Tulip Festival!

As some of you saw on Jeny's blog, she went with me and my girls to Thanskgiving Point on Saturday to see the Tulip Festival. We had plans for a whole group to go, but the weather was not the greatest, so we were the only ones to brave it. There are tons of pictures, because it was too pretty! Here is the view from the entrance:Here is a great-horned owl nesting her two babies. She made a nest in the man-made waterfall area.

I have been to the gardens here before, but I had never seen the Children's Discovery Garden before. The girls loved it! There was this sandbox, a xylophone, blocks to play with, man-made caves with bronze animals (that scared Shannon to death), and even a stream to race little wooden boats.

This is at the top of the children's garden area. I thought it was one of the prettiest spots in the whole garden. You can kind of see the fake alligator on the little island across the pond.

Here is the waterfall where that owl was nesting. There was also a Canadian Goose sitting on her 4 eggs. Shannon had her ears covered the whole time we were around this because the water was so loud.

Just a few of the 250,000 tulips we saw. Notice that Shannon is holding a dandelion. She was allowed to pick those, so she thought that was fun.

Here are some of my favorites. I really like flowers with lots of petals like this.

Anytime we came upon a hill Shannon had to run down it. She had so much fun.

All of the gardens are themed. This one is one of my favorites. It's the Italian Garden. Jeny thought it looked like a bunch of bathtubs stacked up. You can barely see the statue at the top.

These are probably my favorite. They look like they're painted!

This was the scent garden. There are raised beds with lots of herbs and smelly flowers. Chocolate mint is, of course, my favorite.

This is the creek garden. Very pretty!

More tulips.

Different colored beds. Jeny loved the orange and red one that's in the back. I love the bright white and pink one and the purple one. Oh, who am I kidding? I love them all!

Shannon is just funny. She gets so excited about everything. I love her enthusiasm!

Here is what the girls looked like on the ride home:

Lastly, here are some videos. This is the xylophone that the girls would probably have played with all day had we let them. It was really neat.

Jeny taught Shannon how to roll down the hill. She eventually rolled down this entire hill and then beyond. If you look at the very first picture you can see the entire hill. It's the same one.