Mom's Birthday and Messiah Concert

My birthday celebration was nice. We had our Christmas program in Sacrament meeting at church. The choir sang a number and I played the piano (I'm the accompanist, that is my new calling, released from YW in September). I also played a cello/violin duet with Eric Whetten. My parents came over for dinner that night, which was chicken cordon bleu. Dessert was angel food cake with whipped cream and strawberries. The best part was that Westley, Alejandra and Caleb got into town in time for dinner, so they ate with us as well. On Tuesday, the Dallas Bach Society was doing Handel's Messiah at the Meyerson in Dallas. I've always wanted to see Handel's Messiah performed in its entirety by a choir and orchestra. This wa the perfect opportunity. So I bought tickets for me and Corey, Westley and Alejandra, and Caleb and Eliza. But Eliza ended up not getting the night off work, so we ended up finding a blind date for Caleb instead, Eva Shipp from the 3rd ward. It was a nice evening and I really enjoyed the concert.

 

Flight Training Museum

I was looking for free things to do over Fall Break to get out of the house and came across this museum in Terrell, Texas.  This is the British Flying Training School Museum.  It was pretty interesting to look through and learn about this place where they trained British pilots in WWII.

 

We passed this crazy haunted looking house on the way there and back.

Titanic Experience

We went to the Titanic Experience over Spring Break. It was this cool place where you got to see what it might have been like on the Titanic. We got to see a replica of parts of the ship--the Grand Staircase, a 2nd class stateroom, the boiler rooms, the deck (and how cold it was, and the way they had it set up looked like we were on water), how big a lifeboat was, how cold the iceberg was, and what the floor of the sea looked like where they found the wreckage. Nathan even found the Heart of the Ocean!

We were each handed a card of a real passenger on Titanic at the beginning of the Experience and at the end, we got to find out what happened to our person.  Mine survived but everyone else's did not.  It was a pretty cool experience.

 

Model Trains

On Martin Luther King weekend, Westley and Alejandra drove down from Utah to start with some wedding planning and take care of some things with her trailer, which she moved out of over Thanksgiving break and up to Utah to be closer to Westley. While they were here, we went o a train show in Plano with Grandpa and Grandma. They had such cool model trains and it was fun looking at all the different ones.

 

Minecraft Experience

This place opened up right near the Plano In-N-Out where Corey was store manager called "The Minecraft Experience", a place for people to have an immersive experience in Minecraft.  The kids have all been playing Minecraft since they were little, so Corey and I got to see more of what it's all about.  It was pretty fun to go to as a family.  I'm only sorry we couldn't have signed up for a time that included Westley, but his flight from California, where he spent Christmas, wasn't due until later that afternoon.

State Fair of Texas

We decided to use the free student state fair tickets and hit up the state fair over Fall Break. Grandma came with us.  We rode the train down and walked around the fair.  We checked out free events and ate a little fair food.  We went on one ride, the sky ride over the fair.  It was a fun time.