Fort Worth: Day 2

After a long night of Riley tossing and turning, we were up bright and early and ready to go.  Around 7:30am, we left our hotel room and went down to eat at the hotel for breakfast.  We were given free breakfast vouchers since our room wasn't ready when promised on Saturday.  Nice perk because breakfast was awesome!  We had to return to the room to change Riley's outfit because she was already a mess after just one meal, and then we were off for the day.

{I love these pictures....look at her hair!!}

First stop, The Stockyards.  This was a really neat little area to walk around.  We were there too early (since it was a Sunday) for everything to be open, but we still enjoyed it.  Despite the petting zoo not being open yet, we were able to see some of the horses, ponies, and cattle, and even saw a camel walking down the street!

 We realized Riley has a huge love of birds on this trip.  While walking around The Stockyards, she wanted to just chase birds around and kept waving to them, saying 'Hi Birdie!'

We took a carriage ride around the area courtesy of Blondie the horse, and Gavin loved it!

Spent a lot of time just walking around the streets...

Stopped for impromptu photos, most of which didn't turn out!

And loved looking at the Longhorns!

We went into some of the cute shops, including a candy store and a boot shop.

And then we watched the cattle drive.  It was so funny because everyone told us about this and there were a lot of people lining up to watch, and it was literally over in like 30 seconds...  But, you'll never see this anywhere else, right??? 

Want to see what it was like?  Check out this video...Sorry it's not the greatest quality.  I was recording on my phone with my left hand and taking photos with my camera using my right.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLANVGIvvzs

We headed back to the car, stopped for a quick burger for lunch (kinda fitting, right???  Come from the cattle drive, eat a burger!) then went to the Museum of Science and History to hit up the children's area.  Super cute area...I miss having a museum to visit with the kids.  The Strong Museum of Play in Rochester spoiled me!

We took care of babies there...

Did some grocery shopping...

And dug for dinosaur bones!

We played with some manipulatives in the science area, too.  The life-size Lite Brite was so cool!  Makes me want to get the kids one to play with.

 Whew!  Our Day 2 was quite busy....I'm not even finished yet!  I'm going to head to bed, and I'll try to finish it up tomorrow. :)

Fort Worth: Day 1

There are quite a few places around here within driving distance for a weekend trip, and though we've talked about all of them, we've never done any....and we're coming up on 3 years in Arkansas later this month.  Crazy!  So, last month, I texted Jarrod and told him to pick a place and I was booking a hotel for spring break.  I was ready to break in the minivan and take a road trip.

Dallas was the destination of choice, but after some discussion with friends from the Dallas area, we decided to stay in Fort Worth and possibly make a day trip to Dallas.  We woke the kids up at 4:30 Saturday morning and were on the road by 5.  First stop: Cracker Barrel!  Gavin's pick for breakfast, and he was so excited about it.  Shortly after our breakfast stop, Gavin conked out in the car, just as we expected...but Riley never did!  She stayed up the entire car ride.  Not good considering we were headed straight to the zoo.  But she was a trooper and was awake for almost the entire time at the zoo.

It was a rather warm day, and VERY crowded, but the kids seemed to really like the zoo.  We honestly didn't get to enjoy the entire zoo.  After a while, Riley was really just done and we were all ready to cool down and escape the crowd.  But, it was an awesome zoo and we had a great time!

Little Miss Independent is making me question why I said I'd never buy a child-leash.  She doesn't want to stay in the stroller, she doesn't want to be held, she doesn't want to hold your hand....  And it proved to be a bad choice on Day 2 (story to come later).

She finally fell asleep around 2:00 while walking through the park, so we hiked back to our car (we had to park so far away!) and headed to the hotel.  Her nap only lasted about 30 minutes in the car though :(

We just rested a little in the hotel and let the kids play a little...

 And then we headed out to dinner.  We ate at a fun place called Chuy's....the kids loved looking at all the stuff on the wall.  Then we walked across the street to a shopping area and had some frozen yogurt for dessert, which Riley tried to eat twice as fast using two spoons.

To end the night, we headed to the hotel and went swimming.  The hotel had an awesome swimming pool for kids, and Gavin did such a good job.  I was worried he'd be hesitant to get in with all the water splashing everywhere, but he did great job with letting the water get on his face and wanted to do most everything on his own.  As did his sister.  Good golly I'm going to have my work cut out for me at the pool this summer!

Getting Riley to sleep in the hotel was a chore.  You'd think with it being such a long, tiring day she would just conk out.  But, nope!  I eventually had to rock her to sleep in the room's desk chair and then just go to bed with her at like 8:30.  Then she was up through the night several times.  What a long night!

Day 2 coming soon!