Monday, October 11, 2010

This Week's BIG Adventure!

Hey - guess where we went, totally on a whim, Monday?
I didn't know when I made up my mind and invited a friend and her son to join us, that it would end up being 90 degrees outside that afternoon, but we had a great time anyway. =)


The first and most popular stop - feeding the fish. I was SURE that I would end up scooping one or both of my girls out of the koi pond, but luckily none of us went for a swim today.

How fabulous is that parasol? I know, right. So stylish!
This was in the multi-sensory National Herb garden where signs encouraged us to engage all five senses in experiencing the plants. So we did! We listened to the birds and crickets, felt the different textures of the leaves, smelled allll the different herbs, enjoyed all the different colors of the plants and even tasted some of the mints. It was SO beautiful, too. Then the kids discovered that the paths were SUPER AWESOME for running and we spent the next hour or so saying "Jack and Carly that's far enough! Turn around please!" and every five minutes or so I would go dashing around the corner to find Bree. Fun times! =)


We climbed up a hill (the tent is where they were having the orchid sale) and ate lunch and let the kiddos run around in the native grass. They were chasing these GIANT grasshoppers.

Up at the top of the hill is a small plaza with a bunch of tall columns...it was just beautiful.

So cool, right? I love that Bree walks exactly like this almost all the time.

After lunch, we climbed down and looked around the Chinese and Japanese exhibits. The kids were more excited about playing on the benches than being in awe over the bonsais...

Even though this one is SO COOL. Even the leaves are in miniature!
They had these big pots of succulents around the fish pond. So beautiful!

The end of the road! We needed shade and hydration, and that's what we got! The kiddos were so good. Jack and Carly have the most hilarious conversations...they each seem so confused when the other talked just as much. =)

Yes, Bree needs a haircut. Desperately.
The photo is not about that. It's about the two-inch coating of cinnamon and sugar from her Auntie Anne's pretzel. The pretzel was a bribe-like prize that worked incredibly well when I needed to return a bunch of different things to three different stores at the mall on the way home after the kids had been in the car for an hour and were both tired and cranky.

Then we came home and made a chicken with forty cloves of garlic, a bunch of parsley, chicken broth and not a lot else. It was delish. =)

1 comment:

Our Family of Four said...

Found it!

http://www.nbm.org/exhibitions-collections/exhibitions/building-zone.html