Wes and Erica's vacation photo album // Carrollton, TX // December 2022

When you're 38, you get excited about -- beef jerky case at Buc-ee's, a gorgeous quilt at Not Your Mama's Quilt Store, and gazebo at Historic Downtown Carrollton

Last week, we took my annual birthday trip to Carrollton Town Center. ☕🍙🍜🍨🍣 We ate lots of yummy Asian food and did our shopping, per usual, but new this year was the addition of fabric shopping! 😄 I found three fabric stores in the area, and Wes found an authorized Gundam model kit retailer. First, pictures of food, then shopping...

We got into town mid-afternoon so we started with a light lunch. We went to Frankseoul for Korean hotdogs. I got the "half & half dog", which was part hot dog and part mozzarella stick rolled in a crispy batter. They had a bunch of dipping sauces; I got honey garlic, hot sauce, and ketchup. For dessert, I got a dalgona ice cream sundae. 🍨 It was sooooo good!!! It was soft-serve ice cream topped with caramel and bits of dalgona cookies. The cookies were a little too sweet by themself but tasted great in the sundae. Wes got a sujeongwa drink, which is a cinnamon punch. He was so excited that they had it because he hasn't had it in ages and can't find it anywhere. 

We went to dinner at Too Thai Street Eats. It is the best Thai food I've ever had and the restaurant had a nice vibe, too. I think this is my favorite restaurant we visited this year. I got the boat noodles with beef. I asked for a 1.5 - 2 spiciness level but it was still too spicy for me to drink the broth. For our appetizer, we ordered the pork Thai sausage. I thought they were really good but Wes said they had too much ginger in them. He got the pad Thai and said it was good but didn't share my opinion of it being the best Thai restaurant. 

The next morning, we went to 99 Ranch for breakfast and groceries. There is only one place I've found in OKC that has congee with bits of preserved black eggs in it, and its only available for dim sum. 😒 Since we rarely get dim sum here, I wait literally all year to get my bowl of congee from 99 Ranch. It is always my favorite breakfast. 🥣 Wes got a pastry with all of his favorite ingredients - coconut, raisins, and almonds. We bought lots of chips, candy, and other non-perishable grocery items. My mom only uses a specific brand of egg noodles (that has 2 chickens on the packaging 🐓🐓). Cao Nguyen stopped carrying them so she's been lamenting each time we go over to her house for won tons. We found that exact brand at 99 Ranch so, of course we stocked up! LOL

For lunch, we returned to BCD Tofu House. It was my favorite restaurant when we visited for my birthday last year. I was so excited to return but was underwhelmed this time around. 🙁 It had to have been what I ordered because Wes said his meal was just as good as last year's. I got the soon tofu with tripe. I was worried it would be too spicy so I ordered it plain. It was definitely plain... too plain. It didn't have any spice in it and it tasted gamey because of the intestines. I should have stuck with seafood and a low spiciness level. 

We wanted an afternoon snack and had way too many options to choose from. There was a boba cafè, a place that made crêpes, and an ice cream shop that I was interested in. We decided on none of those. LOL We went to Coconut Paradise. I don't even like coconuts! 😅 This place was absolutely amazing. It's decor is so adorable, the owner is the nicest man ever, and the coconut jelly desserts were so good! 😋 I told the owner that I've never tried coconut jelly so he told us all about them and offered samples. I tried the matcha flavor but ended up with chocolate. The coconut jelly is like a pudding but not as thick. The one I got was topped with Oero bits, M&M's, chocolate syrup, mochi balls and coconut flakes. It didn't really even taste like coconut. Wes got the coconut espresso. He said it was good but wish he got the coconut Thai tea in hindsight. 

For dinner we went to Kura for sushi. It is a sushi train restaurant. The wait was super long and the food was just so so. I think people went for the price. It was only $3.75/plate. I always want sushi on my birthday because it is one of my favorite foods but we haven't had much luck. The place we went to last year also wasn't too impressive. The conveyer belt sushi concept is a fun novelty. And they had a robot with a cat's face that played music while it delivered drinks to the table. That was actually my favorite part of our dinner! 😂 I felt like all of the good sushi items came out after we were already full. If you get 15 or more plates, you get a free prize. We only had 7 but the waiter gave us a prize anyway. He must have sensed it was my birthday! 

