Yesterday we roused ourselves out of bed early to drive down to the Japanese Garden at the Fort Worth Botanical Garden for their Japanese Festival. Our daughter has a teachers' work day today. She doesn't report to work until 2:30 PM (but then works until 8 PM) so she could sleep in today. Our younger daughter and her husband met us there.
The Japanese Garden is beautiful (even showing some freeze damage). We saw demonstrations of Japanese dancing and drumming. Saw the largest koi I have ever seen in their large interconnected system of ponds (taken all together more like a small lake). Ate sushi.
And walked and walked and walked (Mrs. V's phone said that she had taken over 15,000 steps yesterday
![Surprised :o](./images/smilies/icon_e_surprised.gif)
). Toward the end of the day I was quite worn out from all the cobblestone paving and stone steps and sat for quite a while.
Took this photo whilst the others went down into this tulip garden. Didn't think I could manage all the stairs.
Did managed to make it back to the minivan under my own power.
Then we headed out for some shopping stops. First to a game store where our gamer SIL ran in to grab a few quick things. Then to a British Food Shop where we Anglophiles picked up some choice treats (haggis anyone?). Then our SIL wanted to stop at the Tanger Outlet Mall which was on the way back to get some shoes. Alarm bells rang in my head.
When we got to Tanger he, our daughter and Mrs. V. went in. After a while he came out having found what he wanted. Then the two of us waited and waited while receiving text messages promising the shoppers would be out "soon". Finally Mrs. V. came out with her purchases saying that our daughter was going to check "one more store". Then we waited and waited and waited. Finally just before the mall was closing (7 PM) our daughter showed up having finally found what she wanted.
There seems to be a shoe shopping gene in our family that has been passed down from mother to daughter over the generations.
By then our SIL was hungry so we got some salads and sandwiches which we ate in the van. Got home over 12 hours after we left to the relief of the cat who is not used to being left alone for an entire day.
“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.” ― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace