Mud and Flowers and Christmas Trees

Todd’s folks are visiting from California so we took them to Longwood Gardens yesterday. I had very carefully chosen the day based on the weather and the kids’ busy schedules and bought our tickets ahead of time. While Tuesday was cool and rainy, yesterday was clear. And cold. And windy.

We drove an hour south through some very pretty landscapes, found the gardens and followed the instructions to the parking lot. Remember that rainy Tuesday I mentioned? Well it turned the grassy areas of the lot into a gooey, muddy mess. We had to cross that muddy mess to get to the busses that would take us to the gardens. They had put straw down and I heard Todd say, “Be careful. It’s muddy.” So I was walking and pulling on gloves and stuffing jacket pockets with stuff and holding onto my camera and being careful – all at the same time. Suffice it to say the straw was useless in my case. I started to slide and down I went, but not quickly. It seemed to take forever before I was lying down in the mud like a pig in slop. As my left foot started to slip I kind of left my body and watched it happen to someone else in slow motion. And when I finally landed I let an unladylike expletive escape. Because 1) I looked anything but ladylike, all sprawled out in the mud; and 2) what I was wallowing in looked like what I said.

So back to the car I went to clean up as best I could. One of the parking attendants got some paper towels out of his truck for me and Todd gave me his treasured microfiber cloth. Precious got a little muddy, but thankfully nothing serious.

As I mentioned, it was cold and very windy. Thankfully a good portion of what we saw was inside a huge conservatory. When we left the protection of the structure we thought it may have actually warmed up a bit. Turns out there was just a lull in the wind. The best part about Longwood Gardens at Christmastime happens when the sun goes down and the gardens and trees are lit up. It was still light outside so we decided to go eat inside where it was warm. Once warmed and fortified, we perused the gardens and ended our evening with a viewing of the fountain show.

I didn’t want to bog down the blog by posting a ton of pictures, so if you click on the picture it will take you to a Photobucket slideshow.

Longwood Gardens Slideshow

When we got home from our fun adventure we all changed into comfy, cozy jammies. And the perfect end to a perfect day? (Except Katie filled hers so high there was no room for marshmallows or whipped cream.)