Grad School and Lego Store

Saturday, Meredith, the kids and I went to College Station for the day to see our friends from grad school. Bruce, who lives in Cambridge, MA was in Houston for a conference he was speaking at. Bruce drove up to College Station to see everyone. Since it was graduation weekend, we assumed that the entirety of restaurants in the BCS area were going to be booked up, a fact confirmed as we drove in and saw people waiting to get into Cheddars lined up out the door. We ended up having a picnic in Hensel Park. The rain held off for two hours. We had the whole park to ourselves. The kids had access to a playground and had a great time playing together. We cooked hot dogs and sausages and roasted marshmallows.

After the rain came, we all packed up and drove to the mall to allow the kids to play on the play structure inside while we all sat around and talked. It was a great day. The kids slept on the drive home. We were able to get back around 8:30pm so it wasn't a late night.

Then on Sunday, after washing the cars, Alexander and I went to Dallas, then to Frisco to the newly opened Lego Store. We went to North Park Mall, because Daddy was mistaken about which store was open. You've never seen the disappointment in the face of a five year old after driving all the way to North Dallas and then finding a parking space in the garage and finally getting to the store to see it all boarded up with a big Lego logo plastered on it saying "Opening Summer 2009."

After calling Meredith and determining that the open store was in Frisco (about 20 miles away), Alex and I had an hour and 15 minutes to get there before it was closed. As we rushed through the traffic on US 75 heading north, Alex could tell my frustration and aggravation with myself. He told me:

"Daddy, its ok if we don't get there in time. I have enough Legos to play with."

Waiting for my internalized sobs to cease, I then told him thanks for saying such a nice thing.

We did get there in time. We say the 8' tall R2-D2 and the life-size Indiana Jones made out of Legos. We looked at all of the different models they had there including specialty models of the Eiffel Tower, a 1960s Volkswagen Beetle and a $400 Death Star with 16 characters.

We bought an Anakin Skywalker Jedi starfighter to match Daddy's Obi-Wan Jedi starfighter. We came home and made chili and had a great evening.