Botanica

*WARNING* You are in for a very long post (at least picture wise that is).  In my avoidance of blogging a lot has been going on, so I thought I'd combine two posts.  Being the picture nut that I am I had a very difficult time whittling the pictures down, so there are lots of them.  It wasn't until I had loaded all of them on this post that I realized how many I had and didn't want to take the time to reload them on a separate post, so you just get a really long post.  That being said, you should know that I'm not really known for by brevity,  (as evidenced by this long warning) so you shouldn't really be surprised, right?

Melanie's first field trip with school was to Botanica, the botanical gardens we are privileged to have here in town.  Their teacher wanted the kids to get to see the Butterfly Garden since they had learned about caterpillars and butterflies recently and she wanted them to see it before that garden was closed for the season.  A special children's themed garden also opened this past spring, which was a real treat for the kids.  Here are a few pictures from the field trip. 

 Excited to go in

 Checking out a butterfly hatching from its chrysalis

 I happened to look down and catch this sweet moment with her friend, Jillian.

 The whole class outside the children's garden

 The play house was a huge hit with the girls in the class

 The water pumps were also very popular

 They are so sweet together!  

All the hugging I kept catching them doing made me wonder if they're like this during a regular school day as well...

 Snack time and fingerplays on the pavilion

 Feeding the fish

And finally, a silly face picture before heading back to school.

 The kids had so much fun and there was so much to see, it seemed very rushed to only be there for the hour and a half that was available once you factored in driving time.  Fortunately for us my mom has a membership and had been wanting to take my grandma before the weather turned cold.  Once I started talking about how neat the children's garden was her mind was made up, so along with my sister, Laura, we set out for another trip to Botanica a couple weeks later.

 We took our time checking out all the different gardens mom, grandma and Laura wanted to see, as well as stopping in the Butterfly garden again.  The girls were pretty patient about it, but Melanie kept asking when we were going to the children's garden.  She knew what was in store for them and couldn't wait to get there!

 I absolutely LOVE this picture of my two big girls!  If only I could guarantee they would always be this sweet to each other.

 Getting a shot where Amelia was actually looking at the camera was quite the accomplishment.

 Especially when you factor in how tempting the fern at her feet was!

 All three girls with Grandma and Nana

Yay!  We're at the children's garden!

 Melanie had talked about the rainbows a lot, so they were quite the exciting entrance to the garden for Claire.

 This water mosaic is really neat.  There are different tiles around it with various insects painted on them that the girls enjoyed finding and touching (and getting wet from!)

 Melanie was very excited to show Claire the water pumps, and Claire was equally excited to see how they worked.

 Taking turns

 Some futile attempts to get a sweet picture of Amelia

I always get these great ideas in my head of how a picture will turn out.  They seldom live up to my lofty expectations of cherub laced cuteness, but I continue to try anyway.

 She looked at me!  Hey, maybe I will be able to get a good shot after all!

Maybe?

Nope.  She'd rather eat the flowers.

 Melanie and Claire in front of Treebeard.  

(Lord of the Rings anyone?)

Not sure if that's the real name for this interactive piece, but that's what it makes me think of.

 While the big girls played in the treehouse Amelia got some fun time with Nana.

 

 The caterpillar area was being worked on during the field trip, so this was the first time for both girls to enjoy it. 

 Amelia was starting to get a bit restless.

(read: sleepy and therefore not enjoying being confined because she might fall asleep and miss something)

 Nana wanted to be sure the girls noticed the waterlilies on our way out of the children's garden.  I remember really liking water lilies as a kid, so I'm glad she pointed them out.

 One more trip through the rainbows on our way out

Three sleeping girls!

Now that's what I call a successful outing!

We spent about three hours at Botanica, and the girls weren't anywhere near being bored when we left to go have lunch.  It was such a great day and we all enjoyed our time outside in the beautiful gardens.  I'm seriously thinking about putting a membership to Botanica on our family wish list for Christmas.  I'm sure the girls would just revel in regular trips to the gardens!

The girls had so much fun I had them write "thank you" notes to mail to my mom and grandma for treating us to such a fun and special outing (starting them young in the hopes that they'll be better about it than I am!).  Claire "wrote" her note to my mom thanking her for taking us to Botanica and Melanie wrote hers to my grandma for treating us to lunch afterwards.

I wrote a note based on what Claire said she liked best about Botanica and she colored it.

I told Melanie how to spell what she wanted to say to Nana about our lunch and then she decorated the card with pictures of her favorite things about the day.  Going clockwise, the pink stuff is her depiction of her lunch (a pancake, bacon and scrambled eggs) the orange and black thing on the top is a goldfish (we fed the fish again), the rainbow is pretty obvious, the tree is Treebeard, the brown circle with white spots is the cookie she got to take home as a special treat after lunch (a chocolate cookie with white chocolate chips) and then there are some flowers that are somewhat hard to make out since some of them are yellow and she wanted to color the background in as "golden" as she refers to it, which she seems to do a lot of right now (I'm sure our yellow markers will all be dry soon if she doesn't choose a new favorite background color).

If you have the chance to check out Botanica do it!  You won't be disappointed!