Vacation, Day 3

On day three of our vacation, the main event was a trip to a botanical garden. We aren't much interested in gardening ourselves, but have had other good vacation days in fancy gardens and figured Hope would get a kick out of all the flowers and landscaping. We also figured that the "Garden State" would have something impressive in the way of a botanical garden. Not so much.

This particular garden was nice, but it wasn't all that interesting at all. Fortunately, we made the most of the things that did interest us about it and we learned a thing or two. For starters, we learned that Hope can eat an entire apple. She ate this sucker down to the seeds! No more need for me to cut her apples into slices ...


We also learned that Daddy is still compelled to mimick fountain statues. Maybe this is where Hope gets her love of fountains?


We definitely enjoyed this cool pond, and learned ...


Hope and I make different on-demand fish faces ...

And fish like crushed up granola bars. They came right up to the surface, and the way this pond is set up, that made them close enough to touch (if we'd allowed it). I'm pretty sure we were ~not~ allowed to feed a granola bar to the fish, so we were trying to keep it on the down-low but when Daddy reminded Hope it was a secret, she got kind of teary and said "I just want to tell Mommy!" She's not so slick!

After nap and a quick dip in the pool, we visited a dairy farm where we sampled a few artisan cheeses. The dairy lady told Hope that the cows made the cheese, which she thought was just the coolest thing. The couple of times that cheese has come up since then, she's said "The cows made it for me?"

On our way to dinner at a little brick-oven pizza place, we stopped at another orchard for more fresh blueberries and cherries. The amount of fruit that Daddy and Hope can go through is truly impressive ...

We opted to take dessert home with us, and Hope's dessert of choice was a brownie. Instead of being slow-moving or tired the way you'd expect her to be at bedtime, when we got back to the house she was galloping around singing about wanting her "blownie." For all the hooplah, I think she ate about two bites of it before trading it in for blueberries.