The Nelson Family: A Visit from the Blaylocks, Day 7 & 8: Antique Mall, Cirque, and Cheddars

April 3rd. Another fun day out with Lisa. In the morning, we ran the canal trail by my house. I ran while Lisa and the boys walked. When I was done with my 3-mile run, they were still out on the path. When they came back, they had a handful of cool rocks that they found. I told them to save them so I could tumble them later in our rock tumbler.

Lisa and her boys

During the day, Lisa and I went to The Brass Armadillo Antique mall for a look around. It was fun to look, and mostly we just looked at the gemstones and even bought a few. I found a chunk of amethyst for only $4, a little Precious Moments piano, and an angel quartz stone for Elisa for her birthday. Lisa found some Siamese kitty salt and pepper shakers for Tootsie, and a cool shiny gemstone for herself. It was fun looking at all the old stuff. Most of it was too expensive I thought, and a lot of it was just junk. By the end, I was tired of looking at old stuff and was ready to go.

An Easter teapot and teacups I debated buying. I decided to pass on them.

For Christmas, Erik bought Elisa tickets to go to the Cirque Du Soleil Thursday night April 3rd. I invited Lisa to get her own tickets for her and Aaliyah so that they could come along. Alas, Lisa didn't double check the dates that I sent her, so she bought tickets for the wrong night! Whoops. Fortunately, I was able to find a friend that was willing to buy the tickets from her. Unfortunately, Lisa had to sell them at half price. At least she got some money back though. Not checking dates is an expensive mistake to make! Anyway, Lisa re-bought tickets for the same night, in the same section as ours. Lisa's seats were a little further back, and Elisa and Aaliyah sat in them, they wanted to sit together. Lisa and I sat in the seats that Erik bought for Elisa, which were a little closer to the stage. We were all so very hungry right before the show started, so we had to buy expensive junk food and eat it in our seats. I bought pretzel balls and soda for the girls, and Lisa bought pizza and a pretzel dog for her and me to share as well as a soda. The show was pretty neat. I wasn't 100% sure of the exact plot, but it was something about a girl falling through ice and finding herself in another world, hmmm...yep, I still don't know exactly what the plot was. But it was fun to see all the acrobatics and ice-skating skills. The girls had a good time, too.

Our seats

The girls enjoyed the show.

Cool acrobatics!

Awesome ice-skating!

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The next day, Friday April 4, we took all the kids out except Gabe. Gabe never seems to want to go anywhere. I kept Ian home. Elisa went to school, but I picked her up early so we could go out to lunch together to Cheddars. Lisa really wanted to check out the other Brass Armadillo Antique Mall way out in Goodyear. It was lucky that those two places were close to each other! First, we took the kids to eat. Lisa and I split a Monte Cristo. Ian sure liked the Monte Cristo too! We ordered the cheese curds for an appetizer but skipped the dessert. After a yummy lunch, we drove down the street to the antique mall. I thought the kids would be more excited than they were. The girls begged for some expensive junk (I told them no way) and within an hour the kids were asking to leave. I spent too much money despite telling Elisa no to most things she asked for. I ended up buying some Mario posters for Gabe and Ian and a shirt and earrings for Elisa. Nothing that I bought was antique, not even close. I now dub The Brass Armadillo Antique Mall "expensive thrift store".

We couldn't stick around that store for too long anyway; I had bought tickets for all of us to see the new Minecraft movie that evening. At least, I thought I did. I found out when we were seated in the theater that the tickets I bought were for Thursday (the night before) and not for Friday. We only discovered that because we were sitting in someone's seat and there was confusion since I had also picked those seats. The other people who had bought the tickets for the correct night were good sports about the whole thing and sat in a nearby seat, and the employee let us stay. You would think that the ticket wouldn't scan as easily as it did. The nice thing about this mix-up? We got to see the 3D movie for the same price as the 2D movie that I had purchased. I bought the expensive $11 popcorn, but we had a free refill since I'm a rewards member, so $11 wasn't too bad of a deal for two large popcorns, considering their popcorn is the most delicious popcorn of them all. The movie itself was fun, and the kids really enjoyed it and seemed to get super into it, especially when the baby zombie rode a chicken, all the kids screamed out "chicken jockey!!" I didn't know what it meant, but I'm glad the kids got a kick out of it! Not having played Minecraft (sometimes I'd just watch though), I thought the movie was overall a bit dumb, but Jack Black and Jason Momoa made it fun. And as long as the intended audience enjoyed it, I would consider it a good movie!

After the movie was over, it was Aaliyah's turn to misplace her phone. At least she thought she did. Lisa went back into the theater to look for it, and we waited in the van for a solid half hour while Lisa searched for the phone. Turns out, it was in Aaliyah's backpack the entire time--she just didn't look hard enough for it. Meanwhile, Erik--who was able to get off work in time to watch the movie with us--went with Gabe to pick up some Brewster's ice-cream. He bought a few different flavors, which were very creamy and delicious. He also bought some oatmilk ice-cream, which tasted like disappointment compared to the other flavors.