After our time in Austin, we returned to Fort Worth for the second half of our week in Texas.

That afternoon, we went to visit my grandmother. We had some dessert and tea and talked for a couple hours. After that, Lesley's dad picked us up and we went to see Lesley's sister and her daughter. We got to spend a lot of time with them and Lesley really enjoyed holding her niece. I held her, too, which was kind of weird because I haven't held a baby since my brother was a baby. Lesley's mom made a nice lasagna dinner for us, too.

The next day we had another good Tex-Mex meal outside on the patio, this time with Lesley's parents at one of our favorite places, Uncle Julio's. We shared the fajitas, which are always excellent. We then went to Dallas and walked around White Rock Lake for a while. The air was fairly cool, but it got to feeling warm after a while in the sun. While the weather was pretty good, the trees were not yet ready for spring, as many of them had not yet started growing new leaves.

We had some time to kill before going to a Dallas Stars game that evening, so we drove around Uptown Dallas a little bit, which is one of the more trendy and walkable parts of Dallas, and then went to Victory plaza near the arena. Many of the restaurants there had gone out of business, but there were still people hanging around the plaza and watching some of the big outdoor screens.

Lesley's dad was able to get us some free food at the VIP lounge in the arena before the game. There was a buffet of salad, potatoes, and several kinds of meat. There were also several kinds of dessert, which we got to try. There was a lot of food to eat, so that was pretty cool, and the brownies were very good. The game itself was fairly entertaining, though the Stars let the Flyers come back to win after an early lead.

The next day, Lesley woke up feeling sick. Interestingly, my mom had started feeling sick on the way back from Austin, so we figured that my mom might have gotten the flu in Austin and that Lesley might have caught it from my mom in the car ride back to Fort Worth. The plan for the day was for Lesley to spend time with her sister and for me to visit with my grandmother again. But, since we weren't sure whether I might be sick and just not yet showing symptoms, we didn't want to get my grandmother sick, so I ended up hanging out with my dad and brother, who weren't sick.

My brother was getting a ride back to school north of Dallas. We stopped for Italian food on the way and then had to spend some time fixing an issue with my brother's computer. Around that time, my brother started feeling sick, too. Anyway, I knew traffic would get bad on the way to Fort Worth if we left too late, but fortunately we left in time to avoid having any traffic problems. Lesley had just watched The Dark Knight on her parents' new HDTV and when I got there we watched another movie. For dinner, we got Cousin's Barbeque, which is my favorite BBQ place in the universe. The brisket was extremely tender and flavorful and the okra was remarkable, as usual. That evening, some of Lesley's extended family decided to risk exposure to illness and stopped by to visit.

The next day was our last in TX on this trip. We watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off and hung out at Lesley's parents' house before heading to the airport. The weather outside was almost 40 degrees colder than the day before and about 30 degrees colder than the temperature in Seattle. Unfortunately, Lesley felt pretty sick that afternoon and was pretty miserable during the entire flight. I had been looking forward to taking light rail from the airport for the first time, but since Lesley wasn't feeling well we decided to take a taxi, which was much faster.

We had a good time in DFW. We all wish Lesley and my mom and brother hadn't gotten sick, but it was nice to get to hang out with everyone, to have good food, and spend time in Dallas. We'll likely be visiting again around Thanksgiving or Christmas.