brigadoon.

back in middle school, we had these classes called cycles. each cycle lasted for 2 months or so and you "cycled" through them until you had completed all five cycles. they were designed to expose us naive middle schoolers to different electives so we would be better educated on which electives to choose in high school.

one of the cycles was "music appreciation." i appreciate music very much, but the class was pretty dumb and, if anything, made immature middle schoolers less appreciative of music. we had to draw pictures while listening to peter gabriel and do other similarly weird stuff. but occasionally, our teacher showed us old musicals. the kids in my class groaned and thought they were lame and i pretended to think they were lame, too. after all, what kind of middle schooler are you if you're not a lemming?

but, secretly? i LOVED them.

when our teacher brought out brigadoon, it was over. and thus began my love for gene kelly. :) and old musicals.

a few miles from our home is a tiny historic town affectionately nicknamed our local "brigadoon." i had been there once before many years ago, but decided the bring the hubs and choi boy by to explore the town a bit more. especially when i visited the town's website and saw its musical moniker!

we were not disappointed...it was magical. main street and many of the little side streets are lined with historic homes that are over a hundred years old, all kept in beautiful shape. of course, i was too busy admiring all the lovely homes and buildings to take pictures of them. and i was also keeping a watchful eye on things because i was half expecting post-civil war era folks to come out of the houses while breaking into choreographed song and dance. that would have been AMAZing. ;)

i did do my job as mamarazzi, though, and snap away as cb enjoyed his time playing at the town playground. so, just imagine lovely late 1800s homes surrounding this adorable park...



choo choo!



that nerd shirt is one of my most favorite items from cb's wardrobe. :)

we explored main street a little further and stumbled upon this adorable ice cream and hot dog stand, tucked away under trellises of climbing vines.



it wasn't open yet, so we decided to come back for dinner with some former youth group students. turns out, it was so worth the return trip. :)

see that face on cb? that's him doing, "cheese!!!" not bad for a fake smile. ;)

one of my favorite things about the little town were the beautiful gardens each little house boasted in both the front and back yards. many of the gardens featured gorgeous roses of sharon, which also happens to be the national flower of korea.

so beautiful!


i didn't know this about these flowers, but they close at night. so when we returned that evening for dinner, all of these flowers were closed.

and for some reason, it seemed like the perfect last detail to notice in a tiny town that compares itself to the mythical brigadoon.

love.