Life has been very busy around here! I’m in my final 3 weeks of grad school (which, for a procrastinator like me, means it’s doomsday around here), Pascha came (it was wonderful! but we’re still so tired!) and most of my family came to visit for a week (1 bathroom for 8 people…).

And now, to make matters worse, we have severe weather in the forecast here in TX, beginning tonight and lasting until Friday. And then we pick up a few more storms on Sunday and Monday!

As soon as we finally put up a carport or garage to protect our car from hail (of which there is plenty in the springtime) and perhaps a storm shelter in the house, I’ll feel a lot more secure as these storms are rolling through. Until then, we have a good friend whose basement we can borrow if things are looking dicey!

But back to last week: while my family was here, we took my little sister, brother and his girlfriend to the Dallas Art Museum. Due to scheduling overload, we knew that we weren’t going to make it before the normal 5pm close time on Friday, but when I looked at the website again, I realized that the 3rd Friday of every month is called, “Late Nights at the DMA”, meaning they are open until midnight!

What I didn’t realize until we got there was that “Late Nights at the DMA” doesn’t just mean it’s open late– it also means that they have fun activities and live music all night long! And since there’s no admission fee to get into the museum, it’s all for free! We had the time of our lives playing darts on the best electronic dart board I might have come across.

First, we saw a harpist play jazz music accompanied by a spanish guitarist (I never knew this could happen, but it was awesome!).  Next, we saw a folksy band setting up on the main stage and uncovering the Yamaha Piano Cover, but instead of sticking around we starting looking at some of the art. Little by little, as the songs drifted up to us (you could hear some sort of live music no matter where you were standing in the museum), we got drawn more and more towards it, so finally I looked at my sister and said, “We can see the art another time– would you just like to go downstairs, get a front row table and listen?”

So that’s how we wound up with a front row (just 5-10 feet away) table, listening to Ginny Mac perform live. She’s absolutely incredible! Picture Amy Winehouse meets a 40s sultry bar singer. She plays the accordion while singing as well! The whole show (she had a band with her) blew us away. Not to mention, they were also selling wine and beer. How many times does one get to kick back, watch some amazing live music, whilst drinking a glass of wine?

If you’re ever in Dallas on the 3rd Friday of the month, I highly recommend the DMA!