the long and winding road...

The Garden Again
During G's time off from school we returned to the Huntington for another day of fun! We hit the children's garden first because last time we went at the end of the day and G was so tired she got a little grumpy. It was a total winner this time!

After all that water play my little one was hungry so we had some lunch in the Rose Garden Tea Room... loved it! Once our tummies were full, we walked through the rose garden quite a bit. Watching G peruse the roses was hysterical... she'd read through the name cards (and there are hundreds of them) until she found one with a name that struck her fancy "lavender ballerina" or "america" and "applesauce" are a few that did, then she'd start yelling "MOMMY!! Come here, come here, hurry!!!" because, you know, the roses were going to disappear if I didn't hurry :-)  So, of course, I'd walk over to see what she had found where she'd then share the name with me and insist that I take a picture of the blooms. Such a funny little girl.

Dozens of photos of roses later, G decided it was time to visit the galleries. I find it fascinating that a 5-1/2 year old would get so much joy out of the galleries. She puts her little audio guide on her head and goes around exploring on her own. I have as much fun watching her looking at things as I do of looking at the works themselves. She's just so darn cute!!! There's a very large marble sculpture of Zenobia in Chains (its like 7 feet tall) in one of the galleries that G really LOVES! It is really beautiful but G is slightly obsessed with it. She sat on the floor and listened to the guide... when it was done, she looked up at me and asked if she could listen to it again. Uh, sure baby. She ended up listening to it a total of 4 times!!  I think she might have it memorized at this point. I guess it makes a bit of sense, Zenobia was a queen and G does have a thing for royalty but still, its super cute.

Anyway, it was a perfectly lovely day; the kind a person wishes would go on and on. I really do love that place.

This face! Seriously, have you ever seen anything so kissable in your whole life??? Love, love, love the little smirk and dimple. I'm so in love with this little girl.

Georgie doing the "gun show"

Making her way to the Rose Garden Cafe for tea

A couple of the dozens of pictures of roses Georgie had me take. She really like the first one with the bumble bee.

Just a little ballet while traipsing through the flowers

I'm pretty sure that this tree was planted and grown with the specific intent to be a photo prop. How else could you explain something growing so perfectly?

Even though my mom's not much of a fan of having her picture taken, I always try to snap a few... Georgie loves her Grandma so much!