✈️ Nonstop Vegas & Orlando Flights from McKinney?!

If you have a toddler who is obsessed with dump trucks (mine absolutely is), you need to know about Dig World opening at Grapevine Mills on July 11, with preview days running July 3 through July 10.

This is not a playground with a construction theme slapped on it. Kids and adults get into actual excavators, bulldozers and skid steers, under staff supervision, and run through real challenges like moving sand, connecting railroad tracks and repairing a simulated pipe. There's also The Crusher, where you flatten a toy with a 20,000 pound asphalt roller and take the steamrolled result home, which is either the coolest souvenir ever or the thing that ends up in a landfill in six months. We'll see.

The genuinely fun local angle: there's a Dude Perfect Zone, exclusive to this location, since those guys are Frisco's own. Think excavators turned into oversized sporting equipment for basketball, football and golf challenges.

Preview admission starts at $30, premium is $50. I already know what I'm doing with my toddler on a Saturday morning in July, and it's not going to be cheap, but the look on his face is going to be worth it.

Frisco's Planning and Zoning Commission approved a new retail development right at the corner of Main Street and Independence Parkway, near Harold Bacchus Community Park, on a 5-1 vote.

The plan is three retail buildings on 6.9 acres, designed with an open pavilion in the middle, styled to blend into the park rather than look like the typical Frisco strip center. No smoke shops, no drive-thrus, no gas stations, no big box stores. It's supposed to be a step up from the norm.

Not everyone's on board though. Eight residents whose backyards, or in some cases front yards, face the field showed up to push back, citing kid safety, traffic and noise. One resident put it well: "there is not one corner that has houses facing a commercial building" the way hers is about to.

On the other side, commissioner Sean Merrell made the case plenty of soccer parents will relate to: wouldn't it be nice to grab ice cream right after your kid's game at Bacchus instead of driving somewhere else? I get it both ways. I drive past that park constantly and can absolutely picture my girls dragging me to whatever opens there. No construction timeline yet, but I'll keep you posted.

This one's not exactly stroller-friendly news, but it's a big deal for Frisco. Mastro's Steakhouse has signed on as the latest tenant at Fields West, the 55-acre urban village inside the larger 2,500-acre Fields development off Legacy Drive.

Fields West is shaping up to be a serious retail and dining destination, 360,000 square feet of shopping and restaurants plus 350,000 square feet of office space, and Mastro's joins more than two dozen other businesses that have already signed leases. Construction is expected to start in early 2027, with phased openings from mid-2027 into 2028.

So, date night in 2027, apparently. Emily, put it on the calendar.