13 Pictures from the Dallas Arboretum

I don't know what happened to make this so tiny! It was bigger when I first posted it. Click "View all images" to actually see them.

Now it's back to normal. Go figure...

Tiny again. I can't figure this out! Okay, if the slide show is showing up really small on your screen, click "View all images" to see what's actually there. If it's big enough to see, you've hit the jackpot!

First off, I want to apologize for the music. Try as I might, I couldn't get it off my slide show. If you like it, great; if you don't, just mute your speakers. Maybe I'll figure all that out before I put together another slide show. Well, I figured out how to get the music off!

I took the boys to the arboretum last month so they could visit the pumpkin patch, the hay bale maze, and The Amazing Chocolate Tree (which turned out not to be so amazing after all). After wandering around for an hour and a half, we finally found the chocolate tree exhibit. We passed it up in our excitement to get to the pumpkin patch and hay bale maze, which were right next to it. I guess I was looking for a huge tree. It ended up being a series of exhibits showing the process of making chocolate, from the pollination by tiny insects to the roasting, grinding, and melting of the beans to the final product. At one stop there were 5 different items to sniff and identify: cocoa beans, coffee beans, vanilla pods, cinnamon sticks, and peppercorns. That was my favorite part. We were all looking forward to the end, where everyone was supposed to get a free sample of Dove chocolate. Not happening. There was nothing. The boys were greatly disappointed. I wish they wouldn't advertise that as part of the exhibit if they aren't going to do it.

The boys forgot all about not getting their chocolate sample, though, when we happened upon the Texas Pioneer Adventure. They thought it was the best part of the day. They got to go inside a Native American teepee and see (and touch) the animal skins hanging inside. They got to climb inside a covered wagon. They were also able to go into 3 pioneer cabins and see what kind of furniture and toys people had way back when. Thankfully that's a permanent exhibit.

In the 4+ years we've lived here, I can't believe I never made it out there until then! I did try to go once by myself in the summer, but the day I had planned to go ended up being rainy so I changed my plans.

We're definitely going to make more trips out there. I'm thinking of getting a membership so we can go whenever we want, and so we can take our families there when they come visit.

I'm eager to see how they'll have it looking for Christmas. Maybe we'll go out again in early December.