I missed a day blogging since yesterday was Saturday and I ended getting up bit later than usual. Keira was nice enough to make sausage and pancakes and get the kids up.
Yesterday morning we headed over to Duke garden. It was hot. We forgot to bring strollers, so the kids ended up walking around for most of the two hours we were there. First, we headed over to the discovery garden, which was looking pretty amazing. They had this field of different color flowers that were taller than Alexandra with a short trail. We walked through that trail and took some nice pictures. Then we visited the chickens and took some pictures next to these huge sunflowers.
We then walked over through the woods and down the hill toward the red oriental bridge, following a stone path that we don’t usually use with the strollers. It was challenging to coax Harvey to do the walk, but Alexandra did great holding Keira’s hand. There was this little nook with wooden benches at the end of the lake that we rested at for awhile before going over the red bridge. Both Alexandra and Harvey like walking over the red bridge. After that, I took Alexandra’s hand and we walked along the water towards the Duck area, stopping at a bench. Keira tried to get Harvey to follow by saying “bye bye”, but Harvey didn’t want to leave the bridge. So I went down there and tried to coax him away. He told me “Doh-wah Doh-wah Doh-wah” while pointing at me. We’re not sure what this means, but we think it means go away? Then Keira yelled from the bench down the lake, “Harvey, do you want orange?!?” And I said, “Oh, orange! Let’s go eat orange!” Then he ran after me towards Keira doing his jumping run.
After eating the orange and resting for some minutes, we continued walking down the lake towards the Ducks, being very careful to cross the wooden bridges that don’t have railings. There was a lot of Ducks since all their babies had gotten pretty big. I wondered where all the Duck’s went since now the population was much greater than normal.
After a quick “Hi Ducks”, we headed up the hill. The ducks followed us for a ways. At this point, Harvey decided enough was enough and he wouldn’t walk anymore, he just stood there making a kind of fake crying type noise. After a while I gave in and picked him up, carrying him up the hill back towards the parking lot. The parking lot was within sight when we decided to stop by a grove of very tall green bamboo. Alexandra loved to walk through the bamboo, and Harvey started piling the bamboo leaves into an empty tree trunk. Keira said he looked like a cave man doing that. I think she meant he looked like he was preparing to have a fire in the tree trunk. Keira showed Alexandra how to grab some leaves, scrunch them up, and drop them in a leaf shower. I thought maybe we can make a bamboo grove like this in front of our new house.
Finally, we headed back to the car and home to lunch (Speghetti and guacamole). Although it was hot, it was a fun trip to Duke garden. It was great to have the kids start walking around on their own more, and be free from the tyranny of pushing strollers over the gravel paths. We didn’t even get to see the grand staircase of plants in the garden that changes with the seasons, but we didn’t care that much. We got to explore some areas we hadn’t seen, and had hopefully tired the kids out enough so that they would sleep through the afternoon.
Looks like a good time for the whole family! When I was a child, our family used to drive to some of the local parks for a picnic or cook out in the summer time. The parks usually had play areas for the children. If it was a hot day, we would go swimming in the lake to cool off. Sometimes we went on a little hike on the trails in the Taughannock Falls gorge area. There are many parks in the Finger Lakes area.