By After our adventure and excellent breakfast at the Dallas Farmers Market we headed out to the Dallas Arboretum to check out their new Tasting Garden and Pumpkin Village. If you have never been to the Arboretum here in Dallas I would definitely recommend a visit. I will admit that at the holidays it can be crazy busy but the gardens are beautiful and there are places where you can get away from the crowds.
My Nana used to actually take us grandkids quite often when we were little. My memories of those trips aren’t clear, hey I was little, but they are very happy. There were many years in there where I did not visit. I started going there again this year, for my birthday actually. My boyfriend and I were supposed to go camping but my car was broken into and so instead of Caddo Lake we went to see the gardens. The first day that the Pumpkin Village was open this year Keltin and I took his parents for a visit. They are not from Texas and so we like to show them new places each time they are in town. They loved it and we had a fantastic time.
Back to my adventure with the munchkin. This has been my nickname for Emily since she was little and has even referred to herself in the third person using it, that cracked me up. We had an adventure just getting to the arboretum because I got a little bit turned around. I’m directionally challenged, so that’s not a surprise. We get there are getting into the gate to park caused a slight outburst of road rage that I quickly became embarrassed about. Em might have made fun of me later and I deserved it.
We finally park and get into the arboretum. Emily no longer finds me funny because I have the camera and want pictures of her with all the pumpkins. She eventually warms up to this idea as long as I give her a chance to take pictures also, which I do. The Tasting Garden was first on our list. I’m not 100% sure what I expected for this garden but what I got wasn’t it. I was a little disappointed, it was just different. They have this beautiful new building but there was no indication on what was going on inside. Yes, we had our map and program had some indicator but the information it provided wasn’t clear. Now, don’t get me wrong, the garden itself was beautiful. Many of the plants in addition to being edible in some way were also flowering. The did have samples of Tomato Soup and Bruschetta that were made with fresh ingredients from the Tasting Garden and those were good and fun to try. 
From the Tasting Garden we moved on to other parts of the arboretum. We saw so many butterflies. Emily had the camera and was taking picture after picture of them. They were gliding on the breeze high above our heads. We would try to follow one to see if it would give us a good photo opportunity but we’d lose it in the leaves of a tree or bush but it didn’t matter, two seconds later we would see another one. We walk around a corner and there are these decoratively shaped bushes at knee height in between the spaces in the bushes are these small pink flowers and they are butterflies everywhere. We had a field day taking pictures of them. 
The two of us meandered our way around the rest of the Arboretum before going to see the Pumpkin Village. This year is themed after The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I thought it would be funny to take a picture of Emily in the Wicked Witch’s house. She didn’t think I was funny. She wanted a picture in Auntie Em’s House. Those pictures came out super cute. We had a good time in the Pumpkin Village. My favorite picture is Em with the horses of a different color. 
From there we had to head home. Emily had her first homecoming that night and she needed plenty of time to get ready and meet up with her friends. I hope that you have enjoyed my recount of the Dallas Arboretum as much as I have enjoyed writing it. Please feel free to comment with any questions. 
McGee Travel Tales 