Dallas

We went to Dallas for a week in July to spend some time with the Harris Family and attend the annual Firefighter Olympics. Clayton was held over so Tess and I ran some errands before she went down for a nap. She had her sunglasses on and was ready to start Vacation, I had to take a picture to show her daddy that he needed to hurry up and get home so we could start our week away.

The first night we were there Caroline and Casey were at the house waiting on us to arrive. The girls still aren’t at an age where they will play with each other, but they played around each other. They are still learning how to share. It’s funny because both go to daycare and I guess they know how to share daycare toys but when it comes to their toys at home they don’t want to share. Caroline is 9 months younger than Tess but you wouldn’t know it if you looked at them side by side. Tess is a lot smaller for her age and Caroline is pretty big for her age.

That first Saturday we were there Tess saw the bubbles and wanted to play. She plays with bubbles at daycare so she knew exactly what they were and knew what was supposed to happen. Well the contraption that was supposed to keep whoever was blowing the bubbles less messy than the normal bubble containers was not working very well. We finally got it to work but by that time she was more interested in everything else than trying to pop the bubbles.

 

 

While we were trying to get the bubbles to work Tess walked over to where Clayton was leaning against the pathfinder and was watching what he was doing and tried to imitate him and started to lean against the car also.

That night Tess and one of the doors had a run in and my baby girl had her first black eye. Tess likes to have all the doors shut, and she was moving a door stopper so she could close the door, well when she turned around the door knob her right in the eye. It looked pretty bad but I think she was pretty good after some ice and some TLC.

On Sunday we ventured out to the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, I had heard about how this museum has a children’s section that was for children under 5. I thought that was pretty interesting as most children’s museums are set up for older kids. They were running a deal during the summer because they had just opened that all military and first responders got in for free. Most places provide military discounts but rarely do places provide a discount for first responders. We walked through the other exhibits starting from the top and worked our way down. Mona and I did as much as Tess could take and when she was done we went down to the children’s portion and Kevin and Clayton met us down there when they were done with the rest of the museum.

The first thing that Tess saw was this area that had these fake flowers and I think the idea was that you could create bouquets or give your parents a flower or two. Well Tess decided that she needed all the flowers that were set out. There were quite a few flowers and the museum was busy so there were other kids trying to play also. She gave a couple mean looks as she was gathering her flowers and giving them all to her Nana. When she was done I tried to distract her with the grocery store.

We went shopping but she soon realized that her Nana had put all her flowers back, and that was unacceptable. Tess realized that the good thing about going to the grocery store was she had a basket to put all her flowers in. She started to gather her flowers again and this time she put them in her basket so that Nana couldn’t put them back, well as she was gathering I was trying to put some back so that other kids could play with the flowers. Tess caught me trying to put the flowers back and tried to hold all the flowers herself and even tried to steal flowers out of other kid’s hands. At that point I realized it was time to venture away from the flowers and try something different in a place we could not see the flowers at all.

So after we were finished with the flowers we went camping and ate some steaks and corn and sat by the fire. We played with boats in the water, we tried to build some things on the roads but mostly cleaned up the mess left by others. We went over bridges, through tunnels and down slides. And finally she had to color a little bit. She was pretty much all over the place and had a blast. I will say that this children’s area is designed with the younger crowd in mind.

Outside the museum they have a leap frog forest which includes a water feature. Tess had a fun time climbing on the frogs and playing around them on turf. The smaller frogs were perfect size for her to climb and I was able to get a pretty good shot of a smile with her sitting next to one of the big ones.

We tried to take a family picture next to one of the big frogs but we had mentioned that she could play in the water after the picture and that was our big mistake. Once she saw the water and knew she was going to be able to play in it she was over taking a picture. It’s a good picture of Clayton and I and you can see all the thoughts running through Tess’s mind of what she is going to do once she gets in the water. We gave up on the picture and took her shoes off and just let her play in the water.

Clayton’s Soccer tournament was Monday and Tuesday. We got up bright and early and headed to the fields both days. I apparently was better at taking pictures on the first day of the tournament and don’t have really any pictures from the second day. Tess played with Jacob throughout the morning and played with her iPad on her own.

The team did pretty well but Clayton and Mike didn’t like the ref from the first game and had a slight disagreement that led to them both not being able to play in the second game. This did not go over well but Clayton eventually calmed down and didn’t have any other instances the rest of the tournament. The guys ended up playing the same team they played in the first game for third place and we were all happy when they won. The other team provided some entertainment during halftime when their goalie and coach got into a fight and the goalie left. It was a tight game but in the end the better team won.

The tournament was played in the morning and we wouldn’t get back to the house till about 1 or 2 so Tess would miss her nap. On the second day we tried to take a nap in the car but she was not having it, she wanted to be out where the action was. On the way home she usually crashed at some point and would sleep till we pulled into the driveway. We would then put her down and she would sleep for maybe another 30-45 minutes if we were lucky. She was pretty tired by the end of the day.

Caroline and Casey came over to play in the backyard one day and I think the girls did pretty well. It was still hard to get a picture with both of them in it because they just won’t sit still or play with each other. Eventually they will have a lot of fun playing with each other when we go to Dallas to visit.

The last Friday we were there we went to Bedford Splash which is a small little waterpark geared for kids. Tess loved it, we started in the little kid area where there is a small slide and it’s pretty shallow so she can walk around. One of us would walk up the steps and help her go down the slide and then she would wait at the bottom for us to slide down. There were some jets that shot water up that she played with for a little while.

Our biggest mistake was introducing her to the bigger slides, which she loved. There were two slides an orange and a yellow slide. She loved the yellow slide but would settle for the orange one. Every time she landed at the bottom she would say more, she just loved going down the slides. It was probably one of the most crowded places in the park, so I guess most kids loved going down these slides. There was also a small lazy river and a bigger pool that had one bigger ride that both Clayton and Kevin went on. Overall it’s a nice park and I think Tess will enjoy it over the years.

The girls even were able to work in a girl’s night out to Painting with a Twist and we had our annual Harris Poker night. We had a lot of fun in Dallas but we needed a vacation to recover from our vacation.