Our Visit To Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens.

Griffin and I went to Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens with Carol, Hannah and Sam yesterday.

We had such a great time. The weather was perfect, the flowers were beautiful and we enjoyed seeing the Butterflies Live exhibit they are hosting.

This post consists of pictures of our group enjoying the gardens. I'm continuing with a second post about the flowers and finally the third post will be about the butterflies.

Sit back and enjoy our beautiful day ...


Look Mommy ... there's fish! Griffin discovered fish in the pond in the Japanese Garden.


Here we see Griffin and Sam feeding the fish.


Hannah, Griffin and Sam taking a little rest.


Carol and Hannah entering what we called "the secret garden".


In the Children's Garden they had huts and houses with different things the kids could do. Griffin loved playing the drums!


We climbed to the top of the tree house and I caught this cool picture of Griffin enjoying the view.


Our sweet boy butterflies!


They have a water area for the children to enjoy ... we made sure to pack their swimsuits for some water fun ... Griffin called it "the carwash".


Is there anything better than cooling down under the sprinklers on a hot summer day?

Continue reading the next two posts for pictures of the flowers and butterflies!

Lewis Ginter: The Flowers

Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens has THE most beautiful gardens I've seen.

I thought I would share a few pictures of some of the pretty flowers we saw.


I'm not sure what this is called ... but it is soooo pretty!! One of our neighbors actually has this plant growing up her mailbox. I wish I knew what it was called ... I would LOVE to have one of them!


The rose garden was HUGE ... here's a few blossoms ... they were so sweet smelling too!


Another plant I do not know the name of ... it was pretty though ... so I had to take a picture.


Okay ... so I know the name of this one ... bird of paradise. Growing up I remember this was one of my Momma's favorite plants. If I remember correctly we had one growing in our yard at one time.


And my favorite flower? The sunflower of course!! They were very tall and very pretty.

Keep reading for a tour of the Butterflies Live exhibit ...

Lewis Ginter: The Butterflies

Lewis Ginter is hosting a live butterfly exhibit through October.

It was amazing seeing all of the beautiful butteflies flying around, resting and even eating!


This is the first butterfly we happened upon ... we had no idea the treat we were in for!


Each one we saw was prettier than the next.


Who knew butterflies enjoyed citrus?


This was a gorgeous (huge!) blue butterfly. I could never capture his wings open on camera. Griffin got an up close look at him.


Another pretty butterfly


And even another pretty butterfly.

If you live locally and have a chance to visit Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens take the time to enjoy this absolutely gorgeous place!

Griffin Update.

Whewwwwwwwww ... that's me breathing a sigh of relief.

The prognosis from the doctor is constipation. All he saw on the x-ray was lots of stool packed in there ... gross I know ... but THANK GOODNESS!! He suggested an over-the-counter stool softener, Miralax. We are hoping that does the job.

I just wanted to let you all know how very much your kind words and prayers meant to us.

Griffin is such a great kid ... he's a rambuctious, full of life four-year-old boy. He surprises me everyday with the things he knows and the things he can do.

I'm so lucky to be his Mommy.

Griffin's Tummy X-Rays.

A couple of weeks ago I took Griffin to the doctor because he was complaining about a tummy ache. He complained for about a week before I actually took him to the doctor. His tummy would hurt at different times of the day. He wasn't trying to avoid eating or anything. He would scream and cry and say "my tummy not feel better Mommy".

The pediatrician felt he had gastroenteritis (sp?) and he prescribed Prevacid. It seemed to help a little bit, however he was still having tummy aches.

This past weekend it got worse. On the drive home from Washington, DC he cried for about an hour with a tummy ache.

I knew we were scheduled for his four-year-old wellness check-up on Tuesday and of course we wanted to have this problem checked out again.

The doctor said there were hundreds of different reasons to experience abdominal pain. He said most times in children it was due to constipation. He recommended Griffin have an X-Ray done on his abdomin and we will go from there.


Griffin was a very brave boy yesterday. After seeing the pediatrician and getting four (yes four!) shots ... we headed for the hospital for a "picture of his tummy".


The X-Ray technician was very nice and allowed me to take this picture of our brave little boy on the X-Ray table.

The doctor is supposed to call me tomorrow with the results. I am hoping it's something minor ... or better yet ... nothing at all. Can you please keep Griffin in your prayers. We pray his tummy aches go away.

After being such a big, brave boy we headed for Chick-Fil-A for lunch and then on to Walmart for a special John Deere tractor set.

I pray this is nothing serious.

I love my son and I just want everything to be okay.

John Deere Mom Give-A-Way!

John Deere Mom has another super cool give-a-way going on at her blog!

She is giving away these awesome John Deere action figures ...











Visit her blog by clicking HERE for your chance to win!

Fourth Of July In Washington, DC

We had the absolute pleasure of spending the Fourth of July in Washington, DC.

It was such an amazing trip and over the next few posts I would like to share our trip with you.

Hang on for a whirlwind visit in our nation's capital!

After arriving in Washington, DC on Friday evening we decided to first visit the Lincoln Memorial.

It is such a moving experience to be there ...


The Lincoln Memorial ... if you look closely at his hands folklore says his left hand is signing the letter A and his right hand is signing the letter L for Abraham Lincoln.


Such a beautiful message


A closer look ...


Our little family in front of the memorial


I love this picture of Mike and Griffin sitting under some of the inscribed words


I thought I would share a picture looking out from the Lincoln Memorial over the reflecting pond you can see the Washington Monument and the United States Capital. In this picture you can see some of the huge crowd that was there.


And a closer view of the same scene ...


Next we visited the Vietnam War Memorial Wall ...

The Vietnam War Memorial Wall

I'll be very honest ... the words to describe visiting the Vietname War Memorial Wall are very hard to find.

I think I will let the pictures speak for themselves ...











Visiting "The Wall" is something I wish you can all do in your lifetime ... it is such a moving experience.

We then headed to the World War II Memorial ...

The World War II Memorial.

Our Daddy was a veteran of World War II ... it's something he was very proud of.

The World War II Memorial is fairly new. This is the first time we have visited the memorial ... it was a must see for us this trip.


The memorial is absolutely beautiful


Just look how beautiful


Although Daddy lived in Florida for many, many years ... he was originally from Alabama and it was something he was very proud of as well. I had to have my picture taken by Alabama.


The seal that marks the memorial


If there is water ... Griffin is near it.

After The World War II Memorial visit we headed back to our hotel until Saturday morning.