Friscos Finest

We met Dawn and one of her friends at the zoo one morning.  It is so hard to follow Google maps on the freeways here.  I ended up getting on the wrong freeway, then finding an entrance to get back on the freeway that was closed because of construction, luckily we made it :)   The weather was a little cool that morning, but it ended up being a perfect day!!

Cole was yelling at Alex in this picture.  His new thing is to hit your face, the worst.

This Dallas Zoo is amazing, I was so impressed.  They have a carousel, petting zoo, pony rides, train ride, you can feed the giraffes for $5 and the list goes on.  We didn't get to see everything so we will definitely be going back.

Pony rides turned out to be super lame.  $2 for 1 little lap, but they didn't seem to care which is all that matters.

Cole started screaming when I took him off the horse.

I bought Cole a Dodgers hat before we left LA and he wouldn't wear it so I exchanged it for a Ranges hat for Alex that he looks adorable in.  Too bad he only wore it a couple times and now it just sits in our car.

We took a Saturday trip down to Klyde Warren Park.  I've had about 5 people tell me that I needed to go here, so here we are with the rest of Dallas.  I ended up waiting in line for over an hour at 3 different food trucks getting us all lunch and missed Alex and Cole playing in the fountains.  

The BIG D, our new home.

That night we went to a Frisco Roughriders game which is the minor league team in Frisco.  It was a ton of fun with our new friends in our ward.  Heather and I figured out that I know her sister in law in Utah who I used to be really close with.  Small world!!

Mothers Day 2014

Mothers Day was perfect this year. I got to sleep in like 15 minutes and Al woke me up and said he made me breakfast.  

How awesome is this.  Flowers, OJ, French Toast, Bacon and eggs, wow.  I knew Al had it in him, but he's been telling me the last 6 years he couldn't cook.  He did look a little stressed out in the kitchen with 3 things cooking at once, but it was great and I loved it.

We tried to take a picture before church and it didn't really workout how I planned.

I tried again before we went into church and the wind ruined this one.  Come visit us and we will go fly a kite.

A family selfie in the mirror.  My favorite part of the day was Alex saying Happy Mothers Day all day long.  So glad they made me a mom!!

Fun Week

I'm so glad we have a Trader Joes here!!  It's a 20 minute drive, but it's totally worth it and they have tons of the mini carts for Alex to push around.  The last few times we have gone I've ended up with random stuff he's thrown in his cart...lol   I need to teach him what I like so he will at least grab good stuff :)

Alex started swim lessons in May and loved it.  He is really comfortable in the water now, but we still have a ways to go until he is swimming.

We took a trip to the arboretum and it is so beautiful.  It totally beats the one we used to go to in Arcadia with peacocks chasing you around everywhere.

They have an entire area called the Childrens Garden that Alex and Cole loved.  We will definitely be going back!!

Lots of our California favorites in this post....can you tell I'm missing it?

I bought Alex some goggles for swim and he loves them.

Alex had his 3rd dentist appointment and Cole had his 1st.  Alex freaked out again and screamed the entire time.

Cole just sat there and cried a little when they made him lay down so they could floss his teeth.  When Alex started screaming, Cole started and then it was a downward spiral from there.  

Aaron and Celia who now live in Austin came to visit us for the weekend. We took them to Frisco Square and had some decent Thai food.  We got cupcakes after, walked around and decided to drive to Mckinney to see the downtown everyone is talking about.

We ended up at Racetrac which is this amazing gas station with a frozen yogurt bar.

Our kids are really close in age.  Here are Alex and Maddy who are a few months apart as babies and 3 year olds.  Where does the time go?

We had a lunch date at Taco Cabana before they went back to Austin.  Cole and cute Ellie.

and that night we ended up at the mall doing some exchanges, eating dinner at the food court and ending it with a Merry Go Round ride.  We miss our two story Merry Go Round in Arcadia....so long California.

Easter 2014

Somehow Blue Bonnets came up a few months ago and Al was like everyone takes pictures in those and I don't get it. That was probably the wrong thing to say because what did I want to do?  Take pictures in the Blue Bonnets.  I haven't seen a ton since we moved here, but I did some research and found out there is a festival in April is Enis which is about 1 hour away from us which is far because you can go 80mph the entire time.  Anyway we went the week after the festival and the best field we found was actually behind a Sonic.

