botanical gardens

Brian recently had about a month-long vacation from work.

He is actually back to work now, but we were able to get a lot done and enjoy the time we had.

He was even able to get to Florida to see his family for a few days and catch up with some of his friends there.  

During the last week of his time off we went down to the Botanical Gardens.

I usually drag everyone down there a little earlier to enjoy the tulips or the cherry trees in the Japanese garden, but we just didn't make it this year.  We typically don't go during this time because the cherry blossoms have fallen off the trees and the tulip are pretty faded by now.  But who knew that the azaleas were blooming so fiercely?!  For some reason I never get an alert about the azaleas so I just don't think about them.  They were absolutely gorgeous!

The most fun part for me was that Brian brought a camera with him to shoot pictures too.

He was actually the original photographer in the family, but somewhere along the line (probably when the boys were born and I wanted to take pictures of them all day long) my interest in it kind of skyrocketed and I've pretty much taken over.  The camera rarely touches his hands any more,  because I'm always hogging it.

We don't do it very often, but it's fun to go on little photography jaunts with him.  He has a really good eye and it's fun to see things differently with him.  He taught me a ton about cameras and photography when I first started being interested.

Somehow, our quest for the day at the Botanical Gardens became getting an awesome blurred-motion running-water shot.  I think both of us had read how to do it and knew how to do it, but it was actually a pretty good challenge remembering everything and applying all of our knowledge.  I think you really need a tripod for a truly great shot of this, so maybe a little planning ahead next time :)

But here are a few of the images we ended up with.

Not bad for our first time I don't think!

missouri market

This year my parents were here the weekend of the Best of Missouri Market, so it was fun to show them all we had discovered last year.

It was very chilly.

I know I'm cold natured, but even everyone else was cold.

We had a fun time though!

 The boys could not wait to get to the Fitz's tent.

I don't know why it's so cool to get them there.

Perhaps they haven't realized that you can find them at Schnuck's, also.

I think it's just that they have all the flavors at the Market so the choices are better.

Ahhhhh......caramel apples.

I'm always on the lookout for a good one.

This one was pretty good, but no chocolate drizzling was involved, so I'll

keep looking for a midwest replacement of my favorite caramel apple

at the chocolate shop in Grayson, GA.

For that place and Publix, I could be persuaded to move again.

Lantern Festival

The Lantern Festival is going on at the Botanical Gardens right now.

Sometimes we go to special events there and other places and they are kind of disappointing.

Not this one!

It was sooooooo impressive!!

Very well done.

Highly recommend going if you're around here.

I think it goes until late August.

Only appropriate that Ethan was born in the year of the monkey.

He used to climb EVERYTHING when he was a toddler.

music fest

Every year we say we are going to go to the Music Festival that they have on Wednesday nights at the Botanical Gardens.

You know how that goes.

We end up not going.

But this year, we found ourselves on a Wednesday night without kids and decided to go.

We didn't even care what kind of music was playing.

Just wanted a fun atmosphere.

This is the only time you're allowed to picnic in the Gardens, and let me tell you that there are serious picnickers there!

We brought some fruit, cheese, crackers and sausage, along with our Georgia blanket and Georgia chairs.

I'm pretty sure we were the only ones with either a Georgia blanket or Georgia chairs.

And I'm positive that we were the only ones there with both.

And I'm pretty sure most everyone else had a spread of food about 5 times what we had.......and on tables.  

We were amateurs and fine with it.

We thought it wouldn't be crowded - wrong!

We knew we were in trouble when we saw people walking from the overflow parking a couple of blocks from the Gardens.

But we actually found a great spot on the street and Brian managed to find us a great spot on the lawn for the concert.

We enjoyed the music, the atmosphere, people watching, everything.

We will definitely go back.