Lacey and Erica's vacation photo album // McKinney - Dallas - Norman // September 2022

Lacey and I have been friends for over 20 years now but we have never travelled together (that I can remember... Lacey - any thoughts on this?) As mentioned in yesterday's post, we were absolutely determined to see My Chemical Romance on their reunion tour. ❤ Since the concert was in Dallas, TX, I decided to make a little girls' trip out of it and spend 2 days away. Not only was this our first time travelling together, but it was also our first time travelling without husbands and dogs... and we had a blast! Lacey, if you're reading this, I'm proposing an annual road-trip with just the two of us!! 😄

How cute is Lacey's dog, Priscilla??! Too damn cute!!

We have crochet nights a few times each month at my house where we choose a project and work on it together. 🧶 I had no desire to drive around Dallas so my plan was to take us to a yarn shop, buy a bunch of supplies, and crochet all day at the hotel until it was time for the concert. I did a quick Google search before our trip and found the highest rated yarn shop in the area. It was McKinney Knittery in McKinney, TX. We got to Historic Downtown McKinney around lunch time. Downtown was adorable with lots of tiny boutiques and restaurants, ample parking and little to no traffic. AKA heaven!!! 😍

We had lunch at Cadillac Pizza Pub before shopping. We both got their lunch special which was a personal pizza and small salad, and we celebrated our safe arrival into Texas with cocktails (any reason to have a drink with lunch, right? 😆 LOL) The pizza was really good and my caprese salad was delicious. 

Time to shop!! McKinney Knittery is a gigantic yarn shop. Half of it is specialty yarn of all types and colors, and the other half of the store is fabric!!💓 My two favorite things!! 💓I didn't like the fabric as much as I thought I would. It was mostly traditional quilting cotton. The designs were cute but they didn't have the more modern contemporary prints that I prefer. The yarn, on the other hand, was spectacular!! I have never seen so much yarn! Of course we wanted to buy it all but, we stuck to the supplies we needed for the two projects we picked out (a skull granny square pencil pouch and a Japanese knot bag). I still ended up with five skeins and a bunch of other goodies. Funny story: we saw Moon Drake yarn at the shop. The owner of Moon Drake is an independent yarn entrepreneur in Oklahoma and former acquaintance of ours... and her yarn was highest priced in the entire shop, but I wouldn't have considered it the best colored or quality! 😆😶🙊

One thing that I despise about specialty yarn is that it always comes in hanks. It's a fancy way to display the colors of the yarn but it makes it so hard to unravel into a usable ball. The extremely friendly employees at the knittery offered to roll our yarn into balls for us with their little spinning machine. While we were waiting for them to do that, we wandered over to the next boutique, Ettiene Market. It is a handmade soap and kitchen accessories store. It smelled amazing!!

After we had our fill of shopping, we headed to the hotel. Lacey booked us a room at the Lorenzo hotel. It was the coolest place!! It is an art themed hotel with random paintings, sculptures and installation art scattered all over the place (inside and outside of the building!) The best exhibit was a small white room at the corner on the first floor. The entire room was collaged in a multitude of white objects. It was all 3-D and had color changing lights. 😎📷 Perfect photo opp!! 

The Lorenzo hotel is famous because it is where Tina Turner went when she finally had enough and left her abusive husband, Ike. They were originally staying at the Hilton, which was across the highway downtown. They got in yet another massive fight and Tina Turner said that was the last straw. She snuck out of the Hilton, ran across the highway, and took refuge at the Lorenzo (it was called something else at the time.) The hotel is very proud of its history and has Tina Turner memorabilia displayed throughout. 

I wanted to see all the little art galleries that the hotel had, so we walked around (bags in tow) for a bit before settling into our room. I also wanted to do some poolside crocheting since I saw online that the Lorenzo has one of Dallas's best pools, but it was too hot. 🌞 So we just hung out in our super chic room and crocheted only one skull (out of the 4 we need for our bag, and we didn't even start our second project... I always think I have so much more time than I really do). Then it was time to see My Chemical Romance in concert. ❤💀💓 It was SO GOOD!!! 

One of my greatest fears is the terrible traffic in/around the Dallas metro area. 🚘🚘🚘 Luckily, our drive both days wasn't too bad but I knew that traffic in the evening around the American Airlines arena would be hell. To avoid this, we got an Uber to and from the concert. I was telling Lacey how much I love Uber and how Wes & I use it on all our vacations and we've had the best experience with great drivers. Then both of the drivers Lacey and I got were awful!! 😑 To be fair, there were a lot of road closures around the arena and post-concert traffic was insane with cars & pedestrians everywhere, and no one was paying attention to what they were doing. Despite all that, we made it safely back to the hotel for a restful night's sleep.

