Garden tour

Several months ago, Tom and I scoffed when we wrote activities on the calendar for today.  We were supposed to have a newborn by this time, right?  But we wrote them down "just in case" and as it so happens, we both got to do our fun activities today.

Tom took Lukas and Konrad to Railroad Days in Brea with Pete and three of his kids, Luke, Ruth and John.  They still aren't back, so I know they're having a blast looking at the model trains and hopefully some real trains too.  When I asked Tom if he wanted to take the camera with him, he said, "No, you'll need it to take pictures of the baby."  As if!  He was implying that I will give birth so quickly that he can't make it to the hospital in time!

Anyway, that meant I got to take the camera to the backyard paradise of my friend and former co-worker, Michelle.  Michelle has attained the high honor of being selected for the Mary Lou Heard Memorial Garden Tour.  As Natalie and I arrived at her home, I remembered taking walks during lunch with Michelle and talking about the different flowers that we saw (while I complained that I still wasn't pregnant...before Lukas).  She had a great garden, ended up moving to another home, discovered she had breast cancer, survived that and used gardening at the new home as her therapy during several recurrences of cancer.  Praise God she's going strong now!  And her garden is incredible in its design, flowers and care.  Great job, Michelle!  And I love that this garden tour donates your "tour fee" to pediatric cancer research, a women's shelter and a horticulture scholarship.


Have I told you that Natalie loves flowers?  I had been letting her pick the Shasta daisies in our backyard, but slowly I realized it might be becoming a problem if she couldn't resist picking flowers or didn't know when she couldn't pick, so now we make a point to tell her if she can pick flowers or not.  Most of the flowers in our front yard I don't allow her to pick (they would ruin the plants) and I make a point to tell her that she can pick certain flowers in the backyard.

On the way to Michelle's home, I told Natalie we would be seeing a lot of flowers, but she may not touch them...she could only look at them.  I rehearsed it with her several times, "Natalie, can we touch the flowers?"  "No!" she replied.

And she did great!  She's of course still a little unstable in an unfamiliar place with a few uneven areas, but I was proud of her self-control.  One reason she loves to pick flowers is she wants to smell them and take them with her.  So when she can't pick flowers, she just smells them, which is ok!  And she asked, "May I wash hands?" in the fountain, and restrained herself when I told her no.  (After stickers, water is her favorite stim item).

She was in heaven in Michelle's backyard.  I was too, but I was focusing more on Natalie and taking pictures, so I'm sure I missed a lot.  But hey, I got more out of it than I would have if our whole family had been there!  It was truly a beautiful morning to enjoy Michelle's backyard paradise.