Christmas at the Gardens

Ming Wai and Ernie examining a tree made entirely of lights

A yearly tradition, we LOVE to visit these gardens at Christmas time! They host yearly classes on how to make flowers and animals and such out of bundled-up lights, and everything made at the classes is added to the display- I don't know how long this has been going on, but it's rather enormous now. For the first time they're using a ticket system to limit attendance- luckily, our "normal" day to attend (a Monday early in the month) was one of the remaining free days! The kids love to stick dollar bills into the birdhouse donation box, so we did that.

Mimi basking in the glow

The LoLo family (Uncle LoLo couldn't make it)


We knew that parking could be crazy, so we met my sister's family for dinner and carpooled from her house. We had to laugh as we drove away- driving together was supposed to make it EASIER, but it took a solid fifteen minutes to get all four kids into their seats. But, we realized, that was only a few minutes more than it normally takes to get just two kids in the car, so all in all it wasn't bad!

Running, running running

Ming Wai has had a really, REALLY rough time falling asleep lately- 10:30 is a pretty normal time to see her poke her head out and see what's going on in the house. We found a trail that led back to the parking lot, and let us bypass walking on the shoulder of the road. Wonder Daddy started letting the kids run off some energy, and Aunt LoLo challenged him: If Ming Wai is asleep by 8:45, I'll make you brownies.

Do you KNOW how much this man adores brownies? Those kids ran at least a quarter mile, all over the field, chasing and being chased by Wonder Daddy. He gets brownies tomorrