Two Weeks Of Thankfuls In One

The past couple of weekends have been BUSY, and I didn't even get my TToT written last weekend. It was a good busy, though, because I spent each weekend with one of my kids, and my thankful cup overflowed. Here's how they played out:

Weekend #1 was spent with Kyle in Oklahoma City. 

It seems we have a favorite pizza place everywhere we visit. I think we like pizza. When in Oklahoma City, we always make a trip to Hideaway Pizza (shout out to my friend Melissa for introducing it to us some 8 years ago). We had the Pepperonipalooza pizza, and it was worth every greasy bite.

We ate breakfast at a bakery that wasn't as good as the reviews implied, but the good news was it kept us from overeating doughnuts and pastries.

The Med School Student allowed me to take photos of him AND HE KIND OF SMILED!

We got a tour of the school. It was brief, as he is mostly in the same lecture hall every day, but we got to see his module (the medical students [and there are around 160 of them] are divided into small groups of roughly 20 students each called modules, or "mods," for short). Each mod has a room with desks around the perimeter, and each student is assigned one. Some study there, some eat lunch there, others (like my son) have hardly anything there.

His desk in the "mod."

Hmmm. Which white coat belongs to the
guy who's 6'4"?

Since eating out and having us pay for it and giving us the med school tour was the only thing my son planned for us to do that weekend, it was up to me, the consummate tour manager, to come up with activities, and I found a doozie: The American Pigeon Museum & Library! As goofy as it sounds, it really was interesting. Did you know homing pigeons were used in WWI and WWII to send messages back from the front lines? And that they were dropped by airplanes in special containers (yes, there was a parachute attached) or carried in little harnesses by paratroopers? Admission is FREE, which makes me even thankfuller for finding it (I did leave a donation, however).

In case you didn't believe me.

Been there. Bought the shirt.

Birds of a feather....

We hit a few thrift stores while we were there. I picked up a few OU t-shirts to wear to the gym, and my biggest coup was finding an Arkansas t-shirt deep in Sooner country.

We ate a ginormous lunch/supper at Ted's Cafe Escondido. It's not my favorite Mexican food, but it's an institution in the OKC area (and it now has locations in other cities, including Kansas City, I believe), but the reason to go (besides Kyle saying he REALLY wanted to eat there) is they bring you hot, freshly made tortillas and queso for dipping, and they KEEP THEM COMING throughout the meal AND IT'S FREEEEE!

Before we left town on Sunday morning, we ate at a restaurant named Good Gravy. 40 different kinds of gravy, and biscuits so light you practically had to hold them down with a fork. I went old school and had sausage gravy with my biscuits, but my son had bacon jalapeno and declared it delicious.

Pick your poison.

Weekend #2 was spent in Fayetteville, Arkansas, with Emma:

Emma's sorority held its Moms Weekend last weekend. She and I had been looking forward to it for weeks, so imagine our dismay when the weather forecast was for rain. Not "chance of rain" or "scattered showers" but 100% chance of rain for two days straight. The good news is it took the guesswork out of which shoes to wear, since rainboots were the only feasible choice.

Parking was available in a garage that was only about four blocks from the sorority house. That's the good news. It was full to the brim of student cars, and the only metered spots were taken, so I parked in one of the few open student spaces and hoped for the best. I was neither towed nor ticketed - whew!

Every Friday at the sorority house is Chicken Finger Friday, and that's how we kicked off the weekend. The chicken fingers were crispy and flavorful, there was yummy macaroni and cheese, and, best part, THEY HAD GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE AND IT WASN'T EVEN THANKSGIVING!!! We sat with group of Emma's friends, and I don't think there is anything a whole lot better than listening to a group of girls giggle and talk together. 

We sloshed and slogged our way back to the car and went to the amazing Rick's Bakery for treats and then to see "Greatest Showman" again (5th time for both of us). I want that movie to stay in theaters FOREVER.

Rick's Bakery. This isn't even half of it.

Brunch at the sorority house Saturday morning, and it was lovely! Rumor has it the house mother has given the boot to at least three chefs so far this school year, but I think this one is a keeper. We toured the house (it has three stories and a new addition was just completed this summer that doubled the size of the house) and Emma shopped for her potential room for next school year when she lives in-house.

I look rained on.

It was Bid Day for fraternities that same day, so the boys who went through spring rush found out which house they would be in, followed by parties that started around noon and ended some time around 2 a.m., I believe. Emma thought it would be a hoot if I went to some of the house parties, and we were joined by a couple of other mom and daughter duos. (Bear in mind it is raining BUCKETS while we do this, with some lightning and thunder thrown in.) We were greeted with great enthusiasm by fraternity boys at each house, and I hope their livers survive until they graduate....

Shootin' a little pool at the Phi Delt house.

We are the cool moms.

After the parties, we attended a cookie and cupcake decorating session at Rick's Bakery, and we got to take our creations with us FOR FREE! 

Sugary goodness.

We found a Vietnamese restaurant right by our hotel and had big bowls of pho to warm our bellies after walking around in all that rain. 

Naturally, after all of the Moms Weekend activities had already concluded, Sunday turned out to be warm and sunshiny, but maybe we'll remember this one a little more fondly in years to come as the one where we practically needed hip waders do go from place to place.

Bottom line: great kids, great times. Can't be more thankful than that.

Linking up with Josie Two Shoes and her Ten Things of Thankful blog hop.