As spring break quickly settles in (as of 3:45pm today), I thought it would be fun to look back at a trip we took last spring to visit my brother. We decided super last minute to head down to Texas to check out his place and visit a few spots he said were close. Have you all been to Dallas before? If so, what were your favorite spots? We stayed with my brother who lives in Grapevine, just outside of Dallas but close enough.
After driving 16 hours through the night and fighting a snowstorm as we left, we made it there safely about 8am the next morning. I’m recapping this trip because we do have direct flights from Indy. In this case, we decided to drive since it was so last minute, but you can find affordable flights via most airlines if you plan timely (which I never do). If you can’t get out, here’s some close to home Spring Break Ideas.
SPRING BREAK DALLAS
But we got there and since my brother rarely gets visitors because my family NEVER travels, he drove us around town and to lunch. This happened. I think even Mike is asleep in the below photo.
I was in such a blur from the driving through the night that I honestly don’t even remember where we ate!
This trip was just about getting the girls out on travel and to do something fun. Basically we wanted Ells to have something to talk about when she went back to school after break. That may sound shallow, but we are quickly learning that there aren’t that many options to take the kids on travel when they are in school so we are now trying to take advantage as often as we can. My brother had mentioned that there was a Legoland really close to him so we planned to do that. When you purchase the Legoland tickets, you can purcahase a combo ticket with includes a pass to go to the SeaLife aquarium too. We decided the combo was the best deal and just split the experiences into two days to better fill the week.
We started with LegoLand. It’s a discovery center so not as big as a normal Legoland, but it was just big enough for us and exactly what we were looking for!
The Ultimate Indoor Lego Playground
We had a great time! To my surprise, there were three rides and Ella could ride them all. Olive could only ride one at the time. The first one was similar to the Toy Story rides at Disney where you shoot at things for points. We rode that one at least 3x as a family. The second one was a car that the kids drove and it was the funniest thing to watch. Ella got to ride this one twice, but then the line was too long. Watching her try to figure out how to drive a car was hysterical. I think the helper had to come and get her “unstuck” at least 10x that first ride. The third was an actual ride that lifted up into the air and spun around. It was super cute.
And there’s lots for the kids to play with too. Everywhere you turn there are bins with legos, legos, and more legos! There’s also small play places for the kids to climb around in and burn off energy which is always a win with mommas! Ella and Mike made cars to race down a ramp with bins and bins of wheels and lego options.
Don’t Let the Adventure End
We also visited the SEALIFE Aquarium (the 2nd part of the Legoland combo ticket) while we were down there. It’s located just outside Dallas in Grapevine. Another half day experience, it was perfect for the kids – not too much, but still exciting. The SeaLife aquarium was really nice and manageable size-wise. It wasn’t huge, but the girls could still see quite a lot of sealife. {hahah. See what I did there.} You could find people all around who could answer questions, or put on quick little informational sessions. And the girls really enjoyed watching them feed the sting rays while we were there too. According to their website, there are 16 interactive zones to explore and I’m pretty sure we hit them all!
Thousands of Amazing Creatures
They also had an interactive rockpool upstairs where you could touch some of the creatures which included sea stars, urchins, anemones, and more! That might have been Ella’s favorite part. Touching the Anemones. She loved that and thought it was just so cool! And while we were up there, we popped into the Conservation Theater to learn about how to keep the beaches clean and take care of our oceans!
You can also get a little activity book and if you get all the stamps, you get a cute little medal at the end.
This was the perfect thing to do on a rainy day.
Another fun thing we did in Fort Worth, was to visit the Fort Worth Stockyards National Historic District. So cool.
Fort Worth is where the West begins…
Watching the cattle come down the street is like the craziest thing. The cattle drive is at 11:30a and 4pm daily. People line the street waiting for the cattle to walk through. And you aren’t allowed to sit, you must stand. I remember that distinctively because I thought it was odd, but I think it’s a safeguard in case anything went wrong.
You do feel like you are in the old west surrounded by wooden buildings, saloons, and brick streets.
It’s something you should totally try to do if you are down that way.
So next time you are in or around Dallas, you should check out a couple of these things or all of them! Dallas also has a city pass which is worth looking into attending any or a few museums. This particular trip was really based around the girls and just getting out of the house but there’s so much else to do down there! And soon, Uncle Johnny will be having visitors again as we head down there next week but with my dad in tow, I think our itinerary will look quite different! We shall see…