We Didn't Forget About Our 30 Days...

We just took a little break for a couple of weeks! Anyway, today was warm, but really beautiful and not too bad early in the morning...especially in the shade. I wish this photo was a little bigger because Carly was such a happy girl to be on a Big Ah-benture again!

She loves to copy statues! SO funny!!!
I have no idea what this is, but it was just so pretty.

And then, a perfect magnolia blossom.

Honestly, most of the garden is kind of a mess; there are lots of weeds in the brick walkways and lots of empty flower beds. But, we had to keep in mind that it was almost totally flattened during The Stahm and it's just now getting back to growing. We talked to one of the twenty or so volunteers working throughout the gardens who told us that nearly all of the city funding for the park dried up after Katrina, so any replanting and refurbishing had to be paid for by private donations, and the labor is handled by a small staff and a group of volunteers. He said that it will take another four or five years to get the garden running like it used to be.

But Carly didn't notice! She had a great time with the flowers.

So pretty!

Carly's favorite water lilly was the purple one.

Then, in the fern garden! It's set up off the brick pathways and Carly said it was a big forest.

Anyone know what this is? It grew on a thin green stem, about three inches off the ground in the shade. No scent...just these interesting curly purple petals.

Silly girl and her crazy eyebrows hanging out on the big tree!

Showing me the bumblebee getting his lunch.

Inside the building by the water lillies, they have a fern exhibit called "living fossils" that was donated by Chevron. It is so pretty and there are a couple of fish in the water. Carly was a little disappointed because she was expecting to see Nemo like she did in Fort Worth, but she just looked so cute peeking around the fence.

And then in the vegetable garden Carly got a microscopic pebble in her shoe - literally, I could not see it. But the world stopped for a few minutes until we could get it all sorted out.

Then, she pulled a leaf off the tree and I told her we don't do that because it's like pulling someone's hair. She went back to apologize to the tree and give it a hug...and she got her ponytail stuck on the branches. I guess the tree was pulling her hair back.

I LOVE this photo!!!

Then onto Barnes & Noble because we had talked earlier about going to read Elmo books at the bookstore. We were both hungry, so we stopped at the sbx Cafe for some lunch. Carly had so much fun swirling in her (New! From our clothes-hunting trip last week!) pretty dress.

After lunch we browsed the kids' book section, which is always fun, then we found the Thomas the Train table! Carly doesn't know it, but something like this is going to be a belated part of her birthday present. We took our time because we were hoping that the maintenance guys would be here to fix the AC (they didn't).

Then the lady working in the back gave Carly TWO stickers! It was such a fun time.

And...Mommy snapped some shots of some scrapbook layouts from a magazine I didn't buy. I'm sure that's probably completely immoral, if not illegal, but it should be illegal to charge $12 for a twenty-page magazine. So. Lizonomics at work.

And some more of Carly's b-day presents! We have the 2-3 Brain Quest and flipping through it is one of Carly's most favorite things to do! Of course I love it because it's nerdy...and then to balance out my photo-stealing, we got this book. Last week Carly asked me if God was a bear...so...we thought we'd set the story straight. There were about five million different books to choose from, but I liked this one because it's straightforward and uses normal words. Plus, they made Jesus brown, which is nice.