Thanksgiving in Dallas.

We went to Dallas for Thanksgiving. This is going to be a long blog post. Hang in there.

We expected there to be big crowds traveling for the holiday. So we got to CVG extra early on Wednesday…

Surprisingly, there weren’t very long lines at the airport. Genifer won the award for the best socks at the TSA Security Checkpoint…

We were through security and on way to our gate really fast…

There were some pretty awesome fossilized skeletons in CVG’s Terminal B courtesy of Cincinnati Museum Center…

For the first time, we didn’t check any bags…

And a couple hours later, we were in Dallas waiting for our Uber…

We were staying at the AC Hotel in downtown Dallas…

We dropped our stuff and headed out of downtown…

Just to the west of downtown is a Dallas neighborhood called the Design District to find Peticolas Brewing Company…

From there, we walked down the busy Irving Boulevard…

And we arrived at Texas Ale Project…

It turns out that Texas Ale Project’s taproom is actually closed on Wednesdays but the owner was there hanging Christmas lights in their courtyard…

He poured us some beers and we helped him hang lights. Their Fire Ant Funeral Amber Red was just out of this world. We had a really fun time at Texas Ale Project but we missed out on two other breweries because we were having so much fun. There was a really pretty full moon over Dallas…

From Texas Ale Project, we hoped in another Uber and headed over to the Dallas Uptown neighborhood to American Airlines Center, home of the Dallas Mavericks…

We thought we were ducking into a bar but we actually entered the arena through some sort of VIP club entrance…

Who knew?

Walking around the concourse, every so often you would come across one of these really unique rotunda/atriums…

We shared Pizza Hut at the game. Don’t judge us. It was great…

We hung out at the game until the start of the third quarter and then we left to go find something else to eat…

The Mavs ended up winning their game. We were so hungry…

We shared some delicious Irish nachos…

And that was our Wednesday. On Thursday morning, we woke up to find a downtown turkey trot taking place just the next block over south from our hotel…

We were going to eat at Overeasy in The Statler Hotel…

But we got just coffee and a muffin instead. I wanted one of these cinnamon roll muffins so bad but they had already sold out…

We hopped in another Uber and headed out to Arlington. It was a hike. We passed Six Flags Over Texas…

We got dropped off across the street from the Texas Rangers ballpark…

Their current ballpark was built in 1995 but they are already building a new ballpark across the street with a dome because I guess it gets wicked hot in Dallas in the summer…

In between Texas ballpark and the Cowboy’s AT&T Stadium is a ginormous bar complex called Texas Live!

We found a seat at the bar in one of the many restaurants…

We had a couple of beers and some spinach&artichoke dip and then headed out to our very first Cowboys game…

The place is just ridiculous on its size and scale…

We had general admission tickets. This is what the GA section looked like…

Meghan Trainor performed at halftime…

A few minutes into the third quarter, we decided to break camp and try to get an Uber back downtown to catch the fourth quarter of the game at a bar…

There was more than one person in full Native American headdress…

We made it back downtown and headed to Scout at The Statler Hotel…

We shared some little sliders and some of the best chili cheese waffles fries I’ve ever had in my entire life…

The Cowboys would go on to win the game! Like I said, it was an experience.

We stopped in our hotel’s lounge for a celebratory drink for both the Cowboys win, for making in back downtown after being all the way out in Arlington and for getting our Uber before the crazy 3x surge charges went into effect. I learned an important lesson. Don’t ask the bartender for just a rum drink in it. If you do, you end up with a rum drink served in a skull glass…

Friday morning, we headed out to explore downtown Dallas…

There was a giant eyeball…

We walked down to the historic West End of downtown Dallas…

And we continued on to Dealey Plaza, the Grassy Knoll and the Texas School Book Depository Building…

The Xs on the street indicated where fatal shots stuck John F. Kennedy…

We stood there and watched as person after person ran out into the middle of the busy Elm Street to pose with the Xs. It was pretty ridiculous…

Note how the “allegedly” is highlighted. The Old Red Museum of Dallas History & Culture looked pretty cool…

And then we walked a couple of blocks over to John F. Kennedy Memorial Plaza…

From there, we walked back to our hotel to rest for a bit. And later, we headed out to explore the east end of downtown Dallas and find the Deep Ellum neighborhood…

We finally found Deep Ellum Brewing Company…

This place has pizza slices as big as your head…

And then we headed to Braindead Brewing…

There were so many cool looking little bars in Deep Ellum…

We wanted to keep going but we were wiped out.

We ordered pizza from Campisi’s in downtown Dallas…

In the morning, we went back to Overeasy…

I got my cinnamon roll muffin…

So good. And we shared sausage biscuits and gravy…

Bye, downtown Dallas. It was a bunch of fun. At DFW, we got to ride the Skylink…

So we could find the Dallas Cowboys pro shop in DFW’s Terminal A…

But they didn’t have this hat in my size. So we rode the Skylink back to our terminal…

Apparently, Dr. Pepper is the official 7-Eleven Slurpee flavor of the Dallas Cowboys…

There was also a saber-tooth tiger in the terminal at CVG…

It was an amazing trip to Dallas that went by in the blink of an eye. It was so much fun! I can’t wait to go back and explore Dallas so more.

Click to see all the photos we took during our trip to Dallas. 😀🦃🗺️📷❤️

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

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We’re so very thankful for a great many things today.
Among them is being blessed with amazing family. We love you all.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Gobble, gobble. 😀🦃❤️

After these messages…

We’ll be right back. We’re going to Dallas for a few days. You can follow along with our adventures in a new city on Genifer’s Instagram and my Instagram. 😀🏖️❤️

Checking in on the OscarCams.

