The Dallas-Fort Worth area has a listing of Halloween parties held at popular nightclubs. Adults have a chance to join in the fun by wearing ghoulish costumes and getting wicked until the late hours of the night. In Dallas, Trees and Buddha 9 will hold parties from 8 pm until 2 am. For those who would like to party in Fort Worth, Scat Jazz Lounge will cater to your Halloween Eve dancing. Additionally, what better place to find free live music events than in Halloween theme parks themselves? Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington, for instance, holds its yearly Howl-o-Ween top 10 countdown at the Fright Fest’s Majestic Theatre. They perform songs by Aerosmith, KISS, Kelly Clarkson, and other popular and classic rock bands. If street dancing is your thing, you can join Mr. Six Spectacular Street Party, where a mix of favorite Halloween party music will rock the night.

But it doesn’t have to be costume parties and late night drinking. You can get a whole lot of Halloween ideas by checking out Halloween Events 2009.

Boo at the Zoo – In Texas cities such as Fort Worth or San Antonio, ordinary tourist attractions transform into scary but kid-friendly Halloween venues. Fort Worth, for example, holds its 18th annual Boo at the Zoo with puppet shows, mazes, live animal shows, and musical acts. The zoo promises six fun nights full of Halloween treats. You can purchase their tickets online or by phone when they go on sale on October 2.

Creepshow – The Kettle Art in Dallas holds it own Halloween art gallery exhibit starting October 24 until the 3oth. Admission is free. The Creepshow gallery will showcase Halloween masks and paintings and is located at the Deep Ellum area. You can check out their Halloween events website at http://www.kettleart.com.

Pumpkin Parties and Festivals – No denizen of the Dallas metroplex has lived in this area without having ever seen the freshest collection of produce in the Dallas Farmer’s Market. This Halloween 2009, they will hold the Annual Pumpkin Party on the 18th of October. The Dallas Arboretum is another eager participant for the Halloween season. Their own great Pumpkin Festival will last until mid-November.

For a list of all Halloween theme parks, parties, and haunted houses you can visit in Texas, check out Dallas-Fort Worth Halloween events 2009.

I know many teen students protest against these stringent rules. But our family has been a victim of an accident back when text messaging while driving wasn’t yet banned. You can read the whole story and comment at New Driving Laws Against Teenagers Text Messaging in Texas.

First, the Marfa Lights Festival. Marfa may not be the biggest, most exciting town in Texas but it has its share of glory — in the form of out-of-this-world skylights that occur in September. Everybody in town celebrates with parade, music, barbecue, and good ol’ Texas partying. Labor Day weekend is usually the time the Marfan residents celebrate this event.

Then, there’s the Grapefest. How can you be in the Dallas area if you’ve never tried to join this world renowned event? Shame on you! And yet even non-Dallasites come around to be part of the grape stomping and a gazillion other contests. This North Texas event is hardly overrated — there are indeed so much good stuff to check out. Wines? Of course. Painting, golf, carnival, stage shows…and everything in between. Be warned it can get crowded, especially on Thursday and Friday (September 17-18) when admission is free.

If it’s music, music, and more music that you want, head south for Corpus Christi. On September 25th to 27th our folks from Southern Texas are celebrating the Bayfest. What’s better than hobnobbing by the shoreline listening to bands big and small with the sound of waves in the background? What’s nicer than a mere $7 ticket to get in? The Bayfest homepage can help you where to find a great hotel to stay at, where to park, food vendor information, and a guide to the musical performers throughout the week. Can’t wait to party?

Now, I’ve saved the best for last. Texas won’t be without the biggest event ever: the State Fair of Texas. Another one of those events Dallasites should be proud of. It runs from the last week of September to mid-October. Perfect time for the start of autumn, when the weather is starting to mellow down to eighties. Car shows, livestock exhibits, arts and crafts, wines, corn dog contests, ice cream, carnival…this is truly an event for the whole family. The Big Tex is waiting out there!

September is truly never a boring month for Texans and visitors alike. There’s plenty of stuff to do in the Lone Star state. Whether you live in the north, or on the south, there is one more room for your family in the events. It’s truly hot out here, with sizzling events even non-Texans can enjoy!

That is not to say birdwatching is a horrible and extremely dangerous hobby. On the Texas map, there is a special spot for veteran birdwatchers (or first-timers) to espy eagles and birds of various kinds. It’s in Lake Texoma, where Eagle Quest 2009 will be held on January 24-25 2009.

I remember Lake Texoma as our last year’s pick for our Fourth of July celebration venue. I did my tubing and spent hours under the sun riding the scarab with my family. Lake Texoma is in the heart of Gordonville where famous marinas such as the Cedar Mills can be found. It’s very easy to find in the Texas map.

Eagle Quest 2009 involves activities such as workshops and seminars, hot air ballooning, flea market events, stargazing, and birdwatching of course! If you need more information on how to get there, here’s a Texas map I’ve provided for you:

Lake Texoma Easy Access Map

Eagle Quest 2009′s address is at at 198 Cedar Mills Road Gordonville, TX 76245.

