The Serafines: Dallas

4th year of medical school is full of rotations-some at home and some away. In October/November, Matt had a rotation in Dallas, which followed a rotation in Virginia. We weren't about to be without our Matt for two whole rotations, so we went to Dallas with him. We're glad we did, because we had a dandy of a time while Matt was in Virginia and we needed another parent to care for children. Badly.

We packed up our car, and started the trek. Graham and Mason did pretty well on the way down there. Mason cried a little bit, as he wasn't on his wonderful Prilosec yet, but he did sleep most of the way, which was good.

We stopped a little over half way in Van Horn, Texas. If you're traveling through Texas, and are looking for somewhere to stay, don't count on Van Horn to have much more than a hotel or two. The town was tiny, but we got some rest and jumped on the bed. When we got into the hotel room, the first thing Graham did was turn on the tv, climb into the bed, and pull up the covers. He was done with the car.

The next day we woke up and headed out. We got to Dallas at about 4 that afternoon.

We had been looking for a place to stay in Dallas and found that the medical school has on-campus housing, and some of the apartments are reserved for short-term rental, and are fully furnished. This was great for us, and it worked out really nice that there was an apartment full of things we'd need like beds and tables and such. The apartment complex was really nice, fully landscaped and all gated in. The boys and I were able to go for walks most days and not worry about being mugged since we were super close to downtown Dallas. The picture above is outside of the apartment.

The living room

cute boys

the kitchen

Graham's bedroom

Our bedroom. Poor little Mason slept in the closet, but we didn't have anything to put in there, and it was huge. We don't think he minded.

The pool was really nice. Too bad it wasn't quite warm enough to swim more.

And while we were there, we got to see Brad, Mandy, and their girls! We loved having them. They live in Kansas, so it wasn't too much of a drive to come down to Dallas. Thanks for coming, you guys, we had so much fun. And how cute are these kids? My goodness.

We also got together with some of our friends there, the Trayners. Nathan Trayner is a resident at Parkland hospital, where Matt did his rotation. Nathan and Brad were really good friends in high school, and Nathan's younger brother Josh, was Matt's roommate at BYU (as well as high school friend), and Josh just so happened to marry my BYU roommate, Brittney. Small world, eh?

This is one of my favorite pictures. I love the way Jane has her arm around Graham. Cute, cute kids.

We went to dinner at this place called Chuy's. It was pretty good, and we enjoyed each other's company, but we were reminded why it's good to get a babysitter while you go out. The kids were pretty good, but crazy, nonetheless. At one point Graham was having a meltdown, and Annie, who is sitting right next to him shouts out, "Graham, good behavior!" We just about died laughing.

We had the girls and Brad and Mandy over for breakfast. The cuteness of these kids is overwhelming. Too many cute faces for one post.

We ventured out to see a few sights, one of which was the JFK memorial site. We feel like we're now a little more educated on JFK and the scandal around his death, as we met a guy that was selling his literature on JFK's assassination. One shooter or more? That's the question we have for you...