November 2020, Part 2 - Thanksgiving in Dallas

We traveled to Dallas for the week of Thanksgiving. The girls and I had the entire week off from school. Tyler worked Monday and Tuesday, his usual half days, so we left as soon as he got home from work on Tuesday. We made it to John’s apartment in downtown Dallas around 11:00pm. We spent Wednesday checking out the sights of Dallas. John and McKaye’s apartment is in the middle of downtown so we walked up to the top floor of their building to see the skyline.

We walked a few blocks to the grassy knoll where the monument is for JFK’s assassination. There are “X’s” on the street that mark where he was when he was shot. The road behind us in the picture is the road with those X’s. I’ve lived in Texas most of my life, but I had never been to that place and monument before. Then we walked a little farther to a park where you can catch a trolley for a ride around downtown. We had an entire trolley to ourselves since we had to social distance.  

But since we took up the entire trolley, I couldn’t get all of us in one picture. So here’s Abby and Tessa and Grandma and Taryn who were on the opposite side of the trolley from the rest of us. We had fun taking a ride and seeing all of the sights. Once we got to the end of the line, the trolley driver had to get out, rehook us up, and then we spun around to face the opposite direction to be able to head back the way we had come. It was pretty cool.

 

The Dallas Aquarium is only a block away from John and McKaye’s apartment, so that first day we walked around, we were able to see the entrance to the aquarium and we saw these fish there. We decided then that we wanted to go in the aquarium while we were in town, but we had to wait for another day to do that. Another pass around downtown brought us to this huge eyeball that’s in the middle of a block park. John says the story goes that someone bought the land with the intention of building a parking lot. But he got so much flak from the city saying that a parking lot would be an “eyesore,” so this is what he built there instead. Don’t know how true that story is, but since Tyler’s an optometrist, we thought it was a cool stop and a picture must.

 

As we walked home from the trolley station, we found this fountain and I decided I wanted a few fun pictures. I tried multiple times to get a picture of all the girls jumping in the air all at the same time, but we kept struggling with the timing. Tyler decided to help one of those times by photo bombing our attempt. Even though we didn’t get a perfect picture, they still make me smile whenever I see them.

 

We were able to make it to the Aquarium while we were in town, so the girls were very excited. We saw this photo spot as we walked to the entrance, but I couldn’t get everyone to stop for the picture, although it’s one of my all-time favorites from the weekend because I love that it says Dallas and the greenery is so pretty. Aubrey’s actually in the picture too. She’s looking through the hole behind Tessa, but you can barely see her because of the shadows. You can just barely make out her white mask. Inside the aquarium, we entered the “rainforest” portion of the aquarium and the girls thought the steam for effect was pretty cool.

The aquarium has a sloth and they had him out on display while we were in the rainforest section. He was awake and moving, so we got some pictures and videos. He really did move so slowly and it was quite fascinating to watch. He has the cutest face.

 

We went through a couple of water tunnels. The shark tank was awesome and I caught this picture as one of the sharks swam overhead. The other tunnel was another fish and turtle tank, but I had the family stop so I could get a picture and I love how it turned out.

 

The turtles were cool and we loved seeing them, especially Tessa who still loves turtles the most. The girls took pictures and showed me how cool they looked on their phones, so I took one too that had turtles and sting rays together. The Dallas Aquarium was so cool because they had so much variety. Besides the sloth, we saw monkeys, birds, and these flamingos, so it was more than just an aquarium to me. Taryn loves the brightly colored flamingos so I took a picture of her with them all behind her.

 

They had this cool mosaic wall in one of their sections, so I had John and McKaye stop for a picture with Taryn. I loved all the bright colors and I wanted to remember our trip to visit them in their hometown.

Another evening, we walked a couple of blocks to the Dallas Museum of Art. Abby really loves art museums, but we never seem to pick that as an attraction when there are so many other options of places to go. But since it was free and close by, we finally made it to an art museum for Abby. We walked around for a couple of hours before it closed, but I didn’t take any pictures since photographs were mostly forbidden. I did take a picture as we were leaving of this blown glass piece that was at an exit of the museum. It reminded me of the ceiling that I love in the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas. It was across the foyer from the stairs that we used, but I took a picture of the entire piece and then one of me and Taryn with the artwork behind us. 

 

As we walked home from the art museum, it was fun to see all the lights of downtown. A lot of the buildings had lights up for Christmas, so we took a round about way back to their apartment so we could see all the cool lights. I loved all the brightness and color. Here’s a cute one of Aubrey with John and McKaye.

