dog was a friendly puppy who followed us around and then brought me a toy. We also went to Wolfgang's Pet Stop, which was the only store we visited that day without dog. Ironic. It sadly didn't have a lot of treats or toys to choose from either. 

So glad we stopped in this little gift shop! (Garden District STL)

The World's Largest Chess Piece, recognized by Guinness World Records, and another large (and maybe more impressive) piece in the gift shop made from tons of regular sized pieces.

We visited the World Chess Hall of Fame. I don't play chess but Wes does. I was mostly excited to see the World's Largest Chess Piece. ♜ I wasn't sure what to expect but I at least thought I'd see some historical chess boards/pieces and portraits of champions. Nope, that is part of the permanent collection which is also reserved for private viewing. Instead there were two other temporary exhibits on display for the public. 

The first floor was an entire timeline of T.S. Elliot's life as it relates to the game of chess. I haven't read much of his work (just what was assigned in high school literature and who remembers that?😅) so I knew nothing about him. Apparently, he is a famous St. Louisan and he wrote his poem, The Waste Land, as a chess metaphor mirroring what was going on in his personal life and society in general. Pretty interesting exhibit!

The silver costumes were worn by Katy Perry's dancers during her Super Bowl halftime show. Her dancers are so TINY! I thought they'd be taller and more muscular but those outfits are like a size 000.

I was much less impressed with their other exhibit. It was supposed to be a showcase of how chess features in music. It seemed like they found every picture of a musician playing chess and album cover with a chess piece on it, then printed it out and hung it on the walls. It felt lazy and uninspired, or maybe it was just because I came from the T.S. Elliot exhibit, which I thoroughly enjoyed so was underwhelmed by what I saw next. I did like the chess-inspired costume pieces though.

The wings on the Angel of Harmony statue have wind chimes! I wish it was a breezier day so we could hear them.

Our last stop while at the Central West End was the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis. I haven't been a practicing Catholic in over 20 years but I still love going into old churches. The architecture is amazing and I still get emotional looking at all the art inside. ⛪The basilica is literally made of mosaics. There were tons of them, and even a mosaic museum in the basement. We didn't visit the museum but I spent a lot of time looking at each and every piece. I really appreciate and am in awe of all the time and effort spent assembling a mosaic. We had gotten Starbucks before entering so Wes had to stand in the vestibule and hold our drinks while I spent probably way too much time inside. I told him that if this was my regular church, I would never pay attention during mass because I would be too engrossed in the art the entire time. 😂

And finally the reason for our trip to St. Louis. Wes heard that Babymetal would be on tour this summer so I looked up dates to see if they'd be coming near Oklahoma. I don't listen to metal and have never even heard of the band, Babymetal, but am always a willing participant to any concert. 🎤The concert was at the St. Louis Music Park. The venue is an outdoor ice skating rink but if you tell anyone that you're going to see a concert at the ice skating rink, they'll look at you crazy. This happened several times on our trip.😂 Anyway, the Music Park is great!! They had the cleanest bathrooms I have ever been in. (Not just clean for an outdoor venue, but clean in general) The seating chart was good and we had a very nice view of the stage. My only complaint is that the chairs didn't fold up so it was difficult to move when someone needed to get in/out of the aisle. Oh, that and the food was bad - my nachos were super stale. 

It was neat that they had a coffee truck parked out front for those of us who didn't want overpriced Budlight.

I personally did not enjoy the concert at all. My favorite "band" was the opening act. It was a heavy metal guitarist named Jason Richardson. I assume he is a part of a band but it was only him on stage playing guitar over his band's songs. It was like karaoke but for guitar. Nevertheless, he is super talented. 🎸 He had to stop his set a few times because people were getting too rowdy in the mosh pit and I think at one point someone fell down. It's nice that artists watch out for fans nowadays... completely different from my college concert-going days. 

Babymetal

Babymetal was weird. I need to preface this by saying 1. Wes loves them and said they put on an excellent show. He is the main authority on heavy metal so I trust that this was a good concert but I just didn't like it, 2. I don't know anything about J-pop or their artists' performance styles, 3. their backing musicians were absolutely amazing... I just wasn't sure about the 3 gals in the band. So it went like this... their musicians start playing their songs and then three harajuku girls pop out onto stage and start dancing. Only one sings and she has a very high pitched cartoony voice. The entire performance is put on and feels very fake; even when they wave to the audience, you can tell they were told to stand exactly on this mark and wave twice to the right and twice more to the left. Wes says that's how they're trained in "idol school" and they aren't allowed to add personality to their performance. Very strange.  

Dethklok

The next band, Dethklok, was terrible. Another band I have never heard of so Wes had to give me the rundown. The lead singer developed a cartoon on Adult Swim about a fictional band named Dethklok. It did every well so he made the band into a real thing and now they put on live shows. Their entire set was songs from the cartoons with accompany snippets from the show. It all went over my head. I am a prude who doesn't get the humor on most adult cartoons (I never liked Daria or Aqua Teen Hunger Force), and am generally not a "fun" person so I am 100% the opposite of their target audience, but I think Wes does fit into their demographic and even he wasn't super into it. I think it enjoyed it but wouldn't go again (and he was there to see Babymetal; any other band would be less than). I found it to be weird, vulgar and noisy ... not loud, but NOISY. 

So the concert was a huge bust for me but we had one more day of vacation and I was going to get candy!! 🍬We drove by the Uranus fudge factory on the way back from Audrey's wedding in 2021. I wanted to stop in but we missed the exit. On this trip, I made sure to add St. Robert, MO on the itinerary. Uranus is the perfect definition of a roadside attraction/tourist trap. It looks amazing from the highway but when you pull into the parking lot, it isn't as great as it initially looked. There are a couple of things to do --a sideshow museum, ice creamery, World's Largest Belt Buckle, which actually is cool-- but the highlight is the general store (where all the fudge is). It's basically a giant gift shop. We walked around and did some shopping. I got Butterfinger fudge, and it was good but not the best, and taffy. The taffy was the best part for me. They had a section of the store dedicated to all different flavors of taffy, from traditional flavors to super weird ones. I got a variety but leaned toward the more interesting flavors. It is a fun store that relied heavily on the butt & poop jokes; I got a good laugh out of it. I think Wes found it juvenile. 💩

The World's Largest Belt Buckle, recognized by Guinness World Records

I also got a pressed penny! I've never collected them but one of my pen pals does. I was on the look out for a pressed penny machine at each one of our stops. Uranus was a nice break on the drive back to Oklahoma and I ate taffy the rest of the drive home. So there's our big trip for the year! We didn't get to travel as much as we wanted this year for various reasons, but I'm glad we still got to get away for a few days. We have one more trip planned for my birthday so I'm looking forward to heading out again!

I loved Fashion Plates when I was younger and almost bought some but didn't.