We left for Dallas this morning. And Geri came to pick up Oscar…

Life advice: Find someone who loves you the way Oscar loves his grandma. 😀🐾❤️

It’s what’s for dinner.

Genifer made us delicious Chicken Bake for dinner tonight. But she tried a new recipe. This new recipe added Swiss cheese to the mix…

It was delicious. Chicken Bake has always been one of my favorites but it was even better with the addition of Swiss cheese. It was really outstanding! 😀🐔🧀❤️

Master Photographer.

I got my Master Photographer badge from Google Maps and Google Local Guides…

Pretty neat. 😀🗺️📷❤️

Rocket Drone ZF7 With Folding.

I’ve been really wanting a drone for a while now. But drones are kind of expensive. I didn’t really need a drone. I just wanted one. I noticed all that really cool drone footage on YouTube videos and kept thinking that a drone would be a terrific gadget to add to my photo bag. It would have been cool to take a drone on trips to get some really great aerial photos of wherever we happen to be, especially when we were on the beach in Jamaica or the Dominican Republic or South Haven

When the chance came along on Dealspotr to promote a little drone from Force Flyers, I jumped at the chance. My application was accepted and about a week or so later, there was a package waiting for me on our front porch…

And now I had a drone. For free. All I had to do was write a blog post about this drone to promote it. And it was all mine. My new toy was the Rocket Drone ZF7 With Folding from Force Flyers. According to Dealspotr, the retail value of this drone was $79.99. Not expensive at all but not super cheap either for something I didn’t really see myself using all the time…

My first reaction was really positive. It was pretty small and compact. The propeller arms folded in towards the body making it really easy to carry. It would be super easy to throw it in a backpack to take it with me. As I read the instructions on how to operate it. It seemed rather complicated. You had the two joysticks each four buttons below each joystick and an additional button above. It was a bit intimidating, all those buttons…

Maybe that’s why it sat on the desk in our office for the last month. Maybe it was because it seemed like every weekend we either had stuff going on or the weather was rainy so on the desk it sat. I’ve studied the instructions a bunch of times over the last month, trying to figure out how to fly this drone. I don’t have any experience with drones. And it seemed a little more complicated than it needed to be. But I don’t have anything to use as a comparison. We didn’t have anything going on today and the weather was pretty nice. At least the sun was out. So I decided to take the Rocket Drone ZF7 With Folding out for its first flight. I read the instructions again as I walked to the big grassy field behind the school at the end of our street…

The drone was equipped with a “Hi-Res WiFi FPV camera” so you can capture all of the action with First Person View right to your phone. I attached my Samsung Galaxy Note9 to the controller and launched the app. I calibrated the gyroscope, powered up the drone and I had lift-off. As it hovered in the air, I snapped a still photo with the camera…

With it still hovering in place, I started to record video of my drone’s maiden flight. I touched the left joysticks and the drone started to drift away from me. Frantically, I started moving both joysticks to try to pilot the drone back in my direction. But the controls went completely unresponsive as the drone drifted towards tall trees just on the far side of the soccer goal in the photo above. I started to run after it hoping that if I got closer to it maybe I could regain some control of the drone. But I couldn’t get close enough in time and I watched it hit the top of one of the trees and drop to the floor of Parker Woods on the other side of a ten-foot chain-linked fence. I took a photo to help me locate it. This is what I saw…

That’s not going to be much help. I figured out how to get around the chain-linked fence, and I spent the better part of an hour looking for the drone in a very soggy, muddy Parker Woods. I couldn’t figure out for the life of me where exactly it crash-landed. But it’s out there somewhere…

You’d think something white would stand out like a beacon. It does not. As I searched for it, I thought maybe I could use the video I was recording to help me locate the drone somehow. But when I went to playback the video, all I saw was this…

And that’s when I stopped looking for the drone. What good is a drone if you can’t take super cool drone videos? But more so, what good is a drone you can’t actually control? Maybe it was pilot error, maybe it was just defective. But I’m happy to say that I no longer have the desire to own a drone. I’ll just stick to watching other people’s really cool drone videos on YouTube from now on.

I found Rocket Drone ZF7 With Folding on Amazon where it’s listed at $49.99. Not surprisingly, it has a single one-star review. 😀👨‍✈️❤️

Good morning from Northside.

Ohmigosh… LOOK! THE SUN!

It looks like it’s going to be a pretty nice Sunday! Good morning from Northside. 😀🌄❤️

The laziest Saturday.

We didn’t do anything at all today. We got Chipotle for lunch. It’s been forever since I’ve had Chipotle. I finally got to try Chipotle’s chorizo and their queso. Together. Chorizo and queso together? It was really good stuff…

And then just watched a bunch of college basketball and football for the rest of the day. We thought about raking leaves in our backyard…

We’ll do it tomorrow or next weekend. Because doing nothing was pretty wonderful.
😀🌯❤️

Checking in on the OscarCams.

On our way home, we checked in on the OscarCams to see what the parking was looking like on our street. And then we looked to see what Oscar was doing…

He was just hanging out on the arm of the sofa like it was no big deal. It probably isn’t the most comfortable spot in our house. He’s a silly little dog. 😀🐾❤️

And I should probably figure out how to adjust the time on the OscarCams for daylight savings time.

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