Our last meal was breakfast before we headed out for home. We got pastries from 85℃ Bakery. Always a good breakfast! 🍪 We got a little extra for the road home. too! Of the places we ate at, I would want to return to Too Thai Street Eats and Coconut Paradise for seconds. I already picked out restaurants I want to try for next year's birthday trip (a Vietnamese place, a different Thai place and a restaurant called Mad for Chicken -- because the name cracks me up).

Now onto reason #2 for the drive down to Texas... shopping!! Wes and I are mostly minimalists but this is the one time a year we really shop. There are very few things that I like so normally shopping bores me but when it comes to fabric, washi tape and stickers, I lose all self control. LOL We spent the first day going to all the shops at Carrollton Town Center. I got tons of washi tape & small gifts from Teso and Daiso, face masks from K-Pop + and, of course, my tokodoki Unicorno 🦄 Sadly, Teso and Daiso didn't have as much tokidoki stuff as they did previously. 

We went fabric shopping our second day. The first shop we went to was Urban Spools. 😍 It is my new favorite fabric store. It has super contemporary and modern prints like Sewciety in Norman, OK, but it was about three times as big. They had a lot of Ruby Star Society prints and there was an entire shelf of Alexander Henry prints!! I saw a bunch of different designs that I've only seen online. I wanted to buy two yards of everything but I controlled myself. I wandered around the store twice and picked out my absolute favorites to buy. My prized purchase is two yards of Endless Love by Alexander Henry. The print is of two Victorian lovers in the English countryside but they're skeletons.

After Urban Spools (which is in Dallas), we drove to Plano to visit Not Your Mama's Quilt Store. The owner was incredibly nice. I told her this was our first time in because we're from out of town. She gave us a quick tour of the store and free bottled water. She claimed to be a modern quilt store but I don't think they had as much unique fabric as Urban Spools. It was a nice mix of traditional and contemporary fabric. I recognized some of the fabric from the Road to Oklahoma Shop Hop I did with my sewing club friends this summer. I saw a lot that I liked but knew I could purchase it in OKC so I didn't buy much, just a few fat quarters.

While we were in Plano (which is way closer to Carrollton than I thought it would be), we went to HobbyTown USA. I guess there are HobbyTowns all over but this one is special because it is a flagship store for Gundam model kits. A quarter of the store was devoted entirely to Gundams. 🤖 I have never seen a Gundam tv show or have any interest in model kits but this place was pretty neat. There were tons of models! The wallpaper (floor paper?) on the floor was printed with Gundam pieces and there was a gigantic model RX 78-2.

The last fabric shop we went to was back in Carrollton. The Old Craft Store is a very traditional quilt shop (all florals and fabrics in your grandma's sewing room). I didn't like any of the prints. The owners were kind of rude, too.😑 The two women followed us around like we were shop lifters. One of the women seemed annoyed when she asked if she could help me find something and I told her I was just looking around. The only interesting part of the store is the antique fallout shelter. There is a room in the back with tons of old canned goods, boxes of provisions, and other general store items. 

And thus concludes another vacation and the end of my 37th year. The highlight of my year was finally making friends in my sewing club. 😁 I've been a member of The Oklahoma City Chapter of American Sewing Guild for probably 5 or 6 years now and I have always been friendly with all of the ladies. But, this year, I actually made a group of friends who I hang out with regularly outside of sewing club, and we've let each other into our personal lives and have become genuine friends (instead of just casually sewing... which we do plenty of that together, too!) 

Wes & Erica's Vacation Photo Album - Country Club Plaza (Kansas City) - April 2022

Wes & I have been married for 7 years!! 💖💟👫💘💕 We went out for a nice dinner on our actual anniversary date and took a quick weekend trip to Kansas City for more celebrations. (Side note: Dallas, TX was my favorite quick weekend road trip destination, but Kansas City, MO & KS has overtaken it; just as much fun stuff to do, restaurants, culture & art but with waaaaay less traffic and construction.) We went to the Country Club Plaza shops in search of a new leather and/or bomber jacket for me. Wes bought me one ages ago when we first started dating and it finally got to the point where it desperately had to be replaced. I should have known that the shops would be showing their spring looks and there wouldn't be any jackets for sale but oh well. 🤷 While we were there, we ate at a bunch of restaurants (my sole reason for travelling) and visited the Sistine Chapel art exhibit (more on that in next week's blog post).

This was our third trip to the Country Club Plaza but our first time to actually spend a day walking around. The Plaza has a mix of high-end shops, restaurants, boutiques, and a lot of outdoor art. We went into a few of the shops but mostly just window shopped. The only things we bought were for the dogs. LOL A majority of the shops close at 7pm so if you really want to shop & explore, it will probably take two days of walking around. 

Since it was springtime/Easter season, there were lots of rabbit statues everywhere. They were each named, which I thought was cute. There was also a "Heart of KC" exhibit where storefronts each had a heart painted in the theme of what they sell. 

Outdoor art is definitely cool, but the highlight of our vacations is always the food. 🍖🍔☕🍪🍗 Our first stop was lunch at Shake Shack. My cousin (who lives in Australia) recommended that we eat at Shake Shack when we took our road trip to Las Vegas about 7 years ago and that recommendation always stuck with me. We ate at the one on the Strip and it has been my favorite burger place since. Too bad there isn't one in Oklahoma. 😔 Earlier that week, Wes & I had a conversation where we ranked fries in order of preference. Crinkle cut fries were on the bottom of my list. I had forgotten that Shake Shack's fried are crinkle cut and I was momentarily disappointed but theirs are sooooo good. I suppose crinkle cut fries aren't the worse anymore. Our lunch was so awesome. I would rank it as the best meal we had the entire weekend. 😋

I've decided that two things I need on each & every vacation is a tokodoki brand Unicorno figurine and boba tea. We got my Unicorno at Barnes & Noble and then headed to Bruu for boba tea. Their drink special was the Anchan strawberry milk tea with rainbow jellies. I had no idea what an Anchan strawberry tastes like but the drink in the picture was really pretty so I ordered it. It was delicious!! 😋 Probably the best flavored milk tea I've had in a while. The rainbow jellies weren't as good as traditional boba but still very tasty. Bruu didn't have any dairy-free options, so Wes went and got a cold brew at Made in KC Marketplace. It was a neat shop that had a café, bar, and all local goods. It had the cutest mugs and t-shirts, jewelry, candles, etc. Great place for souvenir shopping, but we didn't buy anything (we suck as tourists LOL).

For dinner, we went to Fogo de Chão. I was unaware of this highly popular steakhouse, but Wes said it was top notch. Oklahoma has Texas de Brazil so I was at least familiar with the Brazilian churrascaria concept. Maybe it was because we went on prom weekend and maybe it was because the restaurant was insanely busy, but I was NOT impressed. The food was similar to Texas de Brazil; it was good but not worth all the hype. The only things that stood out were that the lamb and chicken were marinated in a different (maybe tastier) blend of spices and they served this amazing grilled mozzarella dipped in honey.  Wes really liked our meal. I did too; I am not saying anything bad about the yummy grilled meats, but the vibe of the restaurant really ruined it for me. 

We had made reservations for 8:15pm but had to wait a while to get seated. Strike one. The restaurant itself was filthy. Strike two. The bathrooms were a disaster and there was food and trash on the dining room floor. The marketplace salad bar wasn't fully stocked, and our waitress forgot to bring out one of the complimentary side dishes. 😒 And, the bar was out of gin so they couldn't make the cocktail I ordered (a featured cocktail on the menu... so I was unsure why or how they could be out of the essential ingredient to make it). Strike three. After dinner, we headed back to the Intercontinental hotel. This has been our hotel for each of our Kansas City trips. Its very nice and literally across the street from the Plaza. You can park in the hotel parking garage and walk, which is the only way to do it since parking and driving in the Plaza is a nightmare. 

