Good Friday in Dallas

Whenever Casey has a holiday weekend, we try to make a small day trip out of it. We hit Houston in September, San Antonio in February, and this weekend.....Dallas.
A 3 hour drive from Austin.
Traveling with the kids seems to be getting easier. Lucy has always been great in the car. And Owen's finally catching on too. It helps that they are such good friends with each other. Often times, they're just sitting back there saying silly things to each other and laughing. After an hour it can be a bit obnoxious but hey, at least they're not fighting (though that happens at times too).
Casey and I visited Dallas once 5 years ago (with my family) but we were interested to try it out again.

First stop, the Fountain Place. There's a large tall mirrored building (which makes picturing taking easy).....
And in the courtyard are tons of fountains! Smelled just like Disneyland's water rides.
We walked around, listening and watching the water, while Owen threw in leaves.
And since spring is officially here, red tulips were everywhere. Lucy thought she should smell each one of them. I asked what they smelled like.
"um....water!"
I had to explain to Owen a few times that these are not like weed flowers (which I let them pick) and that we should just look at them. No picking. He started bawling. I guess the boy loves his flowers?
Mama and kids.
Next we drove around the downtown, taking in sites. Cool trolley wires:
Big billboards:
with the Mad Hatter:
Large murals (which was kind of funny to us since we'd just watched The Cove the night before. A great movie. Definitely one-sided, so more of an expose rather than a "documentary" but quite informative and interesting. Recommend).
And eventually we drove through Dealey Plaza, where JFK was shot.
When we came 5 years ago we did the full-blown tour. And took some serious pictures. This time we just did the drive thru.
After the downtown I visited a darling fabric store called City Craft (more to come about that on MADE).
While I found some great oilcloth, guess who found the candy jar at the counter?
Yep, this girl:
She also wanted to take a picture of us in the car, while waiting at a stop light:
And she really wanted me to take her picture with Ronald. Funny girl. And NO we did not eat McDonald's on our Dallas visit. We actually bought a pizza from a local place. But there was limited seating, so we took it to the nearby McDonald's while the kids ran around. Quite perfect.
The next two stops were my favorite of the day. In the nearby city of Irving is the Mustang Museum.
We were too late to go inside. But all we really wanted to see was the amazing Mustang sculpture in the front plaza. It was just as impressive as we had hoped.
8 different bronze horses, in beautiful formations. The details are amazing. And combined with fountain work, it really looks like they are running and splashing in the water.
This was my favorite stop because the whole atmosphere was just relaxing. The plaza is very large and open, with water and walkways. We just relaxed and walked around. Sat down for a bit.
This photo reminds me of a similar one from our San Antonio trip:
We walked across the water bridges.
Looked at the horses.
And behind the building we found a beautiful lake with a large patio/deck.
And more red tulips. Mmmm.
The forecast had said it was going to rain all day. But the weather ended up being perfect. So we soaked up the late afternoon sunshine.
And Owen took a few falls. He must be having some growing pains because the kid has been falling non-stop. He's got scabbed-over knees to prove it.
But he wasn't sad for long when Casey asked if he wanted to "fly"?

One, Two, THREE!
And for our final stop we went to the Galleria Mall. Just a normal mall with the normal stores. But on the bottom floor is an ice skating rink! I'm bummed I didn't bring my camera along so these were taken with Casey's phone. Cool looking mall and rink:
And the real highlight was that Lucy tried skating for the first time! It was more like Casey dragging and pushing her around the rink. But each time around she got a bit stronger. And she loved it! I had my doubts. I'm so glad she was eager to try and that she had a great time doing it.
Here's a 15 second clip:


And that's Dallas in 7 hours! We left Austin at 11am and we were home by midnight. Great trip.

Times and Seasons photo

Back in October I submitted some pictures to an online photo series for the site Times and Seasons. And this week, they posted one! Check it out HERE.

(and you can see the entire series here).

feeling snotty today?

maybe this will clear you up.

Snowy Day

So here's the thing about Texas: the weather is predictably unpredictable.

This happened a month ago....
On Sunday evening we all wore short sleeved shirts and walked to the park at 6pm.
The next morning we woke up to this:
Actually, I heard the rain coming down in the night as we slept. And I woke up to Lucy running into our room with, "mom, it's snowing!"
"No sweetie (wishing I was still sleeping), it's just rain."
"No! It's snow! Come see!"

