A Cousins Trip to Quail (Bamboo! Bamboo!)

Parker! Forest! Levi! Bamboo! 

San Diego Botanic Gardens

We had so much fun playing in the childrens' gardens at Quail (I'm going to be hard pressed to remember to call it by its new name, "San Diego Botanic Gardens"!). We brought lunch and spent hours playing in both the Seeds of Wonder garden and the Hamilton Children's Garden. They are both such awesome places for kids, and Parker and Josie (and even Levi, too!) seemed to be endlessly entertained and had a great time exploring and playing together. Levi climbed right up his first flight of stairs--that boy sure is a climber.

Family Trip to Quail

After days and days of rain, we awoke to a beautiful, sunny Christmas Eve. It was a perfect day to visit Quail Botanical Gardens with Ian and Krista and Forest. We showed them some of our favorite spots, and they got some pics of Forest celebrating his 10-month birthday!

Quail Botanical Gardens

Parker and I spent a few hours at Quail on Monday and had so much fun. We usually just head right for the "Seeds of Wonder" garden, which is targeted to toddlers and which is totally entertaining for him. But this time we walked through the main gardens to the newer children's garden, which is targeted to older kids but still lots of fun for him. Even better, the children's garden was practically deserted since school was back in session, so we had the place to ourselves! It was mostly a cool, cloudy day, so we didn't get too hot. This garden has a huge treehouse, an area with building blocks (where we sat on the ground and spent a lot of time making huge towers), a "mountain stream" with plastic boats for racing, and a raised vegetable garden. We saw lots of lizards, and found this butterfly lounging on the ground in the veggie garden (hopefully he was just "resting" and wasn't injured or sick...). I seized the opportunity to get a quick pic of Parker with the butterfly on his hand--that's usually not an easy feat! On the way back to the car we walked through a few different areas of the main garden, checking out awesome succulents and the huge waterfall in the "tropical rainforest" area. A great day.