Before we went, we took a look at the Plaza directory and picked out the restaurants we wanted to try. One was Sweet Kiss Brigadeiro (a Brazilian bakery). We wanted to go there for breakfast and coffee so that was the plan for the next morning. We waited around until it opened... then waited about five minutes more... and then another few minutes. After a while, we decided that either its hours needed updating or it was out-of-business. So instead, we went to Messenger Coffee Co. for breakfast. We both wanted a chorizo burrito but they were out of chorizo so I got a chocolate chip toffee cookie & a chai tea and Wes just got a cold brew. My cookie was really good, but the chai had too much cinnamon in it. It was my fault, the barista asked if I wanted cinnamon and I said yes. Wes said his cold brew was good but not as good as the one from Made in KC Marketplace.

We also went to the Sistine Chapel exhibit but that will be for another post. We drove about an hour out of our way to go to Auntie Rita's Jamaican restaurant for lunch on our way home. We had planned to go there when we drove to Lincoln for the Ghost concert, but I was horribly sick and we had to skip. We made our way to downtown Salina, KS and everything looked closed. 😓 I checked and double checked the restaurant's hours online and it said they were open, so we parked and walked in. We were literally the only customers in the entire place. It was 3pm on a Sunday so admittedly a weird time to eat but still... I've never eaten at a restaurant where there was no one else in the dining room. The guy behind the counter was extremely friendly and gave us some pointers on what to order since we've never had Jamaican food and were from out of town. I got the BBQ pork and Wes got the jerk pork meal. We got the "regular" size and the portions were ginormous!! I can't imagine what a large meal consists of. We both really liked the food and I even ate the plantains (which I don't like). Wes said that he liked that the coleslaw was marinated in vinegar and blend of spices instead of traditional coleslaw dressing.

Overall, a fun and appetizing weekend getaway. Happy anniversary 💗 and looking forward to 70 more years of being married. 

Wes & Erica's vacation photo album - Catoosa, OK & Kansas City, MO - October 2021

Wes and I just went on a week-long road trip!! 🚙 We left Oklahoma for Iowa via Missouri/Kansas and came home via Wisconsin and Missouri (and sort of Illinois but we only stopped for gas and boba). It was the first actual vacation (not counting the mini-trip to Tulsa in September) we've taken since my birthday trip to Tampa & St. Petersburg, FL in 2019. Since this was a mega trip with tons of pictures, I'll post in sections.  

Last year on the British quiz show, QI, they had a short segment about the whale. I knew there was a gigantic cartoonish blue whale somewhere in Oklahoma along Route 66, but I didn't know much more about it or even what it looked like. I decided that we needed to pay it a visit after it was featured internationally. 

I expected the whale to be on a lake or on the outskirts of town...I was wrong. It is literally on the side of the highway in the middle of town. LOL It was made as an anniversary gift. It looks like it was originally a play area for children. You can slide down the whale's fins and climb up to its tail to use as a diving board. You can also climb up into the whale's head and look out some portholes. We didn't do any of that since it was chilly and the pond that the whale sits in was grungy & dirty. 

The Blue Whale of Catoosa is cute and worth the visit if you're driving thru. We stopped in Oklahoma Joe's barbeque for lunch. We went to the Joe's (another barbeque restaurant in Kansas City a few years ago) and I thought this was the same place, like a franchise, but it wasn't. The one in Catoosa wasn't  near as good as the one in Kansas City. I got their award winning "best baked beans on the planet." It was, I think black, kidney and pinto beans, with bits of pulled pork swimming in a soup of tangy barbeque sauce. It was too much for me; I'm used to simple baked beans out of a can.

