Dallas Day 3

WOW I am so behind on this, but am determined to get through everything that we did in Dallas on Jeremy's week off.

Day 3

On this day we decided to go to Dallas Heritage Museum what a fun place.   It was overrun with school groups but we still had a great time.

At the entrance of the Heritage Village

Here Campbell is sitting behind the ticket counter in the train station

This is a Shotgun house, that was 1 room wide.  They were quick to build and took up little space, the railroad workers would live in these houses.

Out front of the shotgun house was this huge tree with bottles hanging from it, not sure of the meaning behind the bottles but they definitely looked interesting.

I love this house, if I could have my dream house it would be in craftsman style

An old wagon at the Doctors house, used to make house calls

Soleil doesn't like her sunglasses, which is why they are around her neck :)

The school house

Campbell and Finn pretending to be students and looking at the readers that were on each desk

An old farmhouse with a breezeway

An Indian teepee

An old cabin that was temporary housing (15 years temporary) for one of the families who had a home on display at the museum.  They lived here while they built their permanent home which had four bedrooms, this cabin was one room down with a loft, very Little House on the Prairie style.

The bank

After leaving the Heritage Museum we were heading to the Dallas Farmer's Market.  What a let down.  Possibly too early in the season but the vendors who were there were putting on the hard sell for their fruit and veggies.  It really put me off.  We were starving and there weren't many options for food.  There was one restaurant at the market and it was Mexican food.  We decided to go ahead and eat there.  We should have left when we walked in because you could just tell it was kind of icky.  We couldn't have the kids hold off for food any longer though, it was already after 2pm.  Our first real sign was when we ordered Margaritas and the girl told us they couldn't sell hard liquor but they could make us a margarita with wine.  HUH?  Umm we passed on that, ick.  The food was not good, we were joking that we were all going to get food poisoning and actually panicked that we did.  However we were fine and survived it!  Thanks goodness.  You can tell by Soleil's look that she was wondering what the heck we were doing there!

Dallas Day 2

On the way to eat dinner on day 1 we drove past Medieval Times .  We have discussed several times the idea of eating there and checking it out.  They were advertising a special for Wednesday, $25 per person.  We thought that was a good deal and thought about possibly going the next day.  The next morning at about 7:30am Jeremy got up to check it out online, to see what time the shows were etc.  At 7:45am he came running upstairs to urgently wake everyone up, all four kids had dentist appointments at 8:00am.  Well after LOTS of chaos we actually made it to the dentist by 8:10am.  They all had morning breath and hadn't eaten but oh well, they were getting cleanings anyway :)  By the time we were done there it was after 9am, the morning show was starting at 11:00am and the doors opened at 9:30am.  We had to stop home because we hadn't had a chance to really get ready for the day, I didn't have enough nappies to get through the whole day for sure.  So we stopped home (very short stop) and then got in the car and headed for Medieval Times.  It is about a 40 min drive, we made it there around 10:15 or so, not too bad!!  We pulled in and noticed LOTS and LOTS of school children.  I know it is called Medieval Times but really are they counting this as a history lesson??  We were waved to a spot and then asked what name our reservation was under!  Woops.  We didn't realise we needed a reservation, especially on a school day at lunch time.   They were kind enough to let us in without a reservation, so we headed in to pay.  After buying our tickets and finding out we would be cheering for the Green Knight (Finn's favourite colour-if you have ever had a three year old you know how something so simple could make or break the experience) we headed into the waiting area.  This area had little shop/markets where you could buy Medieval Times products, a bar, horse stable viewing at one end, a torture chamber and various suits of armour etc for photo ops.  It was incredibly crowded, but I snapped some pictures of the kids when I could.

When we were taken to our table we found place settings there with cups, plates and crown.  There are no utensils (in the spirit of medieval times) so all the food is to be eaten with your hands.  We took our seats and the kids promptly put their crowns on :)  The dining area was set up with all of the guests surrounding an arena, in stadium seating so we can all see the action.  Each section was a different colour that corresponded with the knight that you would be supporting.   Our knight was assigned to us when we bought our tickets so we were placed in the green section of the arena.

This is where we were introduced to all of the knights and learned that the Green Knight was not very well liked :)  Perfect!

While they did some shows for us we were served our food.  First they gave us Garlic Bread, then a leg of roasted chicken, a roasted potato and a cob of corn.  We were served Pepsi (dirt water is what they called it) to drink.  Owen decided to teach Finn how to do cheers and everytime Finn took a sip of his drink he insisted that Owen clink cups with him :) 

After dinner we were served a chocolate chip cookie for dessert, it was really good!!  Then we were treated to more of the show, sword fights and jousting. 

After leaving Medieval Times we headed into the city. We really wanted to see the Holocaust Museum and the JFK museum if we could fit both in.  We parked behind the 6th Floor Museum and walked over to the Holocaust Museum.  They had audio tours that you could listen to, it was extremely thorough, discussing every picture in the museum.  You could choose which ones you wanted to hear about by entering the number of the exibit you were looking at.  This museum, while small was very intense.  Campbell really seemed to enjoy learning about everything and was the last to be ready to leave.  Soleil and Finn lost their patience when I was almost done going through the exhibits so we waited in the lobby for the others.  I would recommend this museum to anyone interested in learning more about the holocaust, however it concentrates on a small time frame within the time of the holocaust and doesn't cover the entire event.  They are building a bigger museum, we will go back when that is complete to see it. 

