Asan Botanical Garden, Part 2

Part two of our garden adventure:

Gigantic Bird of Paradise!

They also had a small aviary there.  We attempted to feed the birds, and got a couple to eat, but it seems as though most of them were full.

The kids had a great time running around the maze.

I can't wait to see this in full bloom!

The beauty in this place was just endless!  Really makes David and me miss having a yard to landscape.



Asan Botanical Garden

Now that David is back and the weather is warming up, it's time to start exploring again.  I was told of a beautiful botanical garden not too far away from us, and the majority of it was indoors so it didn't matter what the weather was, so we headed out to check it out for ourselves.

They did indeed have some beautiful flowers - which means I'm going to have to break this post into two parts to get all the pictures in.

 

This is the biggest ficus tree I have ever seen!

 The smell of the hyacinths were absolutely amazing!

More beauty to come tomorrow!

Introducing...

... our newest addition.

 This is our new little one as of March 29.

 She/he was very cooperative during this short ultrasound, so we were able to get a couple of pictures.
The one I really would've liked to have had was the full body showing how "she" was laying on "her" back, with "her" legs up (so "she" was making a V shape), making it look like "she" was inspecting "her" toes.

 And this was our little one on our very first ultrasound at 12 weeks.  Oh how he/she has grown!

In looking at the profiles of all three kids, it sure looks like this one is going to look an awful lot like his/her siblings.  Good thing I think our kids are pretty cute! :)

Welcome Home David!

Well, we made it!  The kids and I survived the incredibly LONG 3 months that David was gone.  We have been through longer TDYs and depoloyments, but for some reason this one seemed like the longest.  We picked him up shortly after 6:00 AM this morning, and the kids were estatic to see him.  There has been a whole lot of craziness and snuggling with Daddy in the hours we have been together, and we're looking forwrd to enjoying each others company this weekend before he heads back to work.

Welcome home, David!  We are SO glad to have you home!



Girls Day Out

Today I picked Grace up from school after she had only been there an hour and a half, and we played hookie the rest of the day.  She has been mentioning that we just don't ever get to spend time together anymore, so I decided that today needed to be all about her. 

We started the day by whipping up an angel food cake and putting it in the oven before she left for school - that way, by the time I picked her up it would be cool and ready to frost.  After I took Tristan to school, I swung by and got Grace (she had to go in for a spelling and reading test, and I didn't want to have to explain to Tristan why Grace was staying home and he didn't get to).  We headed back home and got to decorating David's cake (ssshhh - it's a secret!).

Then it was time to go have some lunch and get pampered.  We went and had pedicures done, and Grace had her nails painted too... and the guy couldn't get enough of her so he fixed up her hair too.  Poor thing, she got a really cute haircut a week or so ago, but her hair is so fine that it gets tangled up just looking at it - and the guy taking care of her just couldn't stand it any longer, and before you knew it, he was over there combing through her hair!

Before we headed back to pick Tristan up, we did a little shopping at the PX, and then it was back home so she could finish decorating her daddy's cake.  This was all her idea, and she decorated it all by herself!  The only thing I came up with was making an angel food cake because David has commented on more than one occassion that that is his favorite kind of cake and I never make it for him... well, now he can't claim that I don't listen!  :)

We had a fabulous day and I do believe that this is something we'll continue to do every once in a while - after all playing hookie is okay when you're doing it with Mom, right???

It's Spring!

Or so they tell me...

This is what we woke up to this morning!

It started snowing at about 5:00 last night and was still snowing a bit when I went to bed a little after 10:00 PM.  Not what I expected 5 days into "spring".

I do believe that I will go with the opposite of what Punxatawnee Phil predicts in the future!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Well, here we are in the middle of March!  I wish I could say that we've been terribly busy and I just haven't had time to update the blog... But it's just not so.  We have been busy, but not with anything fantastically noteworthy - just running 2 kiddos back and forth to school, getting Grace to her swim practices, and me to my various things that I'm involved in.  I made a vow to myself a few weeks ago that when the kids were in school I was going to come home and have some "me" time (except on Wednesday, that's Bible Study day).  I've managed to have that "me" time once since then... There's just always something else that "needs" to be done.  But I've got to get over it - I've got 14 short weeks before this new baby arrives (I know, how did that happen so fast???) and I'd really like to have my son's first year scrapbook done.  Good news is that Grace's is done!

Anyway, I thought I'd take a moment and show you a few things that we have been doing over the last several weeks that are worth mentioning...

I ran across a cool idea for making "tie-dye" shamrocks, and since we are lacking in the St. Patty's Day decor, I thought I'd have the kids give it a shot.  They seemed to enjoy being a little crafty, and were surprisingly patient with one another since I could only locate one eye dropper.

Our finished project. 

As I was digging out our decorations, I found the two larger shamrocks that Grace had done as an art project last year, so I added them (and some filler green ones) to complete our banner.

I caught the two of them like this after one of my afternoon snoozes:

Watching their new Hello Kitty movie in the laundry basket - they didn't start arguing about being so close until I walked in the room.

And I just had to share my beautiful flowers my friend Kim bought for me at the market when we went a few weeks ago.