Oo la la! The Lilac Festival

To celebrate the long awaited end of New England winter, our friends Becca and Brandon accompanied Rob and me to the Arnold Arboretum in Boston to experience the annual Lilac Festival.

The Arnold Arboretum is pretty cool. We went on a quick tour of the park and learned that it is totally maintained by Harvard University as a research institution to preserve, study, and teach about trees. Although the Arboretum is maintained by Harvard, it's still a public park. Our guide told us that back in the late 1880's Harvard University approached the city of Boston and proposed a creative lease agreement: The lease would allow the Arboretum lands to become part of the Boston park system, so the city would maintain the perimeter and general infrastructure, while Harvard would continue to be responsible for the grounds and would agree to keep the grounds open to the public. Harvard leased the land from Boston for 1000 years at a rate of $1 per year. And congratulations, there's your little piece of useless information for the day!

I should also mention the early birthday present I got for Rob: a brand new Canon Rebel XTi camera! Rob loves to take pictures and we're going on some cool trips this summer so I thought he should have his birthday present in time to use it. This trip to the Lilac Festival marks Rob's inaugral camera-toting experience.

Rob is quite the budding photographer! (bad pun, sorry.) Here are some of samples his photography and of the beautiful blooming trees from all over the world:

So, for all you potential Boston visitors out there, you can see that mid May is a great time to come!