Girl Trip- Day Three at the Dallas Arboretum

Our last day in Dallas before driving home was spent at the Dallas Arboretum. It is a beautiful large garden and we'd never been before, but will certainly go back! We started in coats and ended with sleeves pushed up! The weather was perfect!

Our first stop was the Rory Meyer's Children's Garden. It was so well designed and super educational! Check out the celery slide and pea boat.

These were found in the incredible edible garden along with this silly veggie art! This whole area taught kids about gardening, food's importance to your body, dirt and soil types, etc. It was fun to teach her more about where the grocery store is stocked from.

There was also a whole weather section that showed how wind is used to pollenate, water and sun make plants grow and the other more sever weather's damage to plants. Abby stood on the sun dial and it was right on- 11 AM!

I jumped in the wind tunnel with her! Total and complete silliness!

Nana helped Abby shoot water to make the orange pieces spin and then she proudly did it by herself numerous times.

I loved this flower area- it felt like Honey I Shrunk the Kids!

There was also a fun little cottage playground area with over sized bugs!

After the children's garden we had lunch on a covered patio inside the kids area. The lunch spot offered tons of healthy options- I loved it! We had sandwiches, carrots, apple sauce and yummy non-soda drinks like Texas Tea.

After lunch we walked the main gardens. I feel like visiting in May would be ideal! Lots of things starting to wake up for Spring.

I'd love to see these trees in bloom! 

I am no gardener- I think this is a white Dogwood. I love trees that just cover themselves in flowers in the Spring. Leaves are so boring when flowers can be seen.

They have seasonal displays and we saw the peacocks made from greenery and flowers for their big tails. There were a handful of them and they were really impressive!

Overall we had a really fun day and girl trip! We had good weather, a pretty happy camper with us, and the right shoes to walk without blisters!

We might have even made a little tree hugger out of Abby!

Girl Trip- Day Two

Wednesday was our light day on the trip- we knew the zoo would be lots of walking for Nana and crowded, so we wanted to do something a little easier that day. It also was the coldest day so we looked for indoor activities. My friend Erin is a big fan of the Urban Air Trampoline park nearby, so we decided to go jump there on Wednesday morning.

Abby and I had so much fun! It was a blast for both of us and a really good workout. I had fun and was out of breath!

Abby loved running and jumping into the foam pit. I did not do that one... I wasn't sure how easily I could climb out of the foam!

Check out the video of Abby running and jumping in!

After our jumping, we drove to nearby Plano for my favorite BBQ- Red, Hot and Blue. It was delicious as always. I so wish we had an Austin location. We also did a little shopping before going back to the room to rest.

Then, it was time for the moment Abby had been waiting for... her tea party at The American Girl store. She was giddy with excitement and couldn't say the words without squealing!

For Christmas this year, we bought Abby a My Generation doll from Target. It is the "off brand" American girl doll and it works just fine for us. I couldn't buy Abby a real doll and luckily she has no idea she has a generic version. 

Abby had saved her money for months and with a little help from the tooth fairy, she was able to buy the two items she really wanted- a lunchbox of food and a baby sippy cup and snack. You are looking at $38 right there. Wow.

We made an appointment to have a tea party and expected a large group to do a craft and then have a few snacks. It turned out to be our own table and this beautiful presentation of food!

It was all delicious and at 4 PM, really counted as an early dinner for us! I would highly recommend doing the tea party. 

It is $12 per person and includes all of this food and your pink lemonade to drink. 

Abby was also given a small cup and plate for her doll and the pink bow napkin rings and the flowers in the small pots. She was thrilled! 

We had a wonderful time at our tea party!

Up next, our last day was spent at the Dallas Arboretum. It was a pleasant surprise that we loved even more than the zoo!

Girl Trip! Girl Trip!

This past week was Spring Break and Marcus had a training all week in Denver. Boo for the odd scheduling of that! So, rather than sit around all week and miss Daddy, we grabbed Nana and hit the road for a GIRL TRIP! GIRL TRIP! (We named it that to take away the sadness that Marcus wasn't with us. It worked like a charm!)

We were all so excited that we left before 7 AM on Tuesday morning. We were at the Dallas Zoo before 10 AM which is a good thing because it was super crowded as the day went on. We were lucky to get decent parking and sunshine all morning! We even got a little sunburn!

It was a lot of walking for Nana but she did great! 

We rode the monorail which is a must do. It costs $3 per person but you get a guided tour of parts of the zoo you can't access by foot. And, you are up high so everyone can see!

The okapi is Abby's very favorite animal and she has only seen one at the Houston Zoo. They had a couple at the zoo and we attended the zoo keeper talk where she fed one and told us all about it.

I believe we were told this is the only koala in North American zoos right now. It was pretty cool to see- they are super fluffy and look so friendly. It sleeps 20 hours per day, so we didn't see much movement from him :)

We have been to lots of zoos in Texas- Abilene, Austin, Houston, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Waco and now Dallas. Waco is still our favorite, but I really liked Dallas too! Lots of animals, easy to get around, and a couple of really interactive spots. The food was awful and parking was pretty bad, but overall we liked it a lot!

I'll share Day Two soon!

Tooth Fairy Came!

I took this picture on Wednesday knowing it would likely be the last one with a full mouth of baby teeth. It was an exciting time in our house learning all about teeth coming out, the tooth fairy (which she knows is me!), eating soft foods, and playing with it with our tongue.

Here you can see the bottom right tooth is loose and leaning toward the other middle tooth. She could push it forward about 1/2 way to flat with her tongue. But, being her first tooth she was really scared to let me help her or even tough it.

We tried really hard on Friday morning and were even late to school. Then, I picked her up on Friday and was given a baggie with her tooth in it. She played with it during rest time and it came out! Her first tooth lost at 5 years, 2 1/2 months.

Clearly the new tooth was coming in and pushing it out!

Abby was brave as could be and so excited to place it in her tooth fairy pillow. I bought it about a month ago when the dentist told me the two front bottom teeth were loose and she could see the next teeth coming!

After some disagreement between Marcus and I, I put $20 in her pillow. She knows that is special since it is her first tooth.  We also are spending part of Spring Break in Dallas and that is her spending money. I'd rather give it to her to manage ahead of time than give it to her at the gift shop.

Big girl! So proud of her and so glad I got some great 5 year close ups before the transitional mouth began! ha!