Outdoors & Rec

Celebrities playing tennis in the name of a charity. For its third year, the Dirk Nowitzki Pro Celebrity Tennis Classic will be Sept. 15 at the Southern Methodist University Tennis Complex. The players included in this year’s Classic are Andy Roddick, 2003 U.S. Open champion; Tommy Haas, German ATP Tour…

In Spanish-speaking countries, it’s tradition for a girl who turns 15 to celebrate a quinceañera. The celebration symbolizes a girl’s transformation from childhood into womanhood. As part of Hispanic Heritage month, The Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden will allow selected participants to embrace the tradition by hosting the first Quinceañera…

Chris Elam wakes up at the crack of dawn and dodges his way through early commuter traffic each morning to ensure his beloved giraffes will find his friendly face to take care of them another day. This is what it means to be a zookeeper. Elam is one of the…

Proposals have gotten a little dramatic. From the insta-engagement party to surprise paparazzi photo teams hiding in bushes, this ain’t a low-key affair. Talk about a lot of pressure on the person popping the question. Regardless, it makes the bride- or groom-to-be happy and feel sparkly in that special moment…

A mural by artists Preston Pannek and Izk Davies was unveiled April 17 on the side of the Green Room Bar and Restaurant in Deep Ellum. Based on an image by photographer Jeremy Lock, the mural depicted a group of soldiers looking on as one of their own was breakdancing…

Break out your American flags and show off your bald eagle tattoos – the Fourth of July is almost here, and it’s time to celebrate the birthday of our great nation. For those that bleed red, white and blue, this is a holy day to celebrate what makes this country…

Summer hasn’t officially started yet, and the 10-day forecast already looks like the grades of an elementary school art class (mostly high 90s). But any Texan worth his or her salt could’ve told you on New Year’s Day this June was going to be hot. We take heat seriously, especially with…

For the past four years, Mario Aguilar and Miguel Rivera have been trying to reopen Incite. The skate shop opened in 2014 at Farmers Branch, but because of their inexperience and low inventory, the founders were forced to close the store. Since then, they have learned from their mistakes and…

Alongside the road leading into the entrance to Trinity Forest Golf Course and this year’s Byron Nelson golf tournament, an African-American man held up a sign, “Byron Nelson would be sad, this course sucks.” The sign marked the arrival of the strange intersection of gentrification and leisure, a truly Dallas…

Three years ago, Derek Nemunaitis was doing cancer research and practicing mixed martial arts. But one day, he broke his leg training and decided to try drawing and painting as a hobby. A few years later he was let go from his job and continued creating art instead of finding…

If your allergies didn’t already give it away, you might have noticed that spring has officially sprung. Which means it is time to start planning those picnic dates and outdoor Instagram posts. We can’t think of a better place to do that than these six local gardens. Pop a couple…

The Fitness Ambassadors, a community of fitness bloggers from around Dallas, hosted a silent yoga party last week. On a roof. At sunset. In the middle of the city. Yogis and fitness enthusiasts gathered Thursday night on a rooftop of a parking garage overlooking the American Airlines Center, surrounded by…

It was a celebration of all things green as a group of about 25 people gathered at the MAC POP Garden launch in the Cedars neighborhood. A few kids tried out their painting skills in a project using natural dye, and visitors weaved yarn through slats on a large wooden…

The days of baking in a tanning bed are a distant memory for most of us. And now spots and splats of skin discoloration stretch across our faces. Why didn’t we listen when we were teens who just wanted to bake to a crisp? These days, the spray tan scene…

A Texas spring wouldn’t be complete without rolling patches of bluebonnets. The state flower has flanked our highways and filled fields every spring but received even more acclaim after the Highway Beautification Act of 1965. President Lyndon B. Johnson helped to pass the act, but the best place to spot…

There’s a new mural in Oak Cliff. And as with almost all art, there are some opinions about it. The mural includes an eagle, a skull, a snake, a heart, a fish and a butterfly on tiled, multicolored triangles. It’s part of an effort to beautify (read: gentrify) Oak Cliff and the…

After scooping up nearly 400 acres of pricey ground to use, in part, for sports fields, Frisco is set to accommodate more young athletes. The city closed Feb. 5 on land it bought from Brinkmann Ranch, parks and recreation director Shannon Keleher says. “It was about $61 million,” she says…

Last time we saw artists Billi London-Gray and Daniel Bernard Gray, they were hosting a political pop-up at Umbrella Gallery in Deep Ellum that featured a pile of dirt and a Trump-inspired hairpiece. The duo is back with another installation to satisfy your appetite for unconventional art, but this time the…

In Midlothian, about a half hour south of Dallas, backhoes and excavators are working more than a thousand acres of land in preparation for the opening of DFW’s newest amusement park. But don’t start entertaining visions of roller coasters and log flumes. At Texplex, opening this weekend, it’s the excavator…