Happy Anniversary!

Chris and I were married in the Washington D.C. Temple one year ago yesterday. :D That is a great feeling, a sound assurance to us, and it is also another step added onto our eternal staircase. For our big day, we started with breakfast at Waffle House, which we will sorely miss when we move. We then decided to take the train to Dallas, so we wouldn't have to worry about traffic, parking, or worst of all, GAS (it's up to $3.83 here, but that was yesterday so it has probably gone up). Here we are, in the Train Station in downtown Fort Worth: (tired)
It took just about an hour to get to the big D, and we got off at Union Station in Dallas's West End district. We found The Spaghetti Warehouse and had lunch there, and then we proceeded to take in the rest of the West End. I have never been to New Orleans, but for whatever reason, the West End reminds me of NO...or what it looks like in my imagination!
We walked up Ross St. to find the Dallas Water Aquarium, which we found...but considering it was $18.95 for each of us AND since both the penguin exhibit and the sea turtle exhibit were closed, we said FORGET THAT. We continued up Ross St. to see the Dallas Museum of Art...which we discovered is closed on Mondays. From there however, we found the electric-cable trolley going uptown, so we hopped on for a little ride. We were dropped off in West Village, a pretty ritzy part of downtown, we must say. After a cool-down break in Border's (did I mention that it was nearly 100* outside...there was a breeze, but still), we found the DART subway. We rode that back to the West End and decided to check out a few museums, like the Sixth Floor Museum and the Old Red Museum. Well. We ended up taking pictures of the buildings. I LOVED the architecture of the Old Red Museum:
Even though it was sweltering hot and even though we ran into a few snags, we had a marvelous time in Dallas. We took three modes of transportation to see downtown and it was an adventure. *Our favorite part of the trip: After we got off the subway in the West End, some random black guy approaches Chris and starts talking to him. I had just retrieved my apple from my purse for my afternoon snack, and I immediately realized what was going on. He wanted money. Of course he wanted money--don't we all? He didn't exactly say that though. Having grown up with the daily and weekend trips to Philadelphia, New York City, and Washington, D.C., I knew better than to stop, but that guy had asked my naturally kind husband Chris for a "bite to eat," essentially code for: "Give me some cash so I can go buy my beer/crack/cigarettes." Chris turned to me and said, "He wants a bite to eat." "Ohhh," I said. "You want something to eat? Here--I have an apple. And some pretzels." I handed these to him and said, "Have a nice day," grabbed Chris's hand, and walked away. I began to explain to Chris that YOU NEVER GIVE THEM MONEY, when a policeman approached us and wanted to know what the guy asked us. We explained what had happened and he said," He eats at the soup kitchen down the street every day." He also said that not only could the man have gotten arrested for soliciting us on the street, we could have been arrested too had we given him money. Hey--the man asked for a "bite to eat," I'll give him one. I just won't give him my (Chris's) hard-earned cash so he can throw it down the drain. No way!

We later met our friends Rob and Jamie Chaffin at Olive Garden for our anniversary dinner. The Chaffin's (from our ward here in TX) share the same anniversary as us, June 2nd, only they got married two years ago! We had a great time...even though our waiter messed up my dinner and Rob's dinner and we had to wait for them. Hey, that's what they have the salad and breadsticks for, right? We love the Chaffin's, and we will miss them as they move up to American Fork, Utah at the end of the month. But we'll be up to Utah before we know it, so we'll see them there!