The morning came in a hurry and was, in that spirit, more hurried than usual (for a Sunday). On most Sunday mornings I have to have the kids at church by 10am for Sunday school, after which they attend 11:15 mass with their step-grandmother. However, today, due to schedule conflicts, they were to attend 8:45 mass, followed by Sunday school. This schedule change would have been minor had I not forgotten that this week was their Sunday school Christmas party, and had I not so poorly remembered to acquire snack foods for the children to take to the party, as requested by their teachers. So... we were up bright and early and off to the grocery store to get party snacks. And we made it just in time, too. We got to church as mass was just getting started.

Following Sunday school, we visited our third mall, Heritage Park Mall, in the last two weekends, still trying to come up with ideas for those last few hard-to-buy-for relatives. I hate this part. Everyone should have a wishlist. For crying out loud people, I don't even know what my own kids want (without asking) and I live with them.

Afterwards, we had lunch at Fazzoli's and trekked to the downtown area to visit the Braum's Ice Rink. The intent was to have some ice bound fun, but as we got there they closed the rink and brought out the zamboni (sp) to clear the ice for some kind of exhibition. Considering the delay, and the fact that it was REALLY packed, I decided to abort that plan.


So instead we crossed the street and visited the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. Turns out there was a Smithsonian traveling George Washington portrait exhibit that just got started a couple of days before. So for the second weekend in a row (following last weekend's visit to see the DOI) we got to see an exhibit of national importance. The kids mostly had fun. Yes there were periods of boredom and "can we please sit down now", but they need the culture in their lives, too. And, afterall, the albeit new and very nice OKC art museum is no Philadelphia Museum of Art. You can spend days in that place and not see everything. Having been to the Philly version of an art museum countless times for school field trips, family visits, performances, etc, I can say with certainty that my kids had it easy.

Still trying to figure out if I should post this photo to the album.

After the art museum, we had some tasty Applebee's for dinner, followed by a trip to Bethany to catch the Christmas lights.

By the time we got home, it was bath time, so the day was quite full, and the kids were quite tired from all the walking.