Let the adventures begin!

I feel like I need to start with the Star Trek theme: Dallas, the final frontier! These are the voyages of the family-ship Whittacre. To boldly go where no Whittacre has gone before! That's how I feel about Dallas after just driving through a small piece of it today! It's like exploring space! I'm glad that our town is contained enough that I don't have to drive all over to get what I need. But at the same time, there is so much out there! It's going to take us quite a while to explore. And then of course, there's Houston, and San Antonio, and Austin (oh my!).

Today we went to the Dallas Arboretum for "Autumn at the Arboretum". It was beautiful! They have fall flowers in bloom but the decorating with pumpkins was absolutely fantastic. There literally must have been thousands of them -- they lined flowerbeds and floated in ponds with fountains, they were heaped onto rocks and there was even a story book village made out of pumpkins! I didn't realize until we were leaving that section that each house represented a story book character who has something to do with pumpkins -- Cinderella, Tom Thumb, etc. We had a great time and a beautiful (mid-80s) day.

Megan in front of the Cinderella house.

The Tom Thumb, pick-you-own pumpkin patch.

Life would not be complete unless we kissed a pumpkin! But no princesses for Megan.

I apologize for the dozens of pictures (I actually took 133) but it was just so incredible. I highly recommend it (although it is a little on the pricey side).

Sitting on the statuary. Are we allowed to do that?

Relaxing in the pumpkin patch -- Abby was so good! It was tiring though. At one point, I'm carrying her around and thunk, her head falls on my chest and she's fast asleep. Just like that!
This is why I do NOT PAY ANYONE to take family portraits. Megan refuses to cooperate and Abby could care less. Unfortunately, at this rate, we won't take family portraits until Megan is old enough to want to small -- and that will probably be a very small window before her teenage years!

Their regular attractions were great too. There was a Texas area where they had several dwellings and things representing the settlement and growth of Texas with a real sod house! I had never seen one of those before. And it was cool on the inside but I really could not deal with the bugs, especially Texas bugs -- blech!! There were several simply beautiful areas and so many brides running around taking bridal portraits or getting ready for weddings it reminded me of Temple Square in Salt Lake . . . ok not entirely but you know what I mean!

Laughing at something, but not at the camera -- I just happened to take the picture.

There's her camera face!

And another, less hostile one.

And then Miss Goofy with the pulled in lip action. Already the ham . . .

This house is the cutest thing ever. The house and gardens are dedicated to Strega Nona, the book by Tomie dePaola.



Sailboats on the lake, beautiful scenery, and your favorite family! So who's coming to Dallas?