A Busy Day All Around

Today we made our first yearly visit to Reiman Garden in Ames. We renewed our membership there, so we can go now whenever we want. I took the fandango camera and we took lots and lots and lots of pictures.





It doesn't just end with butterflies. We spent another two hours roaming the extensive gardens. The theme this year is Dinosaurs in the Garden.

There were many lifesize dinosaur statues, and other dinosaur forms, such as this cool T-Rex skull.

Here is an interesting statue...it is moss stuffed into a frame, and succulents planted all over it. My son said, Look! Hens and chickens! Lol. I LOVE when he identifies plants correctly.

This is a similar dinosaur, except I believe he is planted with thyme.

This is one of my favorite areas in the gardens...a succulent garden. This agave is over 6 feet tall. It is so cool and calming, and has peaceful fountains.

This is my other favorite garden, the kitchen garden. To my delight, my son could also name the plants for the vegetables and some of the herbs. I was proud, he even recognized some plants that didn't have the actual vegetable on it yet (peppers, tomatoes). I take a lot of pictures of trellises. I am fascinated with them lately. Maybe because I need to build several for tomatoes and zucchinis.

A heavenly cloud of coreopsis. Did I mention I love coreopsis? I could go on and on with the cool pictures from Reiman gardens. But, I think I will get one of those Photobucket or Flicker accounts and just put them as a slide show on the side of my blog. So, people who are interested can see them all.

http://www.reimangardens.iastate.edu/index.cfm

In other news, today is the day we celebrated my son's birthday. He is going to his granny's in KC this weekend for the 4th...so we are celebrating today. His official big family birthday party will be next week, but I made him a cake and let him open some gifts today. Today was also a really big deal because my son had his first playdate at my house. He has some friends at his dad's house, but we didn't really know any little boys around here since we moved at the beginning of last winter. I got past my adult shyness and went down the street to a house where I saw little boys, and knocked on the door. The mom was really nice and we ended up talking for half an hour. She has two little boys, almost 4 and 6, so my son invited them over. That is the first time this has ever happened. We just have never lived next to any other kids that were anywhere near his age. I tried to stay out of his business and let him be himself, but I was listening. I was also relieved that they were nice boys. They didn't swear, hit, scream, or mouth off like a lot of the kids I see at my son's preschool. I was highly pleased with the whole situation. So, now I have to just relax enough to be cool with him walking just around the corner to play with them in their yard (I can see him walk almost the entire way, it is like 200 feet). Baby steps for mom...baby steps for mom.