After that we walked back to the 6th floor museum.  JFK was shot and killed on a trip to Dallas during his campaign for his second term and this museum takes you through JFK's history and through the shooting and the controversy behind it.  They have staged a corner of the building as it was when JFK was shot and Lee Harvey Oswald was thought to have shot him from that corner.  I really liked this museum but the kids were slightly bored.  They also gave each guest an audio tour which took you all the way through all of the exibits, which included photos and video.  I would like to go back sans kids one day so I can stop at each exhibit and really take it all in.  I would definitely recommend this museum to anyone interested in learning more about JFK and the shooting.

Well we started off with a light fun morning and lunch and it got kind of heavy so we decided after seeing the two museums that we would be done for the day.  We stopped at Black Eyed Pea for dinner and since it was Cinco de Mayo we might have had a margarita as well, and maybe one or two more when we got home!!

Dallas Day 1 Part II

Now anyone that knows me well, knows that I am terrified of heights.  I get anxious (heights usually produce an anxiety attack), dizzy and nauseous.  However over the years I have become concerned that my fears are projected onto my kids so I do my best to just get through them so my kids will experience things fully without fear.

Easier said than done because when Jeremy mentioned going to the 40th floor of the Chase Tower in Dallas I could feel my blood pressure increase and flatly said NO.  Then Madeleine said no.  I could tell that this wasn't going to go well and then agreed to go up.  Madeleine was not impressed because she knew she had to come too.  Below is a picture of her waiting for the elevator....not a happy girl.  She also doesn't like heights.  Are phobias genetic?

Now honestly the elevator ride is the scariest part for me, I hate elevators, enclosed spaces that move by way of a cable, that COULD break and plummet us to our death.  To add insult to injury, Finn started jumping in the elevator, causing it to shake.  This did not make me happy.  He stopped when I urgently asked him to stop, perhaps he sensed the fear in my voice?  The important thing is that he stopped.  Following are some views of the Dallas skyline.  Notice the lack of hills??  It is so incredibly flat here, very different than what we are used to.

After this stop we walked through the city to Thanksgiving Square .  This was a very beautiful place, nestled in the city.  As an Atheist I can find it frustrating that believers in Christian religions (not all, this is a generalisation based on my experience) assume that the rest of the world believes (or should)  in the same God (or any God at all).  Thanksgiving Square is a place where you could go regardless of your beliefs or lack thereof and be thoughtful and thankful.  Even though God is mentioned many times in the writings there I can personally take the word God to equal spirituality.  In this case I chose to do that.

I found this mosaic very beautiful.

This is one of the many things that I am thankful for!

One of the things we wanted and were excited to see was an original copy of the Declaration of Independence.  In Jeremy's research of Dallas he found that the Dallas City Library had a copy, along with an original compilation of Shakespeare's works. 

While it was definitely cool to see the Declaration of Independence, something about seeing Shakespeare's works right there in front of me was moving.  What an incredible part of history, right there in front of us.  Not that seeing the Declaration of Independence isn't wonderful as well but not being an American and not having that sense of patriotism, it was just interesting but not moving. 

Now this is one of the tougher aspects of living in the 'south'.  However it is a part of the history here and it is fascinating.

We went through this old cemetary that had the above statue.  I find looking at the old graves fascinating and sad, there are so many children's graves.  I can't imagine the heartache parents during those time periods faced.  It was a hard fact of life back then though.  Very sad.

After the graveyard we made our way over to  Pioneer Plaza .  This is an amazing work of art, right in the middle of the city.  Bigger than lifesize longhorns and cowboys.  Each Longhorn (according to the kind gentleman at the info centre) cost $1million. 

This gives you an idea how large these sculptures are

Yes they are picking his nose!

This was our last stop on day 1 in Dallas.  So we headed back to the parking garage and decided to find dinner on the way home.  In true Texas fashion we decided we HAD to have bbq for dinner.  After driving for a bit we decided on Spring Creek Barbecue because well it had Barbecue in it's name and we had never eaten there before!  Now we've tried it, we never have to go back, right?  No it wasn't AWFUL but it was just eh.

You get your food before you pay, in cafeteria style.  First you choose your meat, than you help yourselves to veggies/sides and then you get your drink.  When you hit the end of the cafeteria line you are at the cashier and you pay for your meals.  We started a little backwards because we wanted to find a table first, luckily it was still early so there were plenty and a nice big one that fit all of us :)

Campbell with his plate of food, he chose the beef bbq

Finn chose the ham.  Notice the pats of butter on his plate, he started eating one.  I think he was confused because it was on his plate.  It made us laugh but we did encourage him to stop and just put it on his corn instead!

Soleil got into the spirit and started playing the spoons!