A visit from Brent

Friday morning, before the crack of dawn, we deposited our brother Brent at the airport for his flight back home, but for 9 days before that, we had him here with us, and it was great fun. We spent a good bit of time at home: we took some walks around the neighborhood (the weather was quite cooperative for Brent's sun-starved WA self), played some board games, and ate A LOT (it's the Texas way). We also had 3 bigger outings, and here come the pictures..

The arboretum, of which we are so fond, has a 12 Days of Christmas display each holiday season, and so off we went. We chose to go on a Saturday night in order to to see the 5 million Christmas lights that were advertised as part of the display, but I think there may have also been 5 million other families in attendance, so from now on we'll stick to visiting during the day. Still, I'm glad we know what it's about and that we were able to experience it with Brent.

Seven swans a-swimming...

Nine ladies dancing...

Twelve drummers drumming...

And two lovebirds canoodling ;)

[ As a side note, taking decent pictures of the displays was a little bit tricky because of the crowd & the glare from the lights, etc and I laughed out loud when I saw that all I had captured of the eight maids a-milking was the back end of a poor cow. That one went straight into the recycle bin :) ]

Brent was interested in seeing Dealey Plaza, so we spent some time one morning downtown. The Sixth Floor Museum is fascinating (I've been twice and would go again & again), but we decided to explore outside instead. 

This is the former Texas School Book Depository, and the second floor from the top (or the 6th floor) is home to the museum. The window on the right-hand corner of the 6th floor is where Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shots that killed President Kennedy; the assassination occurred here on Elm Street. 

Brothers on the grassy knoll, which for some reason is much smaller and different than I imagined it would be. 

And just a block or so from the 6th Floor Museum is the Old Red Museum of Dallas County History & Culture, which we've not visited yet, but it's such a pretty building and the weather was so lovely,  I had to take a picture :) 

After roaming around Dealey Plaza and before eating an embarrassing amount of lunch at Babe's Chicken Dinner House, we stopped at the arboretum so Brent could see the splendor of it in the daytime. 

You can't know how excited I was to finally, finally have found fall :) 

The Japanese garden made us miss the Japanese maple that grows in the front yard of our WA house. I told Jan I want to plant a bunch here, but I'm very good at killing everything except weeds, so maybe we'll just enjoy them at the arboretum instead. 

This makes me smile because it reminds me that it's been years & years since I've had little brothers that are actually littler than me :) 

And this makes me smile because I'm at my favorite place in Dallas with my favorite person on the planet :)