the halfway point: Boomer!

It's two weeks into our trip. The halfway point. Only two weeks left. Sniff, sniff.

To help me get over this sadness, we had planned in an outing to the OU/Texas game, most certainly the biggest event every year in OU football. This year also promised to be excellent, since it was #1 Oklahoma playing #5 Texas. Plus, the game is held on neutral ground - not in Norman, not in Austin, but in Dallas...at the annual Texas State Fair. For foodies like me, that couldn't be any better news.

But, let's not get ahead of ourselves now. Before the game on saturday, we had to fill up a whole Friday. We left the girls in the capable hands of Mimi and G, and convinced our good friends Paul and Alicia to come with us to Texas.

Stopping just a bit before Dallas was the plan...heading to the Allen Premium Outlet Mall, where I would do most of the damage in my "buying for the next two years" binge for family clothes. I had never been there before, but I knew I had a lot of shopping to do and this outlet had lots of the kinds of clothes that we really liked, cheaper than getting it at the mall.

So off we went, and boy, did I do some damage! I found some great bargains and even though I was worn out that evening, I made a serious dent in our future clothing needs! I will totally go back there again to shop if I have the chance! Paul, Alicia, and Josh were great sports to go along with me and I thank them all very much!

We had dinner that night at Pappasitos, the favorite restaurant of my tex-mex loving friends Brad and Amy. The queso was excellent, and the taste of the beef fajitas was also excellent. The restaurat also seemed to be a gathering point for OU fans before the game, and several groups of drunk students taunted the lone table of Texas fans. It certainly helped us get in the mood for the game! It was great to try a new mexican restaurant, but hard to forget how much we love Ted's!

We had a little bit of drama with our hotel that evening, but after priceline.com jumped in and saved the day, we ended up staying at the downtown Westin that was perfectly acceptable, with all their plush accomodations and absolutely perfect bed. It was amazingly even on a quiet floor, so we didn't hear any of the late night pep rallies that usually seem to happen when college students are left to their own sinful ways on the weekends! =)

When morning dawned, we headed out to the Fairgrounds, and though we might have been late with any other driver, Chauffer Josh buzzed through miles of traffic just in time to make it to our needed exit and we made it to the game just a few minutes late. We underestimated traffic, to say the least.

You'll be happy to know we weren't crushed in our spirit with the results of the game. We honestly were happy to be there, and enjoy the atmosphere, cheer for our team, and have a weekend away. We wish the outcome would have been different, but when you only get to go to two OU games every few years, you take what you can get! The atmosphere at live games truly is electrifying and contagious, even if you do pay $3 for a bottle of water!

The OU/Texas game really is the biggest game of the year for OU fans. Because it's held in neutral ground, each team gets 50% of the seating. That translates into, literally, half of the stadium is orange, half is red. This picture might have been too resized for you to see it, but this is the dividing line on the seating; to the right is OU red (crimson, if you want to be exact), and to the left, Texas orange. This was the real sky. The real sky. Not a background on your desktop, or a photoshop of a picture. It is so beautiful, it looks fake. And here are four real people who went to the game. Four people who have been friends for a very very long time! thanks for coming with us, paul and alicia! To help us drown our sorrows, we just headed out to get some fair food after the game. Josh and I tried to split everything we got so we'd have room to eat more variety of stuff. We had Philly Cheesesteaks, Corny cheese (cheese on a stick), funnel cakes, turkey legs, and my personal favorite this year - fried ice cream. I didn't like it at first, but the taste of it grew on me, and I grew increasingly irritated that I had to share it with josh. Next time, we'll buy two for sure!

Traffic was a nightmare coming back, but thanks to paul and his gps, we took some backroads and avoided nearly all of it. We came home to two girls totally wrapped up in watching Charlotte's Web. I think they were happy to see us...but we were sure happy to see them. We thoroughly enjoyed our weekend away - since it's such a rare treat - but we were also glad to be back with them. Thanks to mimi and G who took such great care of them while we were gone! :)