Danielle Blog

fun outings with Mom and Dad – part 1

I mentioned previously that I had some fun things going on last week that I would share with you, and here they are.

Last week, Mom and Dad were here in TX. They drove some things down (and across) from IN on Saturday that can’t be moved by the movers. They also wanted to use the week to make a decision about tile and carpet for a large percentage of their new house here in TX. And to top it off, there was the possibility that some of it could actually be installed that very same week!

On Monday, they chose tile and carpet, and I worked on a manuscript for some of my research. oodles of fun, that.

On Tuesday, they came down to my apartment so that Dad could see it for the first time in person and so that Mom could see the latest stage. I had hoped to get the last two boxes of decorative things unpacked before they arrived, because I had visions of them helping me hang framed art that day. However, it just took me too long to do the manuscript on Monday and other unpacking/cleaning on Tuesday morning.

Consequently, we used our Tuesday to go out to a fabulous, fabulous German lunch and go site-seeing. Lunch was just amazing. I had three kinds of sausages, sauerkraut, red cabbage, and what they called “German potatoes.” Turns out German potatoes are fried/sauteed potatoes cooked with baaaaaaaaaaaaaacon that have baaaaaaaaaaaaaaacon bits on them. OMG were they ever good. The sausages were fabulous.

Did I say the food was amazing?

Anyway, on the way to shopping in the historic part of town, I drove them past a couple of things that my town is known for. And we happened to go past the library.

Note that these were taken on one of my prior visits to the library; we did not go inside on this trip.

I love the high ceiling, natural light, and light fixtures inside.

And this library is the one that has the Starbucks machine inside; that is very funny to me, since I didn’t even know they existed.

Here is one of the landscaping features you see as you walk to the front door of the library.

And on my way to the parking lot, I spotted this sign.

That sign for the reading garden intrigued me, so I decided to venture to the back of the library

Turns out, it was just a very open space with benches and minimal landscaping. But I did see a lovely crepe myrtle that was in bloom.

And then we headed to the historic and tourist-y shopping district in town.

I hadn’t taken my camera with me, which was a shame, because there were some lovely places that were really photo-worthy, but that just means that I’ll have to go back!

We had a really fun time there. We were mostly just browsing, but we did keep an eye out for a breezy gardening hat for Mom. We saw a LOT of various decorative things for inside and outside. In fact, Mom found a great wrought iron, glass, bead and bell hanging piece; I guess it could be considered a windchime. She was hesitant to buy it, but the price was so low, that Dad and I went back to buy it for her.

I found this really interesting stone that is in the shape of a smooth egg that changes color inside (very subtly) depending on the angle from which you view it. And I scoped out clogs. I have been debating with myself about buying a pair of clogs for school. Not being able to wear open-toed shoes in labs means that I have to think a bit differently about what kinds of shoes are wearable for work.

And then, pretty soon it was time for us to end our day of site-seeing. But we made plans for another outing for Wednesday.

- to be continued in part 2 -