On Wednesday morning Gabe was determined to go to the Botanical Garden! He kept asking over and over if we could go. I wasn’t sure about it at first because I have been sick with a cold for over a week now – add that to the heat and my ever-growing pregnant belly, and it sounded like an exhausting trip to me. But he was so excited, so I decided to just go for it. Luckily, when we got there I remembered about the free shuttle rides – what a blessing! A nice man named Dan drove us around the gardens, pointing out interesting facts and stopping wherever we wanted so we could get out and look around. Since he is a Master Gardener, I took the opportunity to ask him lots of gardening questions (in case we ever decide to do something with our landscaping ha ha). Here’s a photo of Gabe in the cart with Dan.

When we got to the children’s garden, we said goodbye to Dan and did the rest of the trip on our own. Gabe played and enjoyed the water features, while I sat on a shady bench :). We also went inside the nature center, where Gabe got to pet a turtle and he even got to release a butterfly! I didn’t catch a good photo this time, but that reminded me that I never shared any of the photos from the butterfly release party earlier this year…

To celebrate the opening of the butterfly house, they had a pancake breakfast for the kids and lots of fun games and activities for them to do, plus they each got to release a butterfly! Here’s a video of Gabe releasing a Butterfly that day:

Gabe Releases a Butterfly (4.25.09)

Here are some more photos from the Breakfast with the Butterflies Celebration:

The last photo is actually from another visit to the garden to see the Big Bugs art installation they have had up this summer – very cool!  I hope you all have a wonderful 4th of July weekend!