Happy Friday y’all! I truly hope your week has been a great one. This week for me has looked like slowing down a bit and enjoying the warmer weather, planting a lot of seeds in our garden, and making some plans for my photography business that I can’t wait to share soon!
Also, if you have not noticed, there are some changes that I have been making to my website. I’m still working on some things for that, but how do we feel about the new look?! I am so excited to be updating and refreshing my website to feel more like me and my work now. The last time I did a full refresh like this was back in 2021 and while it was definitely an upgrade from what it was before, I really feel like this new aesthetic is much more representative of me as a person and of my photography style. So stay tuned for even more changes to be rolling out over the upcoming weeks and months!
Today on the blog I am back on the travel journal series breaking down a weekend trip to Dallas, TX that my husband and I took a few weeks ago to attend our friends’ gender reveal party. Unlike most of the trips we take to Texas, we did not stay at my parents’ house and instead rented an apartment with some other friends who were also attending the party, and we got to explore Dallas in a way we never have before. I hope you not only enjoy this post but also get inspired to go out and explore somewhere new, too!
Friday
It takes about six hours to drive from our home in Northwest Arkansas to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Depending on the time of day we get to Dallas, sometimes it can take over an hour longer. And when we are going to my parents’ house, which is an hour past Dallas, we have to drive directly through the city and traffic can be terrible if we get there at rush hour. Luckily, this time we did not have to go through Dallas, since our friends own a business in Mesquite, which is West of the city.
We didn’t leave our house until around noon, since my husband Keith had to work in the morning. This gave me ample time to pack, go for a nice long walk, and get a few things done around the house before we left. A lot of the time when we go to Texas we take our dog Luna with us, but this time since we were staying in a rental, we left her with Keith’s parents.
Arriving around supper time, we met up with our friends in Mesquite, and then drove into Dallas to eat at a restaurant called Pie Tap. We ate at the Henderson Ave location, and it was really good and also a pretty cool vibe. We sat on the patio, and they brought over one of their propane heaters since it was pretty chilly by that time. My friend and I shared a Caesar salad as well as the veggie pizza.
After supper we hung out at our friends’ apartment and played Mario Party for a while before heading to our rental apartment. It was an above the garage apartment in a beautiful old neighborhood on the East side of Dallas. A fully updated space with the original wood floors and vintage style decorations made it the perfect place to relax.
Saturday
We started with breakfast at Toasted, which is just what it sounds like – a toast restaurant. There were so many different options that I thought sounded good, and I ended up getting the “Shroom With A View” and a matcha to drink.
After breakfast we walked around on Greenville Ave, which has a lot of cute little shops and restaurants. There were two or three really nice second hand clothing stores on that road, and we even found a shacket for my husband that actually fits him (his arms are so long that he can almost never find shirts, jackets, or coats with sleeves that are actually long enough to fit his arms, so that was an exciting find for us).
After breakfast, to kill some time, we went to an arcade called Free Play, and that was really fun. I can’t say that I’m good at arcade games, but I always have a fun time playing, especially with a group of friends like that. When we were done in the arcade we walked over to the Trinity Skyline Trail (technically I think the part we were on is called Perimeter Road) to take some pictures of the Dallas skyline, which is so iconic to my childhood growing up in the area.
That afternoon our group met up with a few more friends at an indoor putt-putt place called Puttshack. It was really cool! The only indoor putt-putt place I’d ever been to before was really lame, but this one was really nice, really organized, and really busy!
Sunday
I had been looking forward to seeing my family all weekend, and finally on Sunday we were able to! We stopped at my parents’ house on the way to the gender reveal party and had breakfast with them and my brother and his wife who were in town for my brother’s 20 year high school reunion. It was such a treat to get to see my whole family, even if it was just for a few hours.
Next we headed to the main event of the weekend – the gender reveal party. It was lovely, and our friends are going to have a little girl! I couldn’t be more happy for them.
Then it was time to head home. We made a short stop in McKinney, TX to try out a deviled egg restaurant (it was awesome!), and then got right back on the road home. This trip was short and sweet, but the important thing is that we were able to spend time with family, friends, and friends who have become family. And the other important thing is that we have a beautiful house and a sweet doggy to come home to.
*All my blog posts contain a selection of images that I’ve taken. This blog post contains images that I took myself for personal use and enjoyment and are not intended to be used for marketing purposes. Most of them were taken on a cell phone, and all of them are unedited. If you are interested in viewing some galleries of my couples, intimate wedding, and elopement photography, click here. If you’re interested in booking a wedding or session with me, I am more than happy to send you a full gallery upon request!
I’m a wife, a dog mom, a foodie, a wanderer, a registered nurse, and a couples/intimate wedding/elopement photographer … and this blog will cover it all! If you enjoyed this post, first of all thank you, and second of all please follow me on Instagram + Facebook and sign up for my monthly newsletter to get exclusive wedding planning advice and access to all of my new (and old) freebies! If you have any questions about elopement photography, my journey from nursing to photography, or my time spent as a full-time RVer, drop a comment and I just might write a blog post answering your question (but I definitely will)!
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