Sam

Luke 3yr old video.

Dallas Traffic Laws

I love Dallas for many many reasons. It is beautiful and hip and busy. People are friendly and polite (in person). I feel pretty cool when I tell people that I live in Dallas. It's a cool place to live. There are a lot of activities and things to do.

One thing I don't love, however, is driving. I've never been one to enjoy driving. If someone else wants or is able to drive, I typically let them. I like to relax while in the car and I am unable to do that when I'm driving. Especially in Dallas.

I've put together a small list of rules that Dallas drivers seem to follow pretty religiously. These rules, while unspoken and unwritten until today, are quickly learned it seems by any regular driver on Dallas highways.

1. Go as fast as you possibly can while on the freeway. Most of the time, the fastest possible speed is less than 60mph (the current speed limit) because there are just too many cars on the road, so no one is really breaking the state laws. However, if there is ever a break in traffic, cars will speed around you at unsightly speeds. Literally as fast as they can go until they have to slow back down for the next traffic jam a few miles ahead. It's ridiculous.

2. If another car puts their blinker on to switch over into your lane, speed up and get ahead of them. Always. It doesn't matter how much room there is or was when they put their blinker on. You must speed up.

3. Because people speed up when you put your blinker on, don't use your blinker. This is the only way you can change lanes without getting people worked up about getting in front of you.

4. Don't stress about traffic laws because the cops are too busy dealing with accidents and don't have time to pull anyone over.

5. Use your phone, talk, text, whatever. Doesn't matter how much traffic you're navigating through; phone usage is perfectly acceptable.

6. Traffic lights. The colors mean different things here! Yellow means the same as green. A newly red light means you can still go through because you know there is that 2 second lag between your red light and the opposing street's green light.

7. Never let anyone in, ever. Merging is just ridiculous here.


Rush hour is ALL day and all night. Literally. There is never a time when the streets are even close to deserted. Real rush hour is probably between 7 and 10 am and 3 and 7 pm. During these times, you might as well not go to wherever you need to be because you won't get there.

I apologize for complaining. Like I said, Dallas is awesome, but along with every place there are some things are are left to be desired. My advice, just drive as little as possible. Do not follow these rules, listen to some happy uplifting music while in the car and pray that Heavenly Father will protect you while on the road.

Happy driving! (I thank God that people don't drive in the snow here! Oh it would be horrific!)

-Emily

October Sillys

Just wanted to post some fun pictures that you may or may not have seen yet! 

 Sam got away from us and we thought he was just so cute naked! 

 Love his crazy hair! We've already cut it a few times but I will be sad when he grows up and loses the baby fluff.

HALLOWEEN:

We did a fairy-tale theme and had a lot of fun with it!  

 Our best family shot. I guess the boys were a little distracted!

Luke even won "cutest costume" at our ward trunk or treat! I was very proud of him and I think he totally deserved it! I just wish he would have liked to hold his fire stick that I made for him. It  was pretty cool but he thought it got in the way. 

Our Halloween started on Friday the 26th with our ward trunk or treat. It was great. Lots of friends and food. Luke got a pretty good candy stash too. The next day we got to have a dental school activity at the park where we ate hot dogs and carved a pumpkin. It's funny because the only people who came were either dog owners or families with kids! There are a lot of dental students with dogs! I guess it's the cool thing. Saturday night we hosted a small costume poker night. Everyone brought a bag of candy which we used as bets. It was fun to play and goof-off. I (Em) totally won and had a HUGE bowl of candy at the end, so I generously shared my winnings with everyone. (I kept the good candies for myself though!!!) I made caramel apples for the party and they were so yummy! Halloween was on a Wednesday and I had a pretty  bad cold so we missed playgroup. Sam had a doctor's appointment in the afternoon. Then, we went to another ward's trunk or treat for a chili dinner. We didn't stay long, but it was good to go do something on Halloween.

Overall it has been a pretty great fall! I did most of the things on my bucket list. We were only missing the corn maze, pumpkin patch stuff because I couldn't find one close to us! They were all like an hour away! Oh well. Maybe we will find a good one next year.