Dallas, part 4

Who knows how long this will take? At least I'll have a record of our trip. In addition to the trazillion images. Okay, maybe slightly fewer than 3,000. But it feels like a trazillion when you're culling and sorting and editing and such.

Tuesday was the 3rd day of tournament play. Fortunately, Caleb was finally feeling well enough to join us. I was really disappointed that he missed most of the first day and all of the second day, but he enjoyed hanging out in the hotel room by himself.

After volleyball, I had some time to wander around and take a few (more) pictures. Fountain water is always interesting. To me, anyway.

We saw an awful lot of this garage entrance.

I wasn't really sure what the deal was with these two enormous letters.

After I walked over there, I discovered a sign (no idea why there's no picture of that, which said something about a part of the next BIG thing. When you stand in the middle (there are footprints to guide you), you become the letter I in the word BIG.

Since it was the last night in Dallas, the entire team, including families had dinner at the Grand Lux. Which is in the mall. Which mean we could walk. Nice.

Back at the hotel we discovered this beautiful Maserati parked out front. Drool. Drool.

Of course, all three of them couldn't possibly cooperate at one time.

I could probably clone Caleb's bunny ears out pretty easily.

This one could've been good...had Caleb been looking at me. Maybe I'll paste his eyes in from the previous picture.

And then the silliness began...

And yes, her team won more than they lost again.

Dallas, part 3

Sunday night, our bathroom sink was draining very, very slowly. But I didn't really give it a whole lot of thought. I would, however, give it more thought the next morning.

Monday was the second day of the tournament for Bailey's team. The bathroom sink (which was very deep, by the way) was very full. Of dark brown sludge water. Ewwww. We had to brush our teeth in the tub. Neat.

Caleb's stomach was still bothering him, so he stayed in the room. Yes, the one with the icky dark brown sludge water. I was planning to contact the hotel later, as I knew Caleb would go back to sleep once we left.

No, I did not photograph the icky dark brown sludge water. You're welcome.

Being at the tournament I pretty much forgot about calling the hotel.

Cracked me up to see Cliff jumping that high while Kaylie just stood there. She is 6' tall, though.

Another awesome serve by #2.

My other niece, chillaxing.

I got back to the room in the middle of the afternoon and one of the maids popped into our room to switch something out, so I mentioned the icky dark brown sludge water. She promptly called maintenance. Who didn't show up. For a couple of hours.

I had gone down the hall to get ice, saw the maid again, and she asked if they had taken care of it. When I told her, "No," she looked rather horrified and told me to call them right away. Which I did. The guy was there very quickly this time around. He told us it would take quite awhile to repair this issue and we could stay in that room or be moved to a new one. Since my sister and her family were on the 15th floor and we were on the 13th, I asked if there were rooms up there, which there were.

He went downstairs to take care of all the administrative issues and returned with a cart and new card keys - which included access to the executive lounge for our trouble. Plus we got to be on the same floor with the rest of our family. After getting settled in our room, we had dinner with the rest of the family, minus Bailey, at the Tin Star. It was pretty yummy. I even scored an awesome, in-the-shade-all-the-tme parking space!

Easy to spot a yellow jeep, even from the 15th floor.

Then we came back and hung out in our room for awhile where I was able to photograph an amazing sunset.

I guess all the laying around the room for a couple of days gave Caleb some pent-up energy. So he decided a couple of Superman stunts might be fun.

Oh yeah, Bailey's team won more than they lost again. Sweetness.

Dallas, Part 2

Let's see if I can put the future parts of this Dallas trip together just a little quicker.

While I pretty much covered getting there and that very tired Saturday, I did not post these shots of my beautiful nieces.

The tournament was at the Dallas Convention Center and we stayed at the Westin Galleria. It's about a 17 mile drive down the toll road to the Convention Center. While we took two vehicles to Dallas, we could all fit in one just fine for the toll road jaunt each day, plus we'd be able to split the cost of paying the toll.