Alex thought it was awesome to run through a field of flowers and Cole was a little unsure.  This is my favorite picture I took of him smelling the lovely blue bonnets.

Al got the boys to laugh and I can't help myself with this picture.  He is so squeezable and cute. I'm glad he still looks like a baby.

How cute are these 2?  What a blessing to have these boys in our lives.

After pictures we had a little seaweed snack in the field.  You can see Sonic in the background...haha

Easter morning was so much fun.  Alex was so excited about all the eggs everywhere he didn't even notice his basket.  He was on an Easter high and hadn't even had candy yet.

Our ward is huge so Al has been having us get there 30 minutes early so we can get a pew.  It wanted to take pictures and knew it wouldn't happen after church so here we are.  This years Easter colors were pink, gray, and white.

This picture turned out better than I thought it would and Alex is smiling at the tripod, hooray.  The wind blew my hair just enough to not ruin the picture.  I'm seriously not a fan of wind.

Taking a picture of both of them and getting them to look at the same time is impossible.  Alex wouldn't put down the leaf and was being a stinker.  Cole is smiling like this in every picture because Al was in the background being goofy.

Finally a little smile out of Alex!!  Happy Easter 2014

Helicopter Egg Drop

One of our favorite places since we've moved here is good ol Chick Fil A.  Alex asks me at least once a a day "momma can we go to the chickchen place."  When we were walking out one day I saw a flier on the wall for a helicopter Easter egg drop.  It's a huge church in Plano (btw the I've never seen so many random churches and they are HUGE).  Someone called this one the great and spacious building because it's so ridiculous.  When we pulled up we were blown away by the wind and at how many things they had going on.  Bounce houses, pony rides, food, games, and the helicopter Easter egg hunt. They had a toddler area for Cole where he could walk around and pick up eggs.

They had different age groups go every 15 minutes for the helicopter.  Check out this stream of eggs dropping?

It was a free for all once they let the rope go.  It maybe lasted 30 seconds, but Alex got his 10 eggs and was happy :) 

That night Diane watched Alex and Cole for us while we went on a date.  They got to go swimming, eat yummy Alex and Cole food, watch Frozen and eat popcorn, and play with cousins, a dream evening.

We ended up eating dinner at Houstons and then wandering around the Galleria and going ice skating.  It was a stressful few weeks, so it was great to relax and enjoy each others company.  

Windy Dallas

The first two weeks were really hard. I was really homesick for California and Utah. I tried to keep us busy with lots of activities and parks.  We went to the Dallas Aquarium with my friend Dawn that I used to work with at World Savings and Green River in 2007.  It's a small world!!

After going to the Monterey and Long Beach Aquariums nothing really compares.  This aquarium was like Ikea, 1 way in and 1 way out and there were so many field trips it was miserable.  We ended up going through twice and the second time we got the shark tunnel to ourselves which made for some cool pictures.

I need to start taking an actual camera instead of my iphone everywhere. This picture would have turned out so much better.

We were worried about Cole and our stairs and Alex has been the one that has fallen down them twice.  This time he cut his head and bled all over his pretty blonde hair.  Thankfully no stitches were needed.

Al finally has his own office, but he doesn't have a desk so we got creative.

We got some Tex Mex from a high rated restaurant we found on Yelp.  It was like a western steak house with Mexican food, so random.  

I never knew it was windy in Dallas, but it makes sense since it is so flat.  The wind drove me crazy for the first few weeks especially when it was cold.  I've seen articles that it's windier than Chicago, suck!! To take advantage of the wind and stop being negative I went and bought us kites.  I haven't flown a kite in years and it was Cole and Alex's first time.  I'm sure we will be flying them all the time as long as we live here.  

Cole did great and flew his own kite for a bit.  Al and I've also been having horrible allergies.  I've seriously never had them so bad in my life and it seems like it's a pretty common problem with a lot of people that live here.  Hopefully we will become immune to whatever we are allergic to because I don't know if I can handle them every year.