The next morning we took one last stroll around the hotel's galleries and then headed out to breakfast. ☕ We went to the Maple Leaf Diner. It is an authentically Canadian restaurant. 🍁I have never tried Canadian food and was excited to have it. Both Lacey and I were pretty underwhelmed. We ordered poutine (which my pen pal in Canada pointed out is NOT breakfast food) and hollandaise. I've only ever had cheese curds fried so that's what I expected in the poutine. Instead, they were naked curds that were mostly melted into the bland gravy. I thought my meal was bland overall, but the Canadian bacon was tasty. We had a little time after breakfast, so we headed to Buc-ee's. I needed to get gas anyway.

We went to the Fred Jones art museum on The University of Oklahoma campus on our way home. Despite being an alumni, I haven't retuned to OU in probably 15+ years. So much has changed!! Namely the parking, as in there is none now! We had to park in the paid parking garage; their ticking booth was out of order so we had to download and attempt to use their impossible app. 😣 Anyway, Lacey used to work at the art museum but hasn't been back since she quit. It would have been nice to explore the entire museum but we were short on time and came solely for the Synesthesia exhibit. 

We wore our matching Boredwalk t-shirts!

The Synesthesia exhibit imagined how colors would be if we could use our other senses to perceive them. The aim was to answer the following - what does pink smell like, what does green sound like, what does purple feel like, etc. The exhibit was only one room but it was amazing!!! Most likely one of the hippest rooms we've been in. 😎 The room was divided into yellow, green, blue, purple and pink. Each section was interactive and we were encouraged to walk though everything while touching it.

I really liked the blue section which mimicked underwater coral. Each of the corals were sewn from a different type of fabric. 🧵 But, my favorite was one part of the pink section. It was a tall silo that was made from crochet. The outside had all sorts of crocheted flowers and doilies glued onto it. 💮🧶🌸Once you walked into it and looked up, the ceiling was a kaleidoscope and also had more crocheted items dangling down. Lacey also really liked the pink section but her favorite part of it was the mushroom. 

The silo already looks pretty rad from the outside, but then you walk in and it's this explosion of pink crochet!! I literally gasped! The lighting in the pictures isn't great so you can't really tell how joyful and vibrant the pinks are.

Since I am not an artist or a critic, I'll stop trying to describe our experience to you and just fill the remainder of this post with pictures I took at Synthesia. The Fred Jones art museum is free (parking is only $3) so if you're in the Norman area, you should totally go see this exhibit. It was a delightful end to me & Lacey's trip. I love vacationing with Wes but I had an equally fun time on my mini-vacation with Lacey. It was great to travel with someone who has 100% the same interests as I do. We didn't have to compromise since we both were excited to do the same activities and we were both shared the same vibes. Lacey, my dear, we MUST do this again!! 😀

Lacey & Erica go see My Chemical Romance in concert... twice!!!

 

My Chemical Romance announced a reunion tour back in 2019. ❤ The closest they'd come to Oklahoma was Dallas, TX. Only a short drive away! Lacey and I knew we had to go. Lacey waited by her laptop hours before tickets went on sale in hopes of getting a pair... and we did!! They were the worst overpriced seats; the nosebleed section of the gigantic arena, BUT we got tickets!!! 😁 Then the concert was postponed in 2020... and again 2021. I was afraid that they'd just cancel and refund everyone. But then they announced the tour will be starting in 2022 with new dates. And guess what?? One of the newly added dates, the first date of the North American tour actually, would be in Oklahoma City at the Paycom arena. Oh boy were we excited!!! So excited that I bought us matching shirts and painted the band's logo on the back. ❤❤❤❤ Lacey once again waited hours by her laptop, counting down the minutes until tickets went on sale. She got us really good seats at a reasonable price. YAY! It was official, time to grab our eye liner because we'd be seeing our favorite emo band in concert twice!

The opening band at the OKC concert was Dilly Dally, a terrible band that no one liked. Lacey said they were okay but she is just very generous. It was a group of women who screamed sounds and pretended they knew how to play their instruments. The second act was Coheed and Cambria. Wes loves them and was jealous I'd be getting to see them. I vaguely remembered hearing them on the radio in the mid-2000s but didn't know any of their songs. Turns out, they're amazing!! 🎸The lead singer had a ton of rad guitar solos. They also had a spinning thing on the drum set that projected lasers!

