I thought I’d start documenting our Saturday family picnics around town, especially since hopefully soon we’ll be exploring a new town…more on that later :) Today we went to the Horticulture Center at Fairmount Park. Really, we need to go back in about two weeks, since it was chock full of cherry trees just about to bloom.

First in the arboretum:

This was apparently The Thinker made of . . . compost.

Paul looked around the greenhouse and said, “Everything in here is in my parents’ yard.” True.

These are all cherry trees. We’ll definitely come back in a week or two.

Miriam found some flowers to eat. This became the theme of the day.

Papa slept. This also became a theme of the day.

Every time I tried to take a picture of James by this statue, he jumped down. I have about five pictures of him jumping down off of this statue.

Miriam found more random detritus to eat. I spent most of this part of the day fishing stuff out of her mouth.

You should see how much stuff she’s stuffed in to her mouth at this point.

Papa slept some more.

James found a friend. Every time he sees a dog, no matter how far away, he exclaims, “Want to kiss the puppy!” Actually, he says this about cats, turtles, and fish too. He did not understand why fish do not want to be kissed.

Papa slept some more.

They are so close to blooming!

Can you see the stick hanging out of her mouth?

Lunch. Miriam managed so stuff not one but two very large cucumber spears into her mouth. I have no idea how she fit them. Our picnic today was:
Pesto Pasta Salad
Vegetable sticks with hummus
Chocolate Whoppers (cookies)

Then Papa went back to sleep for like an hour, so we wandered off to find something interesting to do. James thought these horses were pretty cool.

Then Miriam went to sleep, and Miriam cannot ever take a nap without a kiss from James.

The Japanese gardens are closed for the winter still, but we peered through the fence and watched the koi. There were lots of really large, bright koi that James loved to watch swim by. You can probably see a couple bright orange ones in the picture.

And a little turtle lazily floated by.

Just a few trees are coming into bloom. I’ll bring the kids back when it starts raining pink petals!