Explore Galore

I finally found a few minutes to toss up our pictures from last weekend!  Jordan and I took a day off work to do a little exploring around the Dallas area.  We are always talking about all the things there are to do in this area but, sadly, we've not taken advantage of that perk yet!  Since we took off a week day, we had several destinations to chose from while still avoiding crowds.  We decided to see the new Perot Museum.  Construction finished just last year and we've heard a lot of great things about it!

The building itself is very interesting.  It has an escalator that takes you outside the building.  I thought it was a great perch to check out downtown Dallas.  

These are our selfies outside the museum and overlooking downtown.

The Perot museum has multiple halls, each with a theme.  My most favorite stop was the dinosaur level.  We got to see all kinds of cool fossils.

Museums were fun as a kid but it's a different experience as an adult...I'm more interested to actually read about the objects, that's for sure.  The Perot has a TON to look at but it's impossible to read every single detail unless you have days and days.

These are some of our favorite dinosaur pictures.  The bottom picture is a T-rex.  I'm about half the height of this T-rex's leg.  A typical T-rex is 12 feet tall (the highest point being the hips/back).

More dino pics!  In the left shot, you can see the same T-rex standing next to a Brontosaurus (who has an extremely long tail).  

Top Right: Funny picture of a Belted Kingfisher bird.

Middle Right: Foot print comparison.  Sorry...I can't remember what kind of dinosaur made this footprint.

Bottom Right: This picture is one of several from the geology hall (aka pretty gemstones!)

One of Jordan's favorite halls was the human anatomy room.  They have a lot of interesting facts about our bodies, and the evolution of man.  This one made me a little squirmy because they have lots of gross pictures all around.  

Top: Panorama of the Anatomy hall.

Bottom Left: Jordan and I thought it was really cool to see the veins through this machine.  Jordan's veins show up WAY better than mine.

Bottom Middle and Right: I was pleasantly surprised to stumble upon this musical staircase.  As you walk up and down you can play music.  It can quickly tire you out to play notes going up and down the stairs.

The last hall we hit was the sports hall.  Here you can race a T-rex, track stars, or a whale.  All of them are very fast creatures.  Jordan liked the slow-motion sports center.  There, you can compare your form to actual athletes.

Here he compares his form throwing a football to Roger Staubach.

After the Perot museum, we decided to re-hydrate and get something to eat at Company Cafe.  We've never been there before and it was pretty good!  I was surprised to learn that our meals were both gluten free, including my french-fries.  It was yummy but nothing worth fighting parking to get to.

We continued to explore the downtown area and found a cute little chocolate shop.  They had a lot of really creative chocolate flavors and taste-testing was free.  Um...yes please!

We walked out of Dude, Sweet with white chocolate chai drops and some tomato jam dark chocolate.  Both products were tasty novelties but we can't quite figure out how to make the chai tea using the chai drops.  Workin' on that one.

ALL around Dallas you see the "BIG" statues.  We took our picture together as the "I".  I have to say, it's a pretty great marketing slogan for Dallas Texas!  #DallasBIG!

At this point in the weekend we were exhausted so we packed up our stuff, loaded up Abby and headed to the lake for the weekend.  The following morning we hit up Bowie Trade days with my Mom and Aunt Cindy.  They always have such great luck at the trade days.

Here are a few pictures of the Bowie Trade days.  There are all sorts of animals and each store front owner packs their space full of stuff to dig through.  I don't feel like we had much luck but I think it's because I wasn't in a buying mood (shocking, I know...)

The lake and Bowie Trade days always has lots of animals to play with.  There are always adorable puppies for sale and it's hard to resist some puppy snuggles.

Top Left: I got to hold a little snoodle-something or other.  Abby was very jealous.

Top Right: Aunt Cindy bought some ducks to live on the lake.  They are a little awkward looking (teen ducklings) but seemed to settle in just fine after a few hours.

Bottom Right and Left: Sophie and Abby enjoyed the jitney ride with Jordan and I.  Those pups love the breeze in their faces and I imagine they must catalog all the interesting smells as we drive around.

Last weekend the lake level was still really high so they had to keep the lake closed.  You can see remnants of how high the lake got these last few weeks.

Top Left: You can see the left over debris line where the lake level almost came into homes.

Top Right: "Lake Closed" sign.  Crazy that we go from a sandy beach to closing the lake due to high water.

Bottom Left: The pool has a grimmy water line just a foot shy of the top of the pool.  THAT's how high the water got!  Wow.

Bottom Right: Jordan and I were shocked to see this cement structure (approximately 20 feet under water).  Normally we can see 6-8 feet of concrete above the water!

Lake pictures are nothing without an obligatory food picture!  YUM!

It's hard to beat such a good lake meal.  Steak, salad, cantaloupe, corn, potatoes.

Just as we were leaving we caught Dad on his tractor.  The roads have taken such a beating since there has been so much water run off.  Dad did some great work to re-level the gravel lake roads.  

Nice lookin' tractor.

That Sunday Jordan and I arrived home and felt pretty tired.  I managed to talk Jordan into putting together our new patio box.  We have beautiful chairs and outdoor pillows to enjoy fires and the outdoors but we've not had a place to store them.  I was thrilled to have some space to put them for easy access.

That's all for today friends!  I hope everyone is staying cool and enjoying the summer!