- Darr Family Blog - https://darr.org -

A Girls’ Day and Some Family Fun

Weekly Happenings: A couple of fun things happened this week. One fun thing was that I got to go to Waco for the day with a friend of mine from college who was in town. Paul was able to stay home from work and take care of the kids. It was so much fun! Another fun thing that we did was take a family trip to the zoo this morning. It was nice and cool (more about that in a bit), so a lot of the animals were out, which was nice. 🙂

The Weekly Weather: It was warm for most of the week, but then dropped 40 degrees between Thursday and Friday…uh, yeah. Today was nice with it being in the high 50s for the morning and now it’s around 70. It is supposed to get back up into the 90s in a few days. It’s really all over the place!

What Paul’s Been Up To: He’s been mainly busy with the typical stuff: work, home stuff, and his calling at church.

What Sarah’s Been Up To: I really enjoyed my outing on Wednesday. It was nice to get away (and know that the kids were in Paul’s very capable hands). I didn’t do too much out of the ordinary, otherwise.

What Joseph’s Been Up To: He had a good week at school and had a great time at the zoo today. 🙂

What Abigail’s Been Up To: Mainly just keeping us all on our toes. One morning, I set Joseph’s pancake on the table to cool so he could eat it on the way to school (now, before you get too impressed, just know that I buy frozen pancakes…it takes 30 seconds to nuke one of those in the microwave which makes for a quick breakfast for the boy, haha). Abigail saw it sitting there, went over to the stairs, and yelled up, “Joseph! Come get your diiiiinerrrr!” I suppose she’s seen me do that a few times, haha.

This Week in Pictures:

When she saw her Halloween shirt on top of her pile of shirts that I had just put in her drawer, she was insistent on wearing it.
Building towers.
These had been sitting on the back porch (Paul had pulled them from the garage when he put the shelves up and hadn’t thought of another use for them right away, so he set them on the porch). When Paul thought of a use for them, he pulled them in and went to get some cleaning supplies to wipe them down with. He came back to find that she had climbed up here. He cleaned all the rest of the shelves and waited until she climbed back down before cleaning the last shelf. I made sure she had a good bath that night, haha.
Waco trip: Selfie with the Silos in the background! I teased my friend about not getting her whole face in there, but she said she mainly wanted to make sure she got us AND all of the silos. 🙂
A close-up of the Silos.
A close-up of the Magnolia sign.
We got someone else to take a picture for us. It’s only about 180 miles for me, but it’s about 1,240 miles for Milena!
A beautiful fall display outside of the market.
I loved this column with books actually incorporated into it. Don’t worry, most of them looked to be obsolete (out-of-date law books and the like).
There were several of these painted brick signs scattered around. I loved the black-and-white contrast.
Probably one of the most delicious cupcakes I’ve ever had. It was a lemon lavender cupcake. The cupcake was vanilla with a hint of lemon and real lavender and then it had lemon buttercream frosting.
The Dr. Pepper Museum (Dr. Pepper was started in Waco, TX)! Unfortunately, the museum itself was closed for a private event.
However, the girt shop and soda fountain were still open and they had a couple of cool displays. We both also got an old fashioned soda where they first add the syrup and then mix it with the carbonated water. It was so good!
I liked this vintage sign. Check out that phone number!
A cool neon sign.
In front of an old delivery truck.
After we looked at the Dr. Pepper stuff, we drove over to the suspension bridge (which I forgot to get a picture of). It was built in 1870 and was even used to transport cattle across the Brazos river. This is a cool bronze statue of a vaquero (Mexican cowboy) as well as some bronze Texas longhorns.
Across from the vaquero was the American cowboy with some more longhorns.
This is the Washington Ave. bridge.
It’s another iconic Waco landmark.
My main souvenir from Magnolia Market: some colored glass and some (false) foliage.
Walking home from taking Joseph to school one of the mornings this past week provided me with a breathtaking view.
Checking out the Halloween decorations.
Thursday night, Abigail decided it would be good to be awake from 2:30-5:15ish. Consequently, she didn’t really want to be up and have to take Joseph to school.
She also fell asleep on the way to get Joseph from school.
Fun nails for October!
They actually glow in the dark.
The Nile crocodile.
She loves looking at the fish.
Checking out the black bears.
They seemed to really enjoy the cooler weather.
Pretty parrots.
Climbing on the hippos.
A close-up of the lions.
Being silly.
There we go! They’re both looking at the camera AND smiling!
Checking out Mr. Giraffe.
They brought back the bronze elephant! When they expanded the elephant enclosure (which was much needed), they had to take it out. That was a couple of years ago. We were happy to see it reappear.
We have so many pictures of Joseph on this thing. It was fun to be able to get a picture of Abigail on it, too.
On the zoo train.
Checking out the bamboo forest.
The cute shirt I got from the Dr. Pepper museum. I’ve found that as I get older, comfort is a really important quality when it comes to clothing. If I find something cute AND comfortable, I’m pretty excited.