Day 307: The Arboretum

My husband and I celebrated our four year wedding anniversary yesterday. That alone is enough to be pretty happy about but due to a bit of luck, some planning and a gift from our friends, we managed to find ourselves standing last night in the exact spot where we exchanged our vows four years ago, at the Dallas Arboretum. We began planning our trip home to visit family and friends in the summer and since we knew we'd be in Texas in the fall we tried our best to plan it around being able to be at the arboretum on our anniversary day. When we told our friends about our plans to arrive in enough time to visit the arboretum before it closed, they told us that they had made plans to take us there for the Chihuly exhibit to see their glass sculpture exhibit in the evening when all of the sculptures are lit up.

It was a gorgeous day with clear blue skies that transitioned into an absolutely lovely evening. The arboretum was filled with people of all ages and it was really cool to see everyone out and enjoying the cultural event. The sculptures were amazing in themselves but then when I thought about how they were made and then mounted it blew my mind to try and fathom how the artist envisioned the finished product. Most of the sculptures were made up of hundreds of small pieces that were then fused together and then mounted atop a pole or some other type of structure. Over the last several months I have seen many photos of the sculptures that were taken by friends who've visited the arboretum. But the photos truly do no justice when you compare them to how they appear in person.

The winding paths were delicately lit up leading to each sculpture and at one point we decided to lay in the grass and just take in the beauty of the trees, the sculptures and the evening. It felt so nice to feel the hum of the earth below us while also listening to the chatter of those around us as they took in the surrounding beauty. What a magical evening. And walking up the path that my husband and I walked down as husband and wife for the first time four years ago was the best treat of all. The kiss at the end of the path was the icing on the cake.

First kiss reenactment...

...in a slightly different setting...

No, this is not fireworks from our kiss... it is one of the amazing glass sculptures on exhibit... this one looks a lot like a flower that blooms out at Tjorn on the west coast of Sweden... only this glass version is about a million times larger!