st patricks day in downtown

for st. paddy's day this year, we decided to try the dallas art walk . i know, it has nothing to do with st patrick, the color green, or the parade, which we carefully missed ;) --such party animals! we rode the train in to town, and like wendy mentioned, that was a very popular idea, and evidentally the parades weren't enough of a reason for the dart people to run extra trains... fortunatley, we'd decided to go to downtown garland to catch the train so we were some of the first people on (we could even park the stroller in the wheelchair area and i got to sit down--with kids on my lap--and everything). there was a lot of green and a lot of beer on that train! we skipped a few stops as we got closer to downtown, until suddenly everyone else got off, we went a little farther and found a great quiet part of the city to explore. we did about a mile from the middle of the art walk, and we really had fun, though i must admit, i looked at it more as a fun family activity than a holiday party, but since i don't drink or believe in pots of gold at the end of the rainbow, it worked great for me, and i think the kids had fun too ;). anyways, enough chit-chat i'm sure those of you that read my blog mostly just look at the pictures anyways!

Thanksgiving Square

we spent quite a lot of time at Thanksgiving Square, it was part memorial, part church, part park... and it is a triangle. we liked a large mural here by rockwell, and these bells represented something that i have since forgotten and don't care quite enough to look up, but i am fairly sure one was for God, one for us the people and one for something like remembering others... it was a slightly odd group, but pretty just the same, and still a good message, to be thankful.

this stained glass spiral was inside the church, the man in charge encouraged us to lay down on the floor to get the full effect. it was really pretty, though somewhat reminiscent of the RLDS temple in nauvoo. and of course some other people walked in as i was laying on the middle of the floor... they left quickly -hehe...



look, a family photo!!! *gasp* and most of us are smiling :D

paul took this picture at the Dallas city hall, i just thought it was pretty

Dallas City Hall, designed by IM Pei. those red spherical things are floating statuary, it was fun to sit here and have a snack while we watched them float and blow

another view or our little city, we walked through the middle there



to be honest, i'm not even sure what these longhorns are doing running through the middle of downtown, but there were a TON of them, and i let the kids play a bit, we were getting tired and hungry by this time, so it was a good place to get some energy out



malachi actually freaked out once we got him up there, though he was trying to climb up himself first...

and one more, can you ever have enough pics of the longhorns?!

you can see in this photo how they keep going back and around, they also went up the hill and around the corner, quite a herd all together.

as i said, by this time we were getting tired, rayna needed a little lift back to the trains

malachi was having a blast on the train ride home, first off, it wasn't super-crowded, second, he got to stand up a bit, and look out the window, so cool!



afton also LOVES the train, and she loves her daddy


just fyi, we were all wearing green, and afton's even being the rainbow, so we were following enough tradition for something :) and now we know a little more about the big D, so if you want to come visit we can show you!