After lunch, we headed on to Kansas City. We had some time to kill so we walked around The Plaza before dinner. We've visited before but it was at nighttime so we didn't really get to see much of the architecture. This time we went when the sun was still up so I got to admire the Spanish-style buildings. And, I got my Unicorno figurine -- my must-have travelling companion. LOL 

We had dinner at Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken. Normally, we try to go to restaurants we haven't been to before but Wes loved the chicken the last time so we decided to go a second time. It was just as good! The chicken is dredged in a slurry of buttermilk, cornstarch and spices instead of the traditional egg and flour breading. Then it's fried in peanut oil. So yummy!! Wes got greens & fries for his sides and he said they were good. I got coleslaw & fried okra and both were just so-so. It doesn't matter because no one cares about the sides. 😂 The chicken is the star of the meal!! Kansas City is so neat and I wanted to do more but I had a long drive ahead of me the next day so we turned in to the hotel after dinner for an early night. 

We had breakfast at the Opera House Food & Coffee Emporium on our way out. It was such a cool place. It is a large restaurant with a coffee bar, bakery, bar and restaurant. I had the best matcha tea latte! 🍵 I ordered the biscuits and gravy for breakfast. The biscuits were ... different. They were dense and made from either corn meal or some sort of grains. Luckily, they were smothered in delicious spicy sausage gravy.

The restaurant is in City Market... so naturally I needed to take a stroll around, since we were already there. City Market is a ginormous open air market. It was mostly produce vendors but there were a few artisans. There were also shops and a steamboat museum. We walked around for about an hour but I could have stayed and explored all morning! I wish we had access to a kitchen and another day in Kansas City because I wanted to buy so much of the fresh produce and local foods. I am adding it on the travel list for us to return to! But enough of Kansas City... we had to drive to our next stop - Iowa City!! More on that later!

Wes & Erica's vacation photo album - Tulsa, OK - September 2021

We're travelling again!! It was a short "practice run" trip this time around but we are hoping to take actual road trips soon. 😁 Since everyone loves (#sarkmark) looking at their friend's vacation photos, here's our Tulsa vacation album. 

NOTE: I know it's annoying to share vacation & food pictures, but these have really helped us out. There have been so many times when Wes or I will say, "where was that awesome brunch place we went to in Texas with the blah blah dish and the great coffee," and I've been able to find pictures/descriptions from previous blog posts. Great for my failing memory! 

We went to Tulsa mainly to go to the Philbrook art museum to see the Dalí's Alice in Wonderland exhibit.

We started with lunch at the museum café. Wes got the s'mores pancakes (with eggs and bacon) and I got the pimento cheese toast. It was a gigantic sandwich instead of toast. The pimento cheese was good... the rest of it was not. 😒 I've never had challah bread before... and I learned that I do not like it. There was also a red pepper jelly on the sandwich that I wasn't too fond of. The tomato soup was amazing, though. 

After lunch, we strolled the museum's garden (before it got too hot... which it was already hot but there was a breeze and, luckily, a majority of the gardens are under shade). We went in search of all the sculptures and cats. We saw one cat and all but two of the sculptures. My favorite part of the garden was the cabin. It is a beautiful modern log cabin with stained glass windows and a glass roof covered in colorful papier maché.

We also ventured through the Victory Garden. The café's menu offered a Victory Garden salad and I was curious about this garden. It mostly grew squash.

Garden stroll is over... time to go inside!

The Dalí's Alice in Wonderland exhibit was so good! At first, I was surprised at how small the exhibit was, but then I realized that he only illustrated one book... and one book can only have so many pictures. LOL The drawings and concepts are a perfect blending of Salvador Dalí's work and the telling of Alice's time in Wonderland. I liked that Dalí blended his signature elements into the drawings. 

Since we were already there, we took some time to browse the remaining exhibits at the museum. I'm sure I'm biased, but I think the Oklahoma City Museum of Art has a better permanent collection. But, then again, the Philbrook has a mummy so maybe it wins. LOL 

After we finished up with the museum, we drove about half an hour out of our way to get boba tea at Boss Tea. It was soooo worth it! I brought my mask from Babble (boba tea in OKC) on our trip and I thought, "oh no, I'm going to go in wearing a competitor's mask... oh, but we're in Tulsa, no one will know what Babble is." The first thing the barista did when she saw us walk  in was ask if I was wearing a Babble mask! 😮 Turns out, she is originally from Oklahoma City and loves Babble, too. LOL I got the brown sugar matcha milk tea with boba and it was probably the most delicious one I've ever had. Their cups are made from a thicker plastic than the regular boba cups and the lid has a cap, which is great for people like me who take forever to finish their drinks.

Next stop was resting at the hotel. I'm old and can't pack my days with activities like I used to. 😆 Oh, we went to Barnes & Noble when we first got into town so I could buy my Unicorno. I started a tradition of buying a tokidoki Unicorno figurine from every place we vacation... and the first place I bought one was at this Barnes & Noble when we saw Judas Priest in 2018. After resting up, we headed out to dinner. As we were walking to dinner, we passed this art space with a very interesting-looking exhibit.

But, no time to stop in... we had reservations at Sisserou's and it was time to eat! Sisserou's is a Caribbean restaurant. I've never had Caribbean food and was eager to try it. We started with bread and a very spicy habanero sauce. The waiter said it was "no joke" and he wasn't lying. I couldn't handle it but Wes loved it. We wanted a bottle to take home but they didn't sell any. Wes got the shrimp curry and I got the house burger. Both were fantastic! The cocktails were tasty, too! The elotè was the best part of the meal.

Our extremely friendly waiter suggested a tiki bar or a posh bar "where you can go if you want your bartender to talk down to you" for after dinner but instead, I rushed us back to the art space with the interesting dresses. The exhibit closed at 9pm and we were those horrible people who show up 15 minutes before closing expecting a tour. 😅

We had to run through the exhibit pretty quickly so I didn't really get to learn about the artist's vision or message. I believe it was one of those "stick it to The Man" protest pieces.  I thought the dresses were really cool and sort of haunting at the same time. 

DAY 2 - The Cave House!!!

The main reason why we stayed overnight in Tulsa instead of just taking a quick day trip was because I wanted to tour the Cave House. Our tour was at 12:30pm so we had some time to kill in the morning. We had breakfast at Savoy and did some shopping at The Farm Market (I think that was what it was called... I didn't take any pictures). We stopped in a yarn shop, Get Stitchin', and I almost bought a ton of wool merino yarn for a sweater Lacey & I have on our "things to crochet" list but I stopped myself. 

Wes got the traditional two egg breakfast, which he thought was good, and I got the eggs benedict. I'm glad I like hollandaise sauce because it was literally covered in it. Savoy is known for its cinnamon rolls but we were so full after breakfast that we didn't get one. Next time!

The Cave House was the highlight of the trip for me! Linda, the owner and tour guide, is a wonderful host and great storyteller. She bought the house on a whim and learned all about its history. It was formerly a speakeasy and warehouse for bootleggers. It's now decorated with finds from "curbby's boutique" which is things Linda has picked up from the curb on Big Trash day. LOL The house's renovations relies heavily on Elmer's glue (which she says is the only thing that works with the house's natural moisture). She's added crumpled up Wal-Mart plastic bags to the wall for a textured effect. It looks so good... maybe I should try that for our next decorating project! 

Linda collects keys and I wish I knew because we have a random set of keys that the previous owner left in our house that don't go to any lock. I would have totally brought them for her! She installed a slide that goes from the bed room to the sun room. She slid down and pointed at me to slide down next (she singled me out as the "cool kid" 😎). I would have slid down even if she didn't pick me! At the end of the tour, she had us all sign the guest book and say what our favorite thing about the house was. I said the mastodon tooth and Wes decided on the collection of bones. She also insisted on taking our pictures. 

We had originally planned to visit the Vintage Sewing Machine Museum but it was temporarily closed due to the pandemic so instead, we drove along Route 66. We stopped in Decopolis per Linda's suggestion. It is a local gift shop with fun statues around the perimeter. We also had lunch in the Mother Road Market -- a local food court. I know this is me being biased again, but The Collective Food Court in OKC is way better. LOL We got lunch at an Asian fusion restaurant. Wes got the kimchi burger and I got the satay Thai  fries. I don't even remember what it was called but neither of us were impressed with our meal. And, that's a wrap on Tulsa. It was a nice two days filled with art and food... two of my favorite things!