A lot of the buildings also have fountains, so those were fun to see too. Tyler had the girls do a leaf race down this little stream that ran the length of a building and ended up at a cool fountain. I had them take a picture of me and Abby while we waited for the leaf race to cross the finish line.

John took us by another plaza that was recently finished from some construction updates. There were a ton of fountains and lights as you walked down the stairs to the middle of an open plaza. I took these pictures of Tessa and Aubrey as we walked through the plaza. It was so cool to see the vastness of the area so full of water and fountains.

They had these lights on the ground in front of the flags and as I watched everyone walking over the lights, I thought it looked pretty cool, so I made everyone stop and face me for the picture after picking a light to stand on. I thought the picture turned out really good. As we walked, I wanted a picture with everyone in it, but we weren’t ever all in the same place at the same time; or we couldn’t get everyone to stop at the same time, so this was the best we could do. I had Abby take the selfie since she’s so good at them so we at least got a picture of Abby, Aubrey, me, and Grandma and Grandpa.

 

Another day, before the rain came, we took a walk over a bridge. It used to be a road, but as the freeway expanded and a new, larger road was built, they turned the older road/bridge into a walk/bike path. They even had some benches, tables, and play spots along the way. It was pretty fun. The girls were getting tired  of my pictures by this point, but the views were too cool to pass up. I had to have pictures!

 

There were these posts for exercises maybe that my girls found, so I got a picture of them on them. John was faster than Tessa so the first one had him in it which I love because his smiley, goofy pose is the epitome of his personality. It’s so him - I love it!

On our way back to our cars, we let the girls stop at the playground since no one else was there at that time. The girls took their turn climbing this huge boulder. I grabbed a picture of them on the top before making them  jump down to catch up with the others who had kept walking.

I think John and McKaye were worried about squeezing us all into their apartment for an entire weekend which is why we probably spent a lot of time outdoors, walking and roaming. But we had fun inside too. We played games, watched movies, cooked, and ate. Aubrey helped me make breakfast one morning and we had fun baking pies for Thanksgiving. My parents rented one of the other apartments in the building, so we split up the girls in the evening and we had plenty of space for everyone. McKaye set up her old PlayStation one afternoon and the girls had a blast playing racing games together. 

 

Their building also has a top floor lounge for anyone to use, so we made some stops up there a couple of times for the kids to play. They had a pac-man game and a pool table, so the girls loved it. 

We used the bigger tables in the lounge to play hand and foot since there wasn’t enough room in their apartment to play. We also played dominoes and had fun visiting while the younger girls played pool and pac-man. 

On Thanksgiving day, we drove out to a lake where McKaye’s parents have a lake house. We spent the morning walking around the lake and visiting the horses that are there. The girls loved seeing the horses, petting them, and picking their favorites. John’s nephews came along for the walk as well and I took a lot of pictures.

Tessa really liked the donkey that she named “Donkey” and he was very friendly. She also really liked this caramel-colored horse that she named Charlotte.

 

This was the last horse in the long lane of horse stalls. It was Aubrey’s favorite, but we can’t remember what name they picked for it. All of the horses were very friendly and loved for you to pet them. I really liked this second picture where it looks like they are staring into each other’s eyes.

 

As we walked along the edge of the lake, we came up to the clubhouse where we played yard games like horseshoes and tether ball. Tyler and Abby beat me and John at horseshoes. Taryn liked the big swing and I took her picture on it with the lake in the background. Abby was finding all kinds of places to have her picture taken. It was really green and pretty and perfect for pictures.

 

There was a huge wall of ivy behind the horse stalls where we had to get some pictures. I even talked Tyler into taking a picture with me.

The ivy wall was part of a huge barn where all the polo and horse equipment were kept. There were some cute chairs outside the barn where I caught this adorable picture of Abby and Tessa. It made me want another picture with the same scene but with Aubrey and Taryn. Unfortunately Aubrey wasn’t willing to pose and simply smile for my picture, so this was the best I could get. Girls will be girls.

Here are a few more pictures as we wandered along the land. We love being outdoors and spending time together with the family.

McKaye’s family was still having work done on their backyard and dock, but there was enough of the dock to walk out and see the lake from a closer view. We took these pictures together on the dock. We love John and were happy to spend Thanksgiving with him and McKaye and her family.

We tried to get another picture with everyone, so we grabbed McKaye and Grandma and Grandpa, but we lost Tyler and John, so having two pictures to get everyone will have to do. We enjoyed our Thanksgiving break and we loved being with family. We are very thankful that we were able to travel, see family, and stay healthy. It was a great week.