The first day, Bailey had to be at the Convention Center at 7:00 a.m. Which meant we ALL had to be at the Convention Center at 7:00 a.m. So we got up bright and early (actually, it wasn't bright at all - it was dark!), got all our stuff together (camera, cards, lenses, wallet, etc. - you cannot bring any food or beverage in so that they can charge you an arm and two legs to buy theirs!), and headed south. Dave dropped us off and then found an excellent parking space in the underground parking garage and it was all looking pretty good.

When the doors opened to go in, we had to go past the security people to get into the court area. They asked to see inside my bag (had my LowePro backpack) and promptly told me that I was not allowed to bring in the lens I had (I rented a 70-200mm f/2.8). In fact, I couldn't bring in a lens over 3" long. Interesting, because nowhere in the information about the tournament stated such lens limitations. Now I know they have professional photographers from whom people could buy pictures, but really? Fortunately, they went ahead and let me in. Whew. I was a bit stressed, though, since this was the lens I had intended to use most of the weekend.

Or not.

Having never made it to any of the previous regional or qualifying tournaments (though I tried), I had NO idea what the setup was like. I thought we would be sitting in bleachers, kind of far away from the players. Not sure why I thought this, but I did. I couldn't have been much more wrong. Unless I'd pictured us in a football stadium. We all sat in chairs RIGHT NEXT TO THE COURT. Which is awesome for watching the game. But horrible for the lens I brought! In my effort to travel light, the only other one I brought was my pancake lens - a 40mm. That was it. I could've cried. Oh, I'd still have rented a lens, so the money wasn't the issue. The problem was I had rented an amazing lens and wouldn't be able to use it. For FOUR ENTIRE DAYS of the tournament!

But then an angel disguised as an assistant volleyball coach appeared with his bag o' tricks. Bailey's assistant coach, Cliff, is a photographer, and he shoots Canon, and he had a 24-70mm Sigma, and he was super sweet and kind and allowed me to borrow it for the ENTIRE TIME we were there!

It would seem that all was well at this point. Only it wasn't. Unfortunately, the trip and the not eating normal and the screwy sleep (or lack thereof) wreaked havoc on Caleb's stomach. He was not feeling well at all. He stuck it out for the morning, but wasn't doing any better. So I borrowed the keys and took him back to the hotel. I left the big, amazing, heavy lens in the hotel with him and headed back to the Convention Center. Naturally, there were no underground parking spaces available, so I had to park in the hot, hot Texas sun. Phooey. I also missed a game, but that was to be expected at that point.

Bailey's team had a pretty good day - they won more than they lost. It was also her birthday, so that was pretty cool since she loves volleyball so much and got to spend a good portion of her day playing. That night, the team had a pizza party planned at the hotel, so she got to continue to have a fun birthday.

Nice photobomb by my brother-in-law.

Caleb & I just vegged in the hotel. I think he finally started to feel a little better. Oh yeah, I also uploaded nearly 800 images from the day. Yikes.

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Pillar reflection I discovered on our way out of the Convention Center.

Who says you have to be tall to be good at volleyball? Not me. I've seen otherwise.

She has a great serve. Although I miss her jump serve.

Bring it on.

This isn't about the play. Look at the ceiling lights. A) They make for great lines, photographically. B) It gives you an idea of how big this place is. This is just a small portion of it that you can see. I believe there were 90-some courts total. That's a LOT of volleyball!

In case you missed it:
Dallas, Part 1

One Thousand

Holy moly! This is my one thousandth post. Who'd have thought back when I started blogging in September of 2006? Certainly not me. Of course, I'd have been here a lot sooner had I not neglected this blog so severely the past couple of years or so. But that's water under the bridge. Time for moving forward.

{randomly gratuitous photo}

I really came over here to continue my belated Dallas series (no, not the TV show - I never was a fan). But then I realized that this would be #1,000 and it seemed that I should at least acknowledge that. So what's happened in 1,000 posts over seven years? Well, here are a fewsome of my favorite posts. And because I apparently am not good at getting off the far ends of the over/under whelming spectrum, there are a bunch. Read a few. Read them all. But, please, read something. Those with asterisks are my favorite favs. Just in case you were wondering. Never mind that. I would have to asterisk all of them. Besides, 21 out of 1,000 is a pretty good culling, I'd say.

