Day out with my loves

When we lived in Arizona, we used to go out and do family things, all the time.

We weren't spending a lot of money, but we lived right in the middle of Glendale and so close to shopping, restaurants, and all sorts of fun activity things, that we always had somewhere to go.

After Curt retired and we moved to Idaho, life became tough, in many ways.  The change alone of going from military active duty family to civilian family, is overwhelming.  When you throw in finances, trying to adjust, finding a new home and jobs and all that stuff, going out and doing fun things, suddenly takes a backseat.

Then we moved to Texas, and it was another adjustment, another financial burden, add in a lot of stress, family deaths, my daughter's fight with depression and anxiety, and it really just became all about surviving and getting from one week to the next, sometimes from day to day.



One thing we decided right at the beginning of this year, is that we are going to change that and at least once a month, we will be going out and doing something fun as a family.  There is still so much to see and do here in Texas and we haven't even began to scratch the surface.

Today we decided to do just that.  We met up with my brother and his family, and had lunch at one of the local favorites "Pat's Diner".  It was so good, I had a Steak on Garlic which is basically a chicken fried steak on garlic thick Texas toast, and the hubby and kids had burgers.

Nick said it was one of the best burgers he had ever had.
 

After leaving there, we headed to the Antique stores, we love spending a few hours just looking around, and we do have some really good stores here in town.

How gorgeous is this set?  It had the 4 mugs, saucers, 2 dinner plates and bowls and some other pieces, but it cost $185.  That is way out of my budget, but I must have sat there for 5 minutes just admiring it.

After walking around for about an hour at one store, we walked down the street to another.

I ended up buying just 3 things, let me show you.

Lavender because it was gorgeous, and smelled fantastic, and you should know by now how I feel about Lavender.

I also found this book by Louisa May Alcott "Jo's Boys", which is a sequel to Little Men.  Oh I just love old books, discolored pages, illustrations and stories that really touch home.  I can't wait to dig into this one.

The last thing I picked up  was this long bread pan.  I've wanted one for a while because I only have the smaller size pan and it doesn't always work best when I'm making sandwich bread.

I did get one more book, actually my husband got it for me, it's a knitting book, actually an Idiot's Guide to Knitting, which I know I'm going to enjoy.  I can knit but I'm nowhere near as good at it as I am at crochet and I'm hoping to get better at it.

After the antique stores, we decided to go to one of our local museums.  I had heard of it and wanted to go by but never got a chance.  I'm so glad we went, it was amazing.

Much bigger than we ever thought it would be and filled with so many interesting exhibits.  We didn't get to see it all, but we're planning on returning soon and spending quite a bit of time there, looking, reading, learning and so on.  I'll take my good camera when I do because the photos I got today were all taken on my phone which is not the best quality.

All of the ships that are currently at the museum, were created by one single man.  I was absolutely astounded at the craftsmanship and the details on these ships.  I can't wait to get back with my camera to really show you how amazing these are.

 

Overall, we had such a good day, didn't spend much money and enjoyed the couple of hours that we were out of the house and in each other's company.

It's definitely something we will continue to do and strive for in this new year.

Tell me, do you enjoy Antique stores or museums as much as we do?