dallas

sooooo much going on and this is going to be one jumbled blog post, so i apologize in advance for the stream of random! so i was in dallas, texas last week for 6 days for work and then for fun and i absolutely love texas. i think the 80s and sunshine were a major part of it and lots of country music, but what i saw of texas i liked. i can't wait to go to texas again, especially to austin and houston!  so here is my weekend!

uneventful day of flying on wednesday to dallas via chicago. but i was able to read most of "1861" and it is amazing! if you are at all interested in the civil war i recommend you check it out! and then a group of us went out to dinner where i saw this sign... this made me realize i was in a totally different place being in texas. "toto, i don't think we're in kansas anymore" but it was a fun night out with the girls i was working with before the conference crazy started.

 so work was the usual - but i was working with a great staff so we had fun, the students this week were good and i had this glorious view of dallas from the 37th floor, which was awesome!

and this i just wanted to include because it made me laugh - one of my students left his watch and to remind myself to return it to him i put it on. how redic! i have such small wrists really anything looks big.

so sunday afternoon - a few co-workers and i went out exploring dallas! so knowing my love of history the first place we headed was to dealy plaza the location where jfk was assassinated. and we were there on a super special day. they were filming something for a new documentary on the history channel on the assassination and they had a similar car to the one he was riding in outside the 6th floor museum and for a while they had the street closed off! which gave us the opportunity to stand on the spots where he was shot (they are marked by 2 x's) and look into the 6th floor window where lee harvey oswald shot jfk from.

 

should have been facing the other way to get the grassy knoll in the background

view from the spot where jfk was shot to the 6th floor window

so then we went into the 6th floor museum on the assassination of jfk and everything surrounding his assassination - which was pretty awesome. but the coolest part was when we were standing in the corner by the window and i looked out and this was what i saw...

seriously... the car was there for the filming and i had such a history moment there. being able to look out and see this - such a rare thing. i was on cloud 9 the rest of the day after my historygasim. 

with my co-workers at dealy plaza - standing on the grassy knoll.

so after taking in some history we went out to dinner - amazing bbq! and then we went out for some drinks and ended up at this fun mexican place with delish margaritas. and well there was karaoke and alcohol + karaoke + erin = a fun night!

so it was a great night, i ended up singing a bunch of songs and my coworkers and i were pretty much the entertainment for the place, but it was a great bonding night!

so monday i was off to play more! now there wasn't too much else in downtown dallas i wanted to do, so i was off to fort worth to see more of texas and well when i was looking up things to do i saw the fort worth stockyards and decided i had to go. it was a huge historical stockyard in north texas and one of the largest in the cattle industry. so again i was in a whole new planet here. but it was awesome. i kinda have a thing for cowboys, so i wish i had been there for a friday or saturday night to see the rodeo, but it was fun. there is also the cowboy hall of fame, which i didn't have time to go to, but sounded interesting!

the cowtown coliseum - weekly rodeos still happen here built in 1907

inside the coliseum - yay rodeos!

at the stockyards!

longhorn cattle - they do a daily herding down the street, but i missed it :(

so after my adventure to the wild wild west - i headed to the fort worth botanical gardens and spent a few hours reading and enjoying the gorgeous flowers and fabulous sunshine, which i've missed.

so then one of my favorite bloggers is lucy from lucy the valiant (go check her out! she is hilarious and awesome) and well she lives outside dallas so we made plans to meet up! so i spent a fabulous evening with her family and adorable girls ariel & nessie and despite her having no power so we little house on the praried it up and it was my first time meeting a blogger. i'm going to write a longer post on the visit, but it was so awesome getting to meet her and she is super fabulous so go say hi!

so we went outside at twilight to take this since she had no power and her husband trying to get ariel's attention had me laughing so hard!

so after the fabulous visit i headed to my hotel to crash before flying back to nj on tuesday. and let me tell you i am sick of going to places where it is 80 and sunny and i can wear skirts and flip flops when i return to nj and it is 45 and rainy. (at least it wasn't snowing like when i came home from alabama)

so there was my fabulous dallas trip! yay state 32!