1. A little sisterly silliness from back in the day
2. My strangley inconsistent views of food expiration dates as they relate to garlic and guacamole
3. Thoughts about the little things in life
4. Hubby's Jeep
5. The phone call from my Dad about exploding eggs
6. My youngest niece dancing music at two and a half
7. The day I was brave enough to participate in the morning face challenge on my blog. Either that, or I wasn't awake yet.
8. No wonder I can never focus on anything for very long
9. The day my son wanted to put glue on the stairs
10. I seriously have a LOT OF HAIR
11. Yep, I still like listening to the Talking Heads while randomly meandering about
12. Trouble in Rivet City
13. As if my 13 year old son (at the time) really had any idea what old school meant
14. My interpretation of signs at the laundromat
15. Join Jenny and me on a trip to Crazy Tasty Town
16. The kid who wears shorts and sandals year round
17. More random silliness
18. The post in which I decide we need an extra month
19. My awesome manly man
20. Six Degrees of Fish
21. Lessons learned from a week of being psuedo-unplugged

Kudos to you if you got this far! Kudos to you if read any of these. And a big old thank you, from the bottom of my little bloggity heart.

Dallas, part 1

I have no idea how long this little series will be, but it will definitely be more than one post. Thus, the Part 1.

Caleb & I made the trip to Dallas a couple of weeks ago with my sister, brother-in-law, and two nieces for the Girls Junior National Championship in volleyball. My oldest niece has been playing volleyball for quite a few years now, but this was her first year playing club. I had hoped to make a couple of other out of town tournaments, but things never came together, so I was excited to make it to the national championship.

We drove straight through from Colorado Springs to Dallas, which went fairly well. It was nice driving at night and I think I was actually less drowsy than during the day. We headed out around 7:30 p.m. and, other than getting stuck behind a semi on a two-lane highway in the middle of the night a bit northwest of Amarillo, made great time. We did stop every couple of hours, either to refuel or stretch our legs or use the restroom or all of the above.

Ironically, there's pretty much no pictorial evidence of this trip. My brother-in-law's a fairly focused guy and I didn't think he'd appreciate me stopping for pictures. Actually, I sneaked in a few iPhone shots - the kind where you just hold up the phone and shoot out the window with no idea what you'll get.

Pre-sunrise somewhere in Texas.


Beautiful sunrise {disrupted by the disgusting bug mess on my window}


Okay, one more. Just because. Even if the picture isn't that great, the sunrise really was.

When breakfast time rolled around that next morning, about 12 hours later, we finally stopped at the Armadillo Grill. They say things are big in Texas, well, the short stack of two pancakes that I ordered were HUGE. I shared with my sister and still couldn't finish one.

Of course, driving in Dallas traffic - even on a Saturday morning - was loads of fun. Not. But by about 10:30 (9:30 our time), we made it to the Westin Galleria. Unfortunately, our rooms weren't ready since it was somewhat early. We were so tired, I think we could've probably slept on the benches in the hallway. But we didn't. We wandered around the Galleria mall since it's attached to the hotel.

Naturally, our first order of business was to locate a restroom - in Nordstrom's - and take a picture with a silly head in the men's department. Then we just wandered aimlessly. Finally, around 12:30 or so, my sister and her family's room was ready to check in. Caleb's and my room, however, wasn't. So we brought our stuff up to their room anyway. Some opted for a nap. My nieces and I opted for a second wandering of the mall. Actually, we went and got hot soft pretzels. Yummy.

Palm trees in the mall. Of course.

We were at last able to check into our room around 3:45 and since it later than it should've been and we had to wait so long, the hotel clerk was kind enough to give me free wi-fi in our room {sweet}. So we relaxed in our room, had dinner at a little Italian joint in the mall with the rest of the family, came back to our room and watched some Pixar goodness, and went to sleep. I had been awake for 38 hours. It was definitely time for some sleep. My brain was slightly melted and quite loopy.