After a VERY long wait accompanied by what sounded like a low-flying helicopter, but was supposed to be "the swarm", My Chemical Romance finally came on. 🎤They sounded exactly as I remembered from our college emo days. They were loud, manic, and passionate. I have never felt such a sense of community at a concert before. I know music speaks to a lot of people but I, personally, have never really felt a deep visiceral connection to a set of lyrics. Well, that changed at the concert. I felt all the feels! I truly felt a sense of oneness as we all sang along. 🎶 It was so extremely powerful hearing an entire arena singing "we'll carry on," and declaring that we are "awake and unafraid." 💀 It was definitely an experience I will never forget. Their set was mostly songs from the Danger Days album, which was a little odd since most of the hits were off of Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge and The Black Parade. It was their first show so the sound could have been better but I didn't notice until Lacey & I were talking about it on the way home. If I had one complaint, it would be that the lead singer relied too much on the distortion machine, but he did tell us that he was having vocal problems that evening.

A month later, Lacey and I were in the American Airlines arena in Dallas, TX for show number two. We didn't get any merchandise at the OKC show because the line was miles long and the t-shirt designs frankly weren't that cool. 😕 We decided that we should buy something from the Dallas concert since we've been to two shows (what kind of fans would we be without t-shirts?) We decided to skip the opening bands to get dinner from the concession stands and wait it out in the extremely long merch line. I wanted a shirt with the tour dates on it but the only design I liked didn't have tour dates. 😑 The Paycom arena had some neat balloon and chalk art for the band (that we sadly didn't see until on Instagram the next day) so we decided to walk around the American Airlines arena in search of art. There was none. We made it back to our seats to see the last few songs of the second act, Midtown. They were decent. 

My Chemical Romance came on and played a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SHOW than the one we saw in Oklahoma City. They played almost twice as many songs and mostly from the Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge and The Black Parade albums. The set list seemed to have an order to it. It felt like they were testing out songs to play at the OKC show and were much more refined, and less chaotic this time around. They sounded 100x times better! I guess they had plenty of practice between August 20th and September 28th. The best part was that the lead singer let go of his reliance on the distortion machine. The tradeoff was that this concert felt more robotic and as if the band was at work. The OKC show felt more intimate because they'd stop every few songs and talk to us or the lead singer would tell a personal story. The Dallas show was all business, song after song with no breaks. It didn't have the same energy or sense of community as the OKC show did. I still felt moved as we all sung along but it was a different vibe. It was so strange to see the same band play two entirely different shows on the same tour, and only one month apart. I'm not sure which experience I enjoyed more. Now that Lacey and I have seen AFI and My Chemical Romance, we just need to see The Used and we'll have the trifecta of emo under our belts.

Lacey & Erica make office memo holders

... one of mine is going to the office, the others will become part of my craft show display.

Its almost been twenty years since our college emo phase; 2019 is a good time to recreate that look. I wish I had an old college picture for comparison but I didn't have digital camera back then. 

Lacey & I have known each other since middle school but I think we really became friends when we were roommates freshman year of college. We were both weird, unpopular and invisible, which sounds pretty unpleasant but it actually was perfect timing because she introduced me to emo music, where all of our heroes sung about being weird, unpopular and invisible.  We had the best times singing along to My Chemical Romance, The Used, AFI and Good Charlotte. I haven't kept up with those bands' music but I was feeling nostalgic one day at work and clicked on one of my older Pandora stations (appropriately named Emo Songs). A new Good Charlotte song came on and then this conversation happened.

So here we are... in 2019, wearing heavy black eye liner and glitter, listening to a CD, drinking vodsprittles and DIY'ing stuff. Just like back in the good old days.  BTW, vodsprittles are a cocktail made with vodka, Sprite and Skittles. 

DIY office memo holders-

Supplies needed: plastic animal figures, electric drill (not pictured because I don't own one; we borrowed Lacey's roommate's), dowel rods, alligator clips, craft glue, spray paint

1. Drill a hole into the back of each plastic animal that is the size of the dowel rod

2. Glue an alligator clip to the top of each dowel rod. Let dry.
**It probably isn't necessary, but Lacey brought a handheld pencil sharpener and we sharpened both ends of the dowel rods so they'd fit easier into the alligator clips and animals.

3. Glue the dowel rod (with alligator clip attached) into each animal's back. Let dry.

4. Spray paint after the glue has dried. 

Not the best pictures because we spray painted out on the patio at like 9pm with only a flashlight for light.

And that's it. Super simple. Super cute. No one wants to do a complicated craft while having cocktails on a weeknight. LOL 😜

Erica & Lacey relive our emo days.

