To the city: Dallas Farmers Market!

The farmers market! 

Besides it being incredibly hot here in Dallas right now, the farmers market was just fun. It's all the way in downtown Dallas, but when you go on a Saturday afternoon, when there really isn't much traffic, downtown doesn't seem very far away at all. We got there in 20 minutes! Since it's right there in the city, you have the skyline as the backdrop, and the contrast between that and the (very) colorful market, well it just complimented each other and I loved it :) It made me wish that we lived in the city and that we could come to the market every Saturday (or every day even!) to get our fresh produce. My favorite was probably the big jumbo watermelon and the mangoes and the strawberries! YUM! I wanted to buy everything!

Following is a heap of photos I took, seriously sooo many, it's a little ridiculous. I probably looked like a tourist. But since this was only our 3rd time EVER being downtown, and my first with a camera, well I guess I kind of was a tourist. You never know how many pics you took til you get home, you know? And if I don't post them now, they'll never get posted!

I love these following pictures of Cole and me together. Considering how much time we're together all day every day, I feel like I don't have enough pictures together with him. In that second picture he's dancing to a radio that was playing outside. (He will dance to any and all music. Even the hymns in church! :)

This is Cole about 3 minutes before getting home. Look at those tired eyes!

And this is him 3 seconds later:

We wore him out. 

Anyway, I'm so glad we went, it was something that I'd been wanting to do, plus, I've been really feeling lately that we'll be moving away from here in less than a year and a half now and I want us to actually go see things while we're actually here! Knowing us, we're much too content with our family walks, I just hope we don't regret not seeing more once we get to Washington!

Some pictures from the zoo. (they're all of Cole)

It makes sense, really. Why else would we go to the zoo if we didn't have Cole? The animals were fun to look at but what was more fun was seeing Cole so in awe and seeing all of his dreams come true! We have so many animal books that we read him, and he finally got to see some huge animals in real life! 

At first he wasn't gettin' it. "What are we doing here?!"

But we knew when he finally spotted an animal because he would point:

The "rhinocerontes," Spanish for rhinoceros. Steve checked out a book at the library that was all about them. And it was in Spanish. Cole's probably a little confused as to what they're really called.

waving to the apes:

He sees the gorilla!

It was an unhappy gorilla :(

Ok, I guess there are a few animals in here. The zebras were my favorite because they actually seemed happy. Plus, they're pretty :)

Another "rhinocerontes"

Here he's making a tiger noise! :)

Can you tell from these pictures (red, sweaty faces) that it was boiling hot outside? I think next time we need to go when it's a little cooler because not only would it be more comfortable for us, but I think the animals would have been more out and about and lively. Either way, Cole obviously loved it :)

You wouldn't believe what I let this kid get away with.

Ever since learning how to climb up on the chairs, two seconds later he learned how to climb onto the table. It's cute except now he hates his high chair and wants to eat every meal with us at the table. And we let him, it's just a whooole lot messier (yes, those are spaghetti noodles all over the table and not on his plate), and a whole lot more dangerous too. You'll see what I mean in the video!

just us

There will be more where these came from but I wanted to post these ones now. They're my favorite because they're of us and not of animals. The zoo is cool and everything but I can't say it's my favorite thing to photograph ;) But my family is my favorite and I'm glad we could go on this little outing together!

And yes, we let Cole have his pacifier by the end of the day because we felt bad for keeping him up so long and because it was so crazy hot outside. That pacifier makes everything better :)

an all-american parade

I've never been in a parade before, but thank goodness for scouts, I got to get all cute in my scout shirt {kidding} and participate in the local parade with our cub scouts! They had decorated their bikes all patriotic-like the day before and at 9 am on the 4th, we (tried to) beat the heat and took our positions in the parade!

I was one of the banner-carriers and half of these pictures I took one-handed while carrying the banner as we walked. I like to think I'm pretty talented because it was harder than it sounds ;) It was kind of torture because here we were in this cute little 4th of July parade and all I wanted to do was stop and take pictures of everything around me and I couldn't! :(  HOWEVER, before the parade started I did get up the courage to ask Uncle Sam there if I could get his picture. I don't know why I was hesitant at all because you would think that if someone is going to get into a costume like that, they're expecting their picture to be taken, right?! From what I saw in the parade (because when you're IN a parade, you only see what is in front of you and what is behind you) Uncle Sam was the coolest :)

Although I was run into from behind by a cub scout on his bike no less than three times, I'd still say that being in the parade was pretty awesome because:

#1 I got to wear that baseball-shaped whistle. Legit.

and #2 my 4th of July was complete the minute I snapped that picture of Uncle Sam.

And did I mention that we also went to the zoo on this same day? Yep. Just wait until I post pictures of that. You never knew I could drag out my fourth of July into three whole posts. All out of order too ;)