Source: Wikipedia and Texomawestend.org

Asian Market goodies

We seriously got lost trying to find the Asian market that we always frequent whenever we go to Dallas. Apparently they kept changing locations. This time around, the owner of the Vietnamese restaurant in that same square where the Asian grocery was located said it moved about a mile from their original location. So we drove over to check it.

Although it’s not the same Asian market that we were used to (the original one was bigger), Joe was able to score some huge blue crabs. I got my lumpia wrappers and Mang Tomas lechon sauce. Always, even though there were some old stuff missing, there were some new stuff on the shelves. I took my seasonings, noodles and Mung Bean soup mix. Everything else in the store looked foreign to me.

When we come back, we hope that the Asian market would branch out and occupy the other building next to where they moved now. Who knows what new exotic Asian stuff we may find there!

Part of our plan the next morning (Sunday) before heading home was to get some fruits at the Mexican (La Marketa) produce market and some Asian goodies at the Vietnamese market. We unfortunately had to spend an hour driving around the entire Dallas uptown, downtown, and areas around the highway where we could eat some breakfast. There was none in sight. We finally gave up and saw a Krispy Kreme store by the highway. There was an organic market near it with a cafe, so we ate there instead. A two-person band was playing acoustic music while I savored my Mediterranean Chicken Roll-up and bisque soup. Everybody else seemed vegetarian. They even put cucumber slices on the water dispenser. Talk about being green!

We were making “green” jokes about it (pun intended!) until Joe had the idea of bringing me to Traders Village.

My advice is that if you go on a Sunday at Traders Village, expect to crawl through traffic. When we got there, I didn’t realize how massive it was. You couldn’t see the one end of the market to the other. Even if you thought you have walked all over the place and seen everything, consider yourself mistaken. Traders Village is a congregation of mostly Mexican vendors with oodles of Chinese (bootleg?) products. There were some good stuff worth checking out, but I couldn’t find any shoes to buy! I had wanted to get some because I was wearing big leather boots that were unfit for walking, especially at the gigantic Traders Village grounds. How ironic at such a big market there was nothing for me!

I realized Traders Village is a more expensive version of the real Asian/Chinese flea market, except that the vendors were Mexicans (or Indians) and the mostly Hispanic crowd visit the place to socialize with friends and fellow traders.

The Glass Cactus at Gaylord Texan

We did some research on what clubs to check out that night, and Sunset Lounge at Ross Avenue came up on top of my list. Yet we were also looking at visiting the Glass Cactus, because we have always wanted to see about staying at Gaylord Texan resorts one day. We ended up being indecisive. Where to go? If we go to Glass Cactus that meant we have to drive to the other side of the city to check out Sunset Lounge or some other bars in the Greenville area. If we head straight to Greenville, that meant we wouldn’t know what partying at the Glass Cactus would be like.

Donning our club outfits, Joe and I figured the Glass Cactus would be fun to check out first. After we had our car parked by the valet we cut through the partying crowd — a mix of young and old, but no one looked trashy or out of place. There was a live band playing but I didn’t like all the music they played. We lined up at the bar to get our Long Island Iced Teas.

People actually started dancing when they put on some club music during the intermission. There were a lot of older clubbers around, and I could tell that most of them aren’t exactly the hardcore type. Joe thought that was fine because at least we won’t expect any trouble. The Glass Cactus looked small from the ground, but when we checked out the balcony and the second floor we had more room and there was some sofas for lounging and chit-chat.

We left the Gaylord Texan club later in the night to see what was going on at Greenville. Apparently the street was dead, or maybe only because it was too cold that everyone just huddled inside the clubs. One thing is for sure though. By the time we hit the road back to the hotel, I realized I was too tipsy to even care. The Glass Cactus’ LIIT was the strongest I’ve ever sipped in my entire life. I had to squeeze in six lemon slices to tame it!

So Joe got himself a nice striped long sleeved shirt at Macy’s. We had some teriyaki chicken at the food court. I kept getting scolded for drinking too much soda. In reality, I hated it. I just had to keep my system up and my energy going with caffeine, in order to fight the 40-degree weather that was killing me in Dallas that night.

On our weekend getaway we decided to drive 100 miles from home to Dallas — to spend the night, party out, check out the malls and flea markets, and…who knows what else? We’ve been to Dallas a thousand times but there is always something new that Joe wants me to see. Also, we have always wanted to check out places we saw along the way, but never had the time to do so before. This weekend we made such opportunity possible.

We booked a hotel room at Crowne Plaza Suites — not necessarily extravagant — but there are things to like in our room. The bathroom is not big, the bed is not soft enough, but the hotel offered a mini-living room separate from the main bedroom, which has its own cable TV and laptop desk. The hotel has a nice pool and a hot tub but we figured it was too cold to swim, so we skipped the dip. We also wanted to work out in the gym as soon as we checked into the hotel but then time was running out.

I brought my own warm clothes but Joe didn’t, so I harassed him into getting himself a long sleeved shirt at the mall. After checking out Barcadia and spending a minute talking to a friend living near the hotel area, we drove straight to North Park Center.