Months before her birthday comes up, I get an email from Hannah. I LOVE emails from Hannah. There are always incredibly witty and totally unexpected.

Hannah’s birthday wish is to get family pictures while she is in Dallas with her crew.  Thus, the Love family clan and I find ourselves at the Dallas Arboretum on a beautiful autumn day. Except it’s a Texas autumn day and that means that it’s starting to get really, really hot and it’s barely 10am.

So, of course, I walk them to the farthest part of the garden.  I’m really cruel without meaning to be. It’s the best part of the garden, I promise. Although we start the day at a leisurely pace- it’s starting to get warm, the garden is filling up with lots of guests and the natives are getting restless …er, hungry. And some of them have abandoned their shoes.

They keep talking about birthday cake and steak. And more cake. MMMM cake. How am I supposed to keep working under all this pressure?

Instead of looking up the proper names of these spots, I was tempted to use the random, but appropriate names that I have been using for years. For example, the first image below was taken at the water wall. I’m pretty sure that’s the official name. I mean, it’s water plus a wall. I’ve got this.

Actually, both of these areas are part of the beautiful Lay Family Garden. I’ve called it the water fall near the water wall, which is indiscernible when you yell it at either the water wall or the water fall because it’s a bit loud, especially when the wind picks up and smacks you with whooshs of water.

O! I know this one for a fact – Crape Myrtle Allee. Although, I still had to google it because “crape” and “allee” always look a little suspicious when you type them out.

From here on out, we basically found a bunch of random rock walls. Would you groan if I called it Rock Wall Allee? You would, wouldn’t you. You are already groaning. Dammit. Ok, ok, these are only a small part of the expansive DeGolyer Gardens.

Last, but not least, the iconic A Women’s Garden at the Dallas Arboretum which lovingly includes this bare-bottomed beauty and her perfectly coiffed hair bun.

I promised one last picture and then they could all eat. So they broke out into a lovely rendition of “Happy Birthday”.  Guests joined in as they walked by. It was a glorious affair.

See how joyful they are in this second image? Hannah said “let’s eat cake!” And everyone cheered! Even some random tourists.

There’s always a special place in my heart for the Love family and, especially Hannah. To say that I adore and cherish you all would be an understatement. Until our next fantastic adventure together …