Saturday

Saturday morning we all loaded up and headed to downtown Dallas to the Farmer's Market. We have been there before, and it is always fun to join the hustle and bustle of the vendors and customers trying to make the best deals. The colors of the fruits and vegetables are so beautiful. The samples are delicious. And we always walk away with way more produce than we can eat.

One of the vendors had old-fashioned sodas in glass bottles, so we bought some for the kids and stopped for a Pepsi & blueberry snack on the side of the road.

~ sweet big brother helping the little one ~

~ "8 Ball Squash" ~

Beyond the Farmer's Market, we didn't have a lot planned, so we just followed our noses from one adventure to the next. First, we jumped into the car and looked for a restaurant that we had heard of and even looked for (without success) before, but on Saturday we found it! It is called Cowboy Chow, and it is in the area of town called Deep Ellum. It has a neat atmosphere, and the food was delicious! (BBQ Brisket Tacos... Mmmmm!) After lunch, we headed for the DART train. Allie had asked a while ago if we could ride the train downtown, so we obliged.

~ a sculpture on the way to the train ~

This old building was across the street from where we waited for the train. I love old architecture and old buildings and really wish that they could be refurbished and used again. They are always so much prettier and more quaint than what seems to be built these days.

~ Coop entertaining us while we waited for the train ~

We rode the train up a few stops to a shopping area that we like. We had a Starbucks, browsed some shops, and jumped back on the train. When we got to our car we had a discussion about who had the keys... who had had the keys last... where the keys were supposed to be... and came to the conclusion that they were lost. After sitting and thinking for a few minutes, Jack thought he remembered that he saw Cooper with them at Starbucks, so we re-boarded the train and retraced our steps. Thank God! They were indeed at Starbucks. We rode the train back to where our car was parked and headed to a place that Corey had heard about and thought that we would all enjoy.


We were driving to an area of Dallas that I only hear of in the context of crimes, and violence, and drugs, to be honest. I was a little nervous to take the kids to Oak Cliff, but when we got to the little area that we were headed to, called Bishop Arts District, we were safe as could be. Our mission: find a place called The Soda Gallery. It is a little shop that has just about every soda known to man inside. There are hundreds of different kinds. Literally. It had turned out to be a very hot day, and we were all thrilled to get a cold soda and sit on the patio and drink it.

This is one of several shelves and refrigerated case that holds soda.

~ the bathroom wall was covered in labels ~

(Yes, I took a picture in the bathroom.)

When we were done with our sodas, we decided to walk around a bit and see what we could find. There were some lovely murals, an antique shop, a vintage clothing store, and a childrens' boutique that we thought were neat. (Okay, Allie and I thought they were neat... the boys thought running up and down the sidewalk in front of the stores was neat.) After that, Corey & I sat in some rocking chairs on the patio outside of a restaurant and just enjoyed watching the boys play and Allie take photographs before finally going inside and eating some delicious pizza at Eno's.

I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed my family on our day spent together doing nothing but spending time together and having fun. Don't get me wrong... there was a certain little boy that stepped on my feet at least 20 times and drove me to the brink of insanity... and there were a few sibling spats throughout the day... and there was a bit of stress when the keys were lost, but I feel like we lived intentionally on this day. We shared life and love and adventure and beauty. The little things - which sometimes seem like the big things - did not weigh us down. We were free... to just be together. Be us. Be a family.