Still not believing her, certain it was "snowing" on her princesses' house or something pretend, I stumbled out of bed, rubbed my eyes, and wow! Sure enough. It was snowing!! I immediately grabbed my camera and ran outside like an idiot in my pjs to capture the white stuff.
I know I posted about our "snow" before. But this time it was the REAL deal. I know, I know. Those of you living in snowy places are laughing at my excitement. But seriously, this is like snow falling in Phoenix. It doesn't really happen here! (at least it's not supposed to. But there's that "predictable unpredictability" thing again).
Falling right out of the sky. I forget how beautifully quiet it is. Not like the racket of rain.
Casey immediately announced that he wished he didn't have to go to work. But since he did, he ran out back and made the tiniest (alien-ish) snowman.....
yep. He's only 5 inches tall.
So Casey went to work and we stayed inside watching the snow fall from the front room; enjoying the white beauty. You can really enjoy it when it only lasts for a day.
Rooftops sure look pretty covered in white. At one point we left the house and I forgot about scraping off my car. I left that memory in my Utah college days. So I grabbed the kitchen broom and went at it. Worked pretty good.
When Casey got back home from work, the snowy fun began. Casey went straight to the garage and grabbed his snowboarding gear. I wrapped the kids up in whatever warm things they owned (not much) and everyone played in the backyard:
Lucy totally loved it. She danced, tromped, galloped,
and learned how to have a snowball fight.
winding up:
and taking a hit:
seriously, don't mess with dad.
Lucy started to hold her own though, after a while.
And then Casey helped the kids build a snowman:
Another adventure Lucy was thrilled about.
Owen however, just tromped back and forth in the snow getting as wet as possible. And the poor kid had no gloves.
I eventually tried to put Casey's on him. But that didn't last long. He was the first one inside for a warm bath. I helped Lucy make a snowman face out of big legos.
Ta da!
our Snowman was complete! Not the finest guy. But he'll do.
And for a neighborhood with not a lot of kids normally playing outside.....everyone came out of the woodwork on the coldest day of the year. Seems that every kid was making a snowman in his front yard. And just over our fence, our neighbor was working on his (with a ball in the middle of the head. clever). A paparazzi lens comes in handy.
To finish off the fun, two snow angels. Casey:
Lucy:
And by the next morning, this is what our snowman looked like:
With his face hanging at his feet.

We love you Texas. You always keep us wondering!

In-N-Out = P. Terry's

Since moving to Austin we've been on the prowl for an In-N-Out replacement. We need more in our Saturday-Lunch routine other than: Chipotle, Firehouse Subs, and Rudys.

Everyone in town has been recommending Mighty Fine. So we tried it. It was.....fine. But it just wasn't that great and was also overpriced ($20 for me and Casey, while In-N-Out is $10.58 for us both).

Then.....the other day the kids and I went south into Austin and on a whim I drove by this place and decided, huh. Let's check it out.
And I'm SOOOO glad we did! It's just what I've been looking for (and more) Delicious, reasonably priced, and has the coolest decor. The kids and I ate there on Wednesday and we drove back today to share it with Casey.
At P. Terry's you'll find.....

Cute kids (one of them happier than the other):
Cool 60's decor with nice lighting:
Ketchup the way all great burger joints do it. In cups.
Yummy fresh, soft-in-the-middle-crunchy-on-the-outside fries (which I think are better than In-N-Out's):
GREAT burgers. The picture looks sloppy, but just believe. It's very tasty. I kind of want another....
Cute kids enjoying their fries (one refusing to look at the camera):
A fabulous color scheme. I know I'm a sucker for cool branding. But I'm not completely shallow. The food has to taste good too.
But seriously.....Cute cups! And perfect soda:
See, I think you're digging the turquoise and orange too....
Mod chairs:
And something we discovered after eating......an outdoor sandbox!
Dude. We should have been sitting out there the whole time! Next time.
Thank you P. Terry's for being my new best friend and making me wish we lived IN Austin, instead of 30 minutes away. We may not see you often enough. But we'll try.