Dallas

Dan and I were fortunate enough to be able to go to Texas a few weekends ago to celebrate our anniversary! This vacation was a little bit different from our normal ones, because we actually had this planned out a few weeks before. We found a great deal on a sweet Hilton and off we went!

We flew in on a Friday around noon. We checked in to our hotel and headed to a local burger place called Good Friend, that our good friend, Sarah, had recommended. It was tasty! Then we hung around downtown Dallas and checked out the art museum for a little bit.

We drove into Fort Worth, which is right next to Dallas, early on Friday evening. We stopped downtown to check out this SWEET water garden. Look at these fountains! And you could climb down into them. It was awesome and I wanted to spend the rest of my life here.

Then we drove a little outside of downtown to get to the Fort Worth Stockyards. Dan really likes cowboys but I was a bit hesitant about going to the stockyards. It didn't sound that cool to me. Oh, but it was. It was like traveling back in time. People were riding horses everywhere and there were live rodeos all around. We went to dinner and Dan got a fresh steak (while I got a delicious quesadilla). Then we just walked around, pet a few horses and a few bulls and took in the scenery. I decided that once we have kids, we're going to take them here and they can dress up and be cowboys for the day! My heart can't take it.

That night we went to the Galleria which is this HUGE mall they have that our hotel was next to. It was ginormous. Like, Kenwood, Florence, Eastgate and TriCounty combined. It was four stories! We didn't do any shopping, just looked around and got drinks.

On Saturday we began our day by heading to the George W. Bush Library and Museum. On the whole, I liked George Bush as President, even though he repealed the Kyoto protocol and a few other important pieces of environmental legislation. But besides that, I think he's a pretty cool guy. His library was AWESOME. And it got me real emotional about 9/11.

Not our best selfie...

Hanging in the Oval Office

We spent our afternoon in a beautiful park. We also stopped by a Starbucks that is known to be frequented by celebrities and politicians. Unfortunately, we didn't see anybody famous. 

Saturday night was our big date night where we actually celebrated our anniversary. Dan made reservations at this wine garden, called St. Martin's. And it was delicious. And so fancy. I order Chilean sea bass. Who am I? I don't know, but it was delicious. Then we went to a sweet speakeasy-like bar to end our evening.

Sunday morning we went to the Village Church. This was actually the reason that Dallas even became an option as where to go for our anniversary weekend. Dan's always wanted to see Matt Chandler so why not see him at his own church? We did our research: we made sure we were going to the right campus, looked at his speaking schedule to make sure he'd be in town, and got to the service extra early so we could get seats. We were so pumped and then turns out that MATT CHANDLER WAS OFF THAT WEEKEND. It was still a great service and we were super glad we went, but it was just a bit disappointing.

I sent this picture to my friend, Greg, as we were walking in.
His response: "omg, the holy grail"

Then we went to In-N-Out Burger for lunch! Who knew they had these in Texas!? We were so wonderfully surprised! It was the perfect way to end our trip. We headed to the airport, did a little bit of juggling and switching flights, and eventually made it home to Cincinnati late on Sunday evening.

It was a wonderful way to celebrate our first year of marriage! And sorry for the grainy-ness of the pictures. I have no idea why that happened.