Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Day Six - OKC


Day Six – Wednesday, June 1st, Oklahoma City

Good morning Oklahoma City!  We enjoyed a yummy continental breakfast before heading to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, another recommendation from Mom’s friend.  Thankfully, Coleson thought to check for coupons before we left, and we were able to buy a groupon for admission that saved us over half the price, woohoo!  The weather was a little cloudy and overcast, so it was a good morning to be inside.  The first part of the museum was mostly art galleries.  The kids weren’t overly thrilled of course, but there was some neat and pretty stuff in there for Coleson and I to look at.  We then walked into a section focusing on the American cowboy and the rise of Western movies.  Abby lit up!  I must admit, I wasn’t expecting it.  She was enthralled.  This girl loves horses though, there seems to be something in her DNA, so I suppose it makes sense.  To be honest, we don’t really encourage horses, if anything we sometimes try to discourage.  Horse riding is actually one of the few things the urologist said we might want to avoid.  But seeing the way she comes to life when she sees the horses and ranches and cowboy things we’ve seen on this trip, we may have to just embrace her love for it and take a risk.  But that’s another thought for another day after we return home!  So anyways, she loved the Western movie displays, especially the one about the singing cowboy.  She even sat through a documentary about Western movies and was totally captivated the whole ten minutes or so.  On a random note, the documentary was narrated by Sam Elliot.  We’ve been watching his comedy show, The Ranch, on Netflix.  After a quick walk through a couple more galleries, we headed to the Kids’ Corral area.  It was a fun place.  There were trunks of dress-up cowboy clothes and boots.  Ryan and Chloe sort of tried on some clothes, and Abby went all out.  Turquoise boots, chaps, a vest.  A hat would have perfectly completed the outfit, but they didn’t have any, and after experiencing lice I suppose I understand why!  Abby wore her get-up all over the kids’ area.  There were saddles to sit on, a campfire play area, a miniature log cabin.  I loved watching all three of them have fun.  Eventually, we made our way outside to the grass gardens area.  There were some statues, including an enormous Buffalo Bill, and a small stream with huge goldfish/koi/some sort of beautiful fish.  A few more displays inside, a stop at the gift shop for postcards, and we were on our way.

The weather was pretty gross, so we stopped at a Smoothie King for a to-go lunch and then headed back to the hotel.  We shared smoothies and ate our anniversary crème pies.  It was then off to the indoor, heated swimming pool.  The kids go nuts for a good indoor pool.  Chloe practiced her swimming, she’s going to be a fish in no time!  Now that she’s completed lessons with Ms. Elaine, there’s no going back [aka no floaties, so Mommy has a long summer of swimming with the kids ahead of her].  After showering, we ventured out into the rain again.  We went back through Stockyards City once more to do a little shopping.  Chloe picked out her trip souvenir - a super cute pink tank top.  It has a fun Indian print, but it doesn’t say Oklahoma or anything and it’s not all touristy.  She really wanted it though, so why not.  Most of the shops there were ‘real’ shops as opposed to souvenir shops, so it was pretty nice and expensive stuff.  We then drove a few more minutes towards the Bricktown district.  Chloe had fallen asleep, so we continued to drive around a little before coming back to park.  We went into Bass Pro Shops for a few minutes, mostly probably so we wouldn’t feel bad about using a free parking spot in their lot.  We then walked along the Bricktown canal waterway.  It was a fun and pretty walk.  There’s a water taxi that I had thought we’d ride, but it wasn’t even running so that made our decision for us.  It was still a little drizzly.  We stopped in a couple shops and ate dinner at Fuzzy’s Taco Shop.  It was really fun and yummy.  The shredded chicken nachos were the best, they even had feta cheese.  Oh, and the tortilla soup.  Quite a tasty dinner.

We were right across from the Bricktown stadium, home of the AAA Dodgers.  We had planned all along to go the game, and Ryan was so excited he was about to burst.  But it was getting late and we were tired and the girls were tired and buying five tickets just didn’t seem like a good idea.  So we finally decided that Ryan and I would go into the game.  Coleson took the girls back to the room where they laid in bed watching one of the Night in the Museum movies on HBO.  Honestly, we had both wanted to return to the hotel, but as it usually happens, I’m glad I made myself go out.  Ryan and I very much enjoyed the game.  Our seats were in right field and they were right there.  I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so close to the action.  Ryan intently watched the game and took it all in.  He kept close tabs on the second baseman in particular, he was even #2 just like Ryan.  I tried a couple of times to get Ryan to walk around the stadium, but he didn’t want to miss any of the game.  We eventually made a bathroom run and discovered a playground.  He was so cute – I could see him debating with himself, the game or the playground?!  But in the end, he’s still a kid, so he decided he wanted to go down each slide once.  And after doing so, it was right back to the game.  Once Coleson texted that the movie was over and he was on his way back to get us, we went into the team store where we purchased a magnet, and then somebody walking by with a stack of promotional type hats offered Ryan one.  It’s a really nice baseball cap, and Ryan has worn it proudly ever since receiving the free gift.  Coleson and the girls did a drive-by to pick us up and it was back to the hotel for us.  We left in the middle of the ninth, with the home team Dodgers losing 5-2 to the Iowa Cubs. 

Guess that’s about it for our day!  It’s been a good one! 

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