A heartwarming Dallas vacation
After celebrating Christmas 2021 at home in Austin, we planned a 3 days trip to Dallas. Radhika's college class mate and her family had a house. We planned to stay there. We left on 26th afternoon and after an almost 5 hour 193 mile journey that was slowed down by witnessing a couple of accidents along the freeway , we reached Javeed and Amreen's home in Frisco around 7PM. Frisco is around 30 min north of Dallas and is an upcoming township with lot of new construction. Their's was a beautiful 2010 Highland home house on a cul-de-sac. Javeed was my school senior and his sister was my classmate in school. We got to know this the last time they came home to our apartment in Austin a year ago. They have 2 beautiful kids - a 5 year old Yusuf and a 4 year old Jannah. Malootty got along with them pretty well. they started playing right away. I was so impressed with their hospitality. It was so heartwarming and pleasant.They went extra lengths to make sure we were comfortable, checking each and every thing from the bed to the bathroom to the bed sheets, to the temperature, drinking water .. anything you can imagine. The husband and wife made pasta with homemade Alfredo sauce. It was creamy and yummy.we all ate and after a little chit chat, headed off to bed.
The next day morning, we started off around 8:30 to visit Dallas world aquarium. It was right in the middle of downtown. One would never imagine such a structure right in the middle of the city. Even though it said aquarium, it had all sorts of animals, birds, insects in addition to the water creatures from across the world. They also had recreated forests inside this place. It was a nice little adventure. The kids had fun. Govind stayed calm although in his stroller.Glad we got there earlier as the place became crowded by the time we finished. We got back home by 1.
We woke up early the next day and headed out around 9 to Dallas arboretum. Javeed had office that day , so only the 4 of us went to this place. The arboretum had a children's park alongside it. We spent a lot of time in that park. There are lots to do for school kids in that park. Quite interactive. Malootty had a blast. After spending time at the children park, we took a quick round at the arboretum and botanical garden. There were Christmas decorations all around and life sized exhibits of 12 days of Christmas. There was also a Christmas village setup at that place. It was pretty colorful.
When we reached the parking lot, I realized I had misplaced my phone somewhere. Went back and searched all the way through the path we took inside the arboretum , calling the phone and playing a sound with "Find my". Finally someone picked up the phone and told me its at the information center. Lost a while in that fiasco.Headed back home to Javeed's to a mind blowing Chicken biryani and Chicken ghee roast. We feasted! the food was really yummy. Muslim non vegetarian food preparations are in a different league.
That day evening , we went out to see some holiday lights around frisco. We visited the city center and some malls nearby.Took some photos and came back by 8.
We started back early next day and reached home by noon.What really stood out for us was the hospitality of Javeed and Amreen and their wonderful little kids. We will surely meet up again soon .
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