Barstad Tour of Texas

For our first ever family vacation by ourselves (!) we decided to drive somewhere.  Jeff arranged his schedule so that we could have two weeks to drive around wherever we wanted.

You know, the dream.  We could drive to the grand canyon! Or our extended family shares a house in utah so we could go there! Or BOTH!  We could rent RVs-or a camper! And bring our cousins! Endless possibilities! Best summer everrrr!! 

Reality came fast, however, and we realized that Shea's flat head could possibly never recover from that amount of time in a car seat. And we may never recover from trying to console her for that many hours in the car.

So, it was shortened and simplified to a tour of (some of) Texas. We had a very broad plan to stay wherever we knew there was a place. It turned out to be so much fun.  We rarely drove more than a couple of hours at a time and came home to check on the chickens at one point.  It was a smaller version of the dream, but fun all the same.

We started at Ke Ohana with our cousins, totally crashed their family party that they were already having, and loved every second with them.  We never wanted to leave.

We ate, we laughed, we fished, we played charades. Dream.


Shea rode shotgun.

From there we headed to my in laws lakehouse where we swam and fished some more.

From there we drove west to Granbury.
We went to the animal park and to Dinosaur World in Glenrose (a little outside of Granbury) and let me tell you-  It was a hit.

The animal park was incredible.  All of the animals roaming free, just waiting for cars to drive through and feed them.






Everyone loved it.


Jeff even fed one of the deer with his mouth (#summerdoubledare).  He is insane.



After we had had all the fun one family could have with wildish animals, we headed to Dinosaur Valley State Park.

We hiked through water and trails and tried to find dinosaur fossils and footprints. (and failed, even though they were there, on the map, right behind us, the whole time).













After hiking around the park, we headed over to Dinosaur World to make all of Ben's dreams come true.





We stopped by my parents on our way back to our house where sass jumped in the pool with her clothes on #summerdares2014

Then, we headed to Tyler for graduation for Will and all of those graduating from residency this year. Jeff got to give the award of the Resident's Resident to Ryan Tatum and he quoted Whata man for his speech.  Ryan is def a mighty mighty good man. The whole night was perfect and hilarious. Congrats everyone!

We, of course, ate at Stanleys for the best bbq in the world.  We got to meet Brooke's cross fit family there, and it was so fun to see them all in their post workout glory.  And we played at the park, just like old times.

It was just the best weekend. We miss you guys so much!

We rounded our trip out by mixing gelato with Emporium Pies and it was heaven.
Perfect end to the perfect tour of (the middle of) Texas.

Next time, south Texas and the coast :)