DALLAS SPRING BREAK: ARBORETUM

I'm back for part two of our Dallas spring break adventure.  You can see the Great Wolf Lodge portion of our trip here!  I was going to do one big blog post, but when I realized how many pictures I had of our last day, I decided to make it a separate post.  Time with these friends was such a gift!

We packed up on Friday morning and headed to the Old West Cafe, recommended by a friend as the best breakfast in town.  And it was amazing!  So many delicious options and so much food.

From there, we spent the rest of the day at the Dallas Arboretum which was in full bloom and stunning.  Seriously - it was gorgeous everywhere we looked!

There's an expansive children's section that kept us occupied for hours.

To round out our fun, we walked through the garden section.  SO MANY FLOWERS.  

We get to see each other so rarely - like every 4 years or so.  And every time you wonder a little - how will this be?  It's been so long.  But it is always really wonderful.  That is the beauty of relationships built on the Lord.  It doesn't hurt that Greg and John's friendship goes back to when John was but a wee 8th grader.  Greg is more older brother than anything else, and I am so thankful for his impact in John's life.  Thank you, Benno family, for making the time to see us - we so enjoyed our time with you all!

DALLAS SPRING BREAK: GREAT WOLF LODGE

I cannot believe the 1st quarter of the year is already drawing to a close.  Where does time go?  In this case, our time most recently took us on a couple of trips, and we are still recovering.  First one that will make the blog was our spring break trek to Dallas.  We met up with some dear friends - Greg was John's youth pastor in junior high/high school, and we have since gotten to know he and Jennifer as a couple.  They live in SE Asia (we visited in 2012!) and are in the country on furlough, and it was SUCH a treat to get to spend time with them and their two boys.


(our very own wolf pack)

Great Wolf Lodge is such a fun place, and our children had a blast.  We are finally at ages where everyone really and truly enjoyed it, and when we added two more bonus kids, they were all set!

We didn't leave the lodge for much and took several pretty decent meals right there.  We also did the story-time and yoga in the lobby.   We snuck away for one CFA breakfast.  (CFA's breakfast is so good we seek it out on vacation!)

Our last night there, we went to Central Market Cafe in Grapevine on the recommendation of a friend, and it was delicious and had a playground to boot!

We rounded out the evening with gelato/sorbetto, which made for happy campers.  We had one last hurrah together, which I'll document tomorrow, because there were SO MANY pictures.  Seriously - this time with these people was such a gift.  We stayed up late talking in the hall while the kids slept, and we laughed and cried and shared stories of life and all that God is up to.