Longwood Gardens

I haven't taken the kids there in a long time and I've been wanting to do it all summer.  The weather was perfect for spending it outside today too, not too hot and not too cold.  I told them to be prepared to pose for pictures since I wanted to get a lot of the four of them together.  Everywhere we went I got a group shot, this one was at the first treehouse we visited:

We checked out the Italian Water Garden, did the Flower Garden Walk and headed to the Eye of Water.  After the Eye of Water we checked out the Chimes Tower:

I love spiral staircases and have always wanted to take a group shot on one.  Now I can check that off my to do list.  We get to the bottom of the tower which is where the base of the waterfall is.  Now I would've taken a picture of the kids there but there was a group of Amish people practically standing in the water!  You're not supposed to climb on the rocks but not only did they do that they were inches from where the water was coming down.  Wow, did not look safe at all.  So they messed up my kodak moment there but I was able to get one of the kids in front of the pool of water with the waterfall way in the background.  Lauren's head is actually blocking the Amish people from my shot!

From there we head over to the little children's area next to the Idea Garden.  They still had the maze and the fountain but they also had two instruments the kids could play.  Zach and Lauren played the chimes:

It was only natural to hit the conservatory next so we went through all the different rooms first.  Here's Zach and Megan in the Tropical Terrace:

We always have to look for the banana trees and see if we can find any bananas.  We did but they were far from being ripe.  Zach wanted to climb the tree and get them though. 

We finally ended up at the Indoor Children's Garden.  In the past we've always hit this area first but today decided to leave it for last.  Zach has always hated what is called "the secret room" that has the Drooling Dragon in it.  He somehow thinks it has fire in it, I guess because of the red light coming from the mouth.  He proudly stated as we were entering the children's garden that he wasn't afraid of the fire anymore and he wasn't.  He took a paintbrush and helped the sisters "paint" the dragon's teeth. 

Another spiral staircase photo op:

I would've waited for Kristin but the children's garden was packed.  I took what I thought I could get.  Notice how I have Lauren and Megan trained to smile?    Zach's still a work in progress.  I never wait for him to smile, if I did I wouldn't have any pictures.

We were all getting a little hungry by this point and since I was wanting to check out the Terrace Cafe we headed there next.  They have a nice variety of food, Lauren, Megan and I each had a sandwich, Zach had a hotdog and Kristin had a salad.  So with our tummies filled we headed back out.  Check out the kids while we were waiting for Lauren.  I had asked them all to pose but Zach wanted to check out the map.  I told him while we were eating that he had to tell us how to get to the other treehouses.  He took his job seriously!

A closer up picture of my goofy girls:

Zach did a great job getting us to the treehouses.  A neat addition to the one was this beehive:

The bees could actually come and go via a tube to the right of it.  While we were in the treehouse there was a sign that said if we enjoyed seeing the scenery of the woods to be sure to check out the Forrest Walk.  So much to Lauren's dislike we did just that.  This was new to us and I've always wondered where that trail went past the treehouse.  Well now I know!  There were several spots set up where you could sit and rest whether they were benches, fallen trees, or stumps like in the picture below:

It was Lauren's idea to pose while standing on them.  She liked the walk at first until we kept going and going and going.  We eventually saw a trail called "Meditation Trail" or something like that.  We took it but with 4 kids with me I was far from meditating!  It eventually looped us around and we followed our original trail back out. 

We headed out after that.  Poor Zach did such a good job at keeping up with us. I think this was the first time we've visited Longwood Gardens without a stroller.  Kristin ended up carrying him part of the way back to give his little legs a break.  He fell asleep in the car within 5 minutes of leaving.

Hopefully we can make it back once more before school starts.  Hopefully we have another beautiful day like today too.