Morton Arboretum

Still trying to catch up! This one is also going back a few weeks, when we met your Grammy and Aunt Gina out at Morton Arboretum. Amazingly, Tree had been there once in grade school and I'd never been, so it was a new thing for all of us! Click on the link below to go to the whole album.

From Morton Arboretum

To start off with, all summer long they had these big wicker-like ants on a bigger hill overlooking the highway we take to Grammy's house. And when we passed them we'd tell you to say hi to the ants and you'd yell out the window "HIIIIIIIIIIIII AAAAAAAAANNNNNTS as we drove past. So when we got onto the grounds and they were the first things we saw, we knew we'd need to run over and say hi up close and personal.

The arboretum is so cool! They even have HILLS! Well, I mean, you know, "hills" anyway... And lakes and paths and plants and trees. Well, that much I expected. But I didn't expect the hills, and for how really strikingly nice it really was out there. We pretty much just wanted to stroll and take it all in. You, on the other hand, pretty much just wanted to run up the hills.

But what really blew me away was the kid's area. I can't even really say how nice it was, because we didn't even come close to exploring it all! First of all, there were some flowers and plants to water. This is something you did a lot of in California, as many times as you could get one of us to fill a water can, you would water any plant you could find (and more often, just water the concrete). So this was a good reminder that we need to get you some plants to water!

Next there was painting. In this case, taking a dried sunflower to dip into paint and use to create a nature-themed masterpiece!

And tucked into a corner, a little water feature I believe was designed just for you...

Yeah, you do like the water. Let's see, what was your favorite thing we saw? That infinity fountain just made for splashing? Or perhaps the fountain with rocks you could throw in, and with little frogs spitting water?

No, actually, as it turned out these were just for warming up. Suddenly, we come across the mother of all wading pools, er, wading streams, and that was pretty much the end of our exploration, you were hooked.

It was all we could do to keep your clothes on, and darnit you were going to build a dam in that stream just like those bigger boys were. And, it was clear, we were going to be there for a while...

Overall, it was quite a nice day and we'll definitely go back. In fact, Daddy is hoping to get his bike out there and check out those roads. They may be little hills, but I'll take what I can get!

Well I have a couple posts still overdue, last weekend we went apple picking, had the Von Bodmans over for dinner, and took a bike ride around Oak Park. Today you went to Grandma Suzanne's, and got to see Emma and Owen and Joanna! On Friday Aunt Heidi is bringing the whole posse over to have a slumber party here!! I'd better get caught up soon, or we'll never be up to date!