You know its going to be a good day at Reunion Tower when you husband forgets to wear his shirt!!!
Oh wait, there it is!
Gotta love technology….but wait I’m getting ahead of myself!
Sean took the boys to the zoo one afternoon a few months ago and as they were driving to or fro (I’m not sure which), Bauer started asking questions about that building with the ball on top. Sean went on to tell him how he had been up there to eat at the restaurant a few times and how you could take an elevator to the top to look at the whole city! From that point on Bauer has been “patiently” waiting to go up in Reunion Tower.
As with many of the adventures we think would be fun to go on with our kids, life sometimes gets in the way. The reality is with three kids that have sports to play, friend’s birthday parties to go to, etc. and Sean and I both working jobs that sometimes require weekend hours, we rarely have a free day. Today was one of those rare afternoons that we had nothing on the docket. Truthfully, I had envisioned a glorious nap for myself, but I knew that was a bit of a stretch.
While we were eating lunch at the mall after church, it dawned on Sean that this afternoon would be the perfect time to take Bauer to Reunion Tower. It would be an extra special birthday treat! So we hit the Tollway and got ready to be tourists in Big D!
This star is so fun you would never know it is part of a fence that lines the parking garage under the Hyatt Hotel connected to Reunion Tower. This is one of my favorite pics of the day. Bauer loves to hug his older sister and sometimes, just sometimes Bree hugs back.
Sean’s master plan was to go up to the revolving restaurant in Reunion Tower and have some dessert for Bauer’s birthday. After some fact-finding, we discovered that you can’t just go up and eat anymore without buying a ticket. Those Reunion Tower folks have finally gotten so smart! TOURIST TRAP! The ticket guy wanted to charge us $51 dollars for our tickets, but I mentioned being here at Bauer’s request for his birthday and he gave us a huge discount only charging us $30. If you go, designate someone to have a birthday!
After purchasing our tickets and taking the awesome pics posted at the beginning of this blog, we were finally in the elevator for the long climb to the observation deck! The attendant asked where everyone was traveling from. The other two groups said Houston and Denmark (yep the country). We said Plano…lol!
Bauer was impressed from the start! The whole observation deck has these amazing touch screen computers that the kids immediately knew how to use (thanks ipad). They played games, saw all the designs that the ball has on it during the year, pointed out landmarks of Dallas, etc. I watched a great story about the assassination of JFK. Pretty cool stuff!!! I mean at least for our $30 bucks, we got a picture and some education.
Next, we headed outside to walk around and look through the telescopes! Bauer was a tad too short to look through them and see anything but the sky so Sean and I took turns lifting him up! It was amazing how many Dallas landmarks we were able to point out to the kids because they had actually been there. Sean and I walked away thinking we were pretty good parents 
After a bunch of telescoping, we headed upstairs to the Cloud 9 cafe for the highly anticipated chocolate chip cookies and ice-cream. Much to the birthday boy’s dismay, the cookie ended up coming a la mode so he only had a bite of cookie that was untouched by the ice-cream, but everyone else was in heaven.
Our big six year old in the sky!
We stayed long enough in the restaurant to rotate in a complete circle. The kids were just amazed that the restaurant actually moved. What a concept??!!!!
Bree kept trying to stand in one spot and not let the floor move her…here she is about to lose her balance!
Despite his initial trepidation (because he says no to EVERYTHING) to have fun with the family going up in a tower, Bennett ended up loving Reunion Tower and even gave me a bunch of kisses to prove it!
Bennett may have eaten the most cookie and icecream out of all us…oh wait, no, that was Sean!
But Bennett definitely got the most cookie on his shirt…just call him Cookie Monster!
Only the Murphy boys wrestle in Reunion Tower…
The wait staff were really chill at the restaurant. The kids just kinda did their thing and Sean and I really got to enjoy the view. The clouds were just amazing today…perfect day for looking at the city from inside an air conditioned rotating restaurant
After our healthy dose of cookies and ice-cream we headed to the stairwell to climb a few more flights to the top of the tower. There were some really cool paintings along the way!
You can’t go outside at the top, but the B’s loved that they were at the top regardless!
Our trip to just get a quick dessert ended up being a little over 2.5 hours of fun in Reunion Tower. Like most adventures we take, it surpassed our expectations.
The best part, we still got to ride the elevator down!
One more pic by that awesome star with mom this time and these tourists were ready to hit the road for that long trip back home to Plano!
