Sometimes Sundays on vacation are different than Sundays at home. With so few days here in Texas, we did end up with several not normal Sunday type activities on our agenda. The first was a trip to Pearl Snap Kolaches for breakfast. Kolaches are kind of a Texas mainstay. I’ve read about how and why this traditional Czechoslovakian pastry ended up being so quintessentially Texan, but I’m not going to take time to explain that here. (If you must know, ask Google. That’s what I did.) What I will say is that Pearl Snap is one of the most popular kolache spots in the Fort Worth area and while it was within his area while he served there, Nathan never got to sample the goods because the odd hours of the bakery didn’t match up with missionary hours. As such, actually giving him a chance to visit Pearl Snap seemed like a necessity. And honestly, I really wanted to go as well. We are experiencing Texas after all and can’t go home without eating some kolaches!
We arrived just before 9:00, several hours after the kolache shop opened, and we were all glad we hadn’t arrived any later because they were already almost sold out. There were only a couple of sausage kolaches left (the ones that Nathan first sampled on the mission) and only one ham and egg one. We added in an assortment of fruit filled pastries and made our way to the Fort Worth botanical gardens to enjoy our breakfast in the great out of doors. We divided everything so we could try all the flavors and I think my favorites were the ham and egg and the pecan kolaches. I’m already thinking about finding a recipe when we get home so I can experience these delights again. And so Matthew and Malia can try them.
After our less than healthy breakfast (honestly, we aren’t usually pastries for breakfast kind of folks, but rules get broken when we are on vacation), we wandered the botanical gardens for a few hours. There was a visiting live butterfly exhibit and we opted to do that before heading into the garden proper. I think the last time we visited a butterfly enclosure like this was on our Seattle trip many moons ago, and it is one of those things that never seems to get old for me. There were some stunning butterflies featured and one of the biggest moths I have ever seen in my life. The thing was seriously the size of a bird!
The remainder of the gardens were absolutely beautiful, although it is a bit early in the spring for some of them to be at their best. The Japanese garden was lovely, and Kevin said it is spot on for traditional Japanese. There was a pond and what we thought was a statue of a crane…until it moved. So real cranes in the Japanese garden! The weather was perfectly clear and not too hot. We only started to get a bit too warm as we were headed out of the gardens and since we are in Texas, I feel like we lucked out there!
From the botanical gardens, we headed to have lunch with some extended family. By way of reminder, Nathan and Todd ran into each other while Nathan was on his mission. They were both at a fireside about family history and at the end when everyone pulled out their phones to use the “family near me” feature of the Family Tree app, they ended up getting the notice that a very close family member was in the vicinity. Todd ended up supporting Nathan in multiple ways while Nathan was in Texas for which I’m so grateful. And it kind of put us back in touch with some extended family which has been nice. Scott, one of Todd's brothers, married one of my best friends and roommates from my last year of college. We don’t see them much since they live in Texas and we live in Utah, so it was nice to be able to stop in and chat for a bit. And one of the highlights of the afternoon? There were veggies at lunch time!! I’m so happy about that! I’ve been seriously missing the produce portion of my diet. 😉
Our last stop of the day was at the mission home. Although Nathan only served for six months, he has two mission presidents. In fact, Nathan was the very first missionary the second mission president interviewed when he arrived in the mission. And this young elder who was struggling health wise was one of the first issues he was faced with. Nathan has seen his first mission president since arriving home, but this was his first opportunity to visit with the second one since being released from his mission. We joined the president and his family for dinner (again, no veggies!), and Kevin and I pretty much sat back and listened while Nathan and the mission president chatted. It was a lovely, low key, gospel focused end for our sabbath.
The only really weird thing about this weekend was the fact that General Conference is this weekend and while I usually listen to all of it while it is happening, we pretty much missed it all with all the visits we have been doing. It isn’t broadcast on local radio like it is at home, so even though we were in the car a ton and had loads of time to listen, we did not have a way to do so. I feel kind of sad about that, although I know that with the amazing technology we have nowadays I will be able to listen to all of it any time I want. In fact, yesterday’s sessions are already available in the Gospel Library app, so we started listening to those this morning as we prepped for the day. Having said that, all our visits have been wonderful!
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