AFI!! All of the pictures on this blog post are of AFI since I really didn't care for the two opening bands.

Back in 2004, my best friend, Lacey, and I bonded over emo music and dreamed of dating guys who wore eyeliner. We weren't exactly part of the emo crowd--we weren't edgy enough--but, oh, how we loved to watch from the sidelines. I've gotten less and less edgy in my old age but Lacey is still hip enough to keep up with the music scene. So when she found out that the band, AFI (one of our favorites a decade ago), was coming to town and invited me to go with her, I said, "Sure, why not?" As soon as we got to the concert venue, I discovered exactly why not... I am old. LOL Very, very, old.

AFI at 10:10...can you believe that?!? Who even stays up that late anymore? Apparently the young'ens do. 

At age 32, Lacey & I were among the oldest in attendance. Do you remember hearing those "you know you're old if..." jokes as a kid? Well, they are actually pretty true. Here are a few you can make fun of us for...
     * Our first concern was that AFI wasn't starting their set until 10:10pm! That is entirely past my bedtime. And if they didn't start until that late, lord only knows what time we'll actually make it home! We were genuinely worried that we might fall asleep before we could watch the band we came to see. It wasn't looking good as I started yawning around 9:30pm. The band must have somehow sensed our concern and actually came on stage a little early (at 10pm). Thank goodness!
     * The style of dress from the early 1990s is making a comeback and we actually remembered dressing that way as a kid. Remember wearing long t-shirts with short denim shorts and choker necklaces? That's a thing again. We realized that instead of having "flashback 1980s day" for school fundraisers, the young'ens nowadays are having "flashback 1990s-dress day".
     * We actually found ourselves complaining about the noise (do the speakers need to be that loud?...we couldn't hear each other talk.), strobe lights (too blinding) and temperature (too hot, too many sweaty bodies, yuck) of the concert venue.
     * But we did fully appreciate the cleanness of the public restrooms.

How did Davey Havok manage wear a jacket in this stuffy room?

Besides those few chuckle worthy complaints, the concert overall was rather enjoyable. I can say that I still like angsty rock music after I initially fell in love with it almost fifteen years ago. The first opening band was Citizen (from Ohio... that's how they kept referring to themselves as, "We're Citizen from Ohio"... there must be a lot of bands named Citizen from various states). After every song, they would stop and thank us for listening to them. It was a nice gesture at first, but then it felt overly appreciative and almost desperate. Lacey suggested that maybe they get booed off stage a lot so they were very happy that we were still a captive audience. Another thing that happens when you get old... you turn into a cynical curmudgeon. Hahaha!

During the set change, the concert venue played a compilation of Outkast's greatest hits over the loudspeaker. We enjoyed the throwback tracks but wondered if anyone else in attendance ever even heard of Outkast. I seemed to be the only one singing along to Hey Ya! 

Trying out our best "we're badass emo girl" faces. Please note our back shirts and eye make up. We are so hard core!

The second band to play was Circa Survive. They were a crowd favorite but Lacey & I had never heard of them *insert "you know you're old if joke" here* I thought the lead singer's use of auto-tune made him sound like Ozzy Osbourne sucking from a helium balloon. It was during their performance that we started to complain about the lighting. The strobe lights were very impressive but maybe overly so. I turned to Lacey and told her I couldn't look at that stage because the lights were blinding me. Maybe I needed to bring in my sunglasses.

                     I would have gotten pictures of the entire band but only the lead singer was up close and personal. 

Lastly, was AFI... the awesome emo rockers that we stayed up so late to see. They did not disappoint! At first we were worried that we wouldn't recognize their songs because they have released a lot of new music since we first listened to them. But, they played mostly their old songs from the Sing the Sorrow and December Underground albums (the ones that Lacey & I knew by heart). Besides playing our favorite songs, the best thing about their performance was that each member of the band stood on a riser so us short kids could view them, too. (^_^) Although I was tired and my legs ached from standing all night, I jumped up & down and scream-sung the songs along with the rest of the crowd. We left our old lady complaining behind and felt young again for an hour. I think that's the great thing about music; its something you can just immerse yourself in and forget about your worries for a while. But then my ears rang the entire way home. Ugh... old age. LOL

Last AFI picture.

Erica & Lacey go to the Harry Potter Festival

About a month ago, a couple blocks of Western Avenue were transformed into the wizarding world of Harry Potter. The Harry Potter Festival was a free outdoor event for all ages. Thank goodness it was for all ages because I didn't want to be the oldest person in attendance who wasn't a parent or grandparent! LOL

My absolute favorite part was all of the costumes. Look how cute doggie Dobby is!!!

The event was advertised pretty heavily on social media and the turnout was far greater than anyone could have expected (or planned for). Being a local vendor, I think that the magnitude of people who showed up was great! It's always so rewarding and awesome to see your event fill up with shoppers. Every vendor wants to sell out of their merchandise and that is exactly what happened at the Harry Potter Festival. I felt so happy and proud of the vendors there. But many of the other patrons did not feel as I did. As soon as the event started, rants and complaints were posted all over the event's Facebook page. Everyone was so extremely upset with how crowded it was. I agree that the event quickly outgrew its venue, the lines were long and the streets were so crowded that you felt claustrophobic. But, none of that made me angry (and I usually HATE crowds and lines). I anticipated a large turnout so I wasn't upset when I saw over 5,000 people meandering around the streets and, as a pleasant surprise, the lines that Lacey & I waited in moved fairly quickly.

Also, it was a free festival...festivals are always crowded to begin with and throw the word 'free' on top of that and yeah, of course there's going to be a huge turnout!! And honestly, I didn't think it was that crowded once you compared it to other festivals. The Chinese New Year Festival that Wes & I went to in Dallas earlier this year was just as crowded and everyone loved it. El Rastro (open air flea market) in Spain is three times more crowded but it's still one of the most popular Sunday afternoon shopping excursions. If you've ever tried to get on the subway in rush hour, you probably know what crowded truly means... and the Harry Potter Festival wasn't even half as bad. So the haters need to shut their pie holes!

One complaint I do have is the damn hot weather. It was 90 degrees Fahrenheit in the middle of October. Yuck! We walked from my apartment (about a 1.2 mile trek) and were instantly exhausted as soon as we got there. Gawd, Lacey, we are old! Haha. Anyway, the festival was in full swing when we arrived. At first the crowds were a little overwhelming but we were able to maneuver along the sidewalks. If you wanted to get in a photo opp (they had staged scenes and props everywhere) or to participate in an event or purchase something from a vendor or off a food truck, you had to stand in line. If you were just a spectator, you could move freely along the street. I, of course, wanted to do & experience everything but Lacey was the smart one who suggested that we just walk along the sidewalk and view all the action from a distance. We saw so many fun costumes (I was a little shocked at how many Slytherins there were... I expected most of the people would dress as Gryffindors) with all our walking around. I think we had a better experience just walking around and taking in the sights than we would have had if we stood in line to actually do the activities.   

The festival was sectioned into four parts to represent the four houses of Hogwarts. Each section had its own array of events to participate in. Gryffindor had a Quidditch tournament, sorting hat and other kid's activities. Syltherin had a photo opp in the Azkaban Prison with actors dressed as Death Eaters and Dementors. Hufflepuff is where all of the food trucks were. Ravenclaw was where all of the vendors' tents were. We poked our heads in into each vendor tent and was even able to get into the air conditioned indoor shop with no trouble. Even though we didn't stand in line to use any of the photo props and/or scenes, I was still able to take plenty of pictures from a distance (as you can see from this blog). 

One thing we actually did (instead of just watching) was participate in the arts & crafts booth. There were two tables. At one, we made quills, which were feathers attached to straws. We dipped the feather in glue and decorated it with glitter. The other make & take we did was the golden snitch. This seriously was the most efficient arts & crafts booth I have ever seen.  It was an assembly line of volunteers; one would cut the yarn, another would string a Christmas ornament onto the cut yarn and then the last would drill holes into each side of the ornament and drop the finished product into a large pot. By the time we got up to the table, there was a large pot filled with ornaments we could choose from. After picking one, we scooted down to the next station where a volunteer filled the drilled holes with hot glue. Then she moved us down to the next station where another volunteer was ready to hand us two feathers to stick into the hot glue. We were done in less than a minute. And that is how you keep a line moving!

The last thing we did was visit Honeydukes (the candy shop). The 42nd Street Candy Company did a knock out job transforming their store into Honeydukes. The window displays were so adorable and they had wizarding themed candies and decorations throughout the store. The line for Honeydukes winded all the way down the street but it, too, moved very quickly. The shop was arranged like a little maze where everyone had to walk single file and move through the entire store to get to the check out line. That way you were able to see everything and not have to worry about people cutting in line. I bought two candy sticks (or 'wands' if you want to be festive) and a stick of caramel. 

I think the organizers and vendors did an amazing job. I appreciate all the effort that went into creating an event like this. I was able to see all of its attractions despite the crowds. Lacey & I were able to participate in all of the activities that interested us and all in all, we both really enjoyed the festival.