Taking the Train

Our big adventure day with the cousins consisted of taking the train into downtown Dallas.  Seeing how it's difficult to be on time with 10 kids we missed our train ... so we hung out in downtown Fort Worth until the next train came.  

We took the kids across the street to the water gardens.  

It is filled with plants and steps and at the bottom is this huge blue pool of water (not for swimming in of course).  

Grant

The water runs along the top in pools too - kind of like canals, but it overflows and runs down the walls.  
Uncle Aaron showing Ira some of the cool stuff on the wall :)

Babies chillin

This is what most of my pictures looked like - kids with their hands on the wall feeling the water :)

Here are a couple of pictures of the train ride:
Joy and Sandra

Ira and Clayton

Simon and Clark
Leann has the front of this picture... funny babies.

Our first stop was the Children's Medical Center.  Inside the lobby they have this huge model train.

Here is Snow White and the seven dwarfs.

Lots of cool caverns and stuff.

There was a second floor to look down on the whole site.

We even met the engineer who designed the train.  He was showing the kids how to turn on the lights and such.

Waiting in the medical center.  We probably resembled a day care group... but these are all ours ;) (plus the 2 not pictured).

Uncle Aaron bonding with the Engineer ;).  This also gives you some perspective on how huge the train set up is!

This building is on our way to the grassy knoll where JFK was shot.  It's the red brick museum.  I just loved the awesome architecture.  

Here is Reunion Tower - right by our last stop, very common part of the Dallas skyline.

Here is Aaron chatting with the "guide" by the grassy knoll.  Let's just say we all thought he was getting hustled by the conspiracy theory guy.

View of us hot and waiting.  This was the first trade post in Dallas.  We are around the grassy knoll area.

Then we walked and walked and walked to find the fountains.  
By the time we got there everyone was hot and tired.  
Oh and PS they don't have restrooms for public use.  We found that out thanks to Mhari.  We got to use the facilities at the bus station instead.... um, not the funnest place.

But the water was pretty.

Cute Clark

Here are the jumping fountains.  The kids were not allowed to play in them :(.  

So instead Grant decided to be a conductor of the water.  It was very cute to watch!

Then the rest of the kids joined in.

On our way back to the train we finally found the JFK memorial.  It's supposed to look like an open tomb.  At night the lights are make it look like it's floating there - but we didn't hang around to see it ;).

Info on the tomb... if you can read it ;)

It was a long hot day.  By the time we got home Mhari was out.  She napped for about an hour too.  I think we all felt that way!

It was fun to ride the train and see Dallas.  I don't think it's something that I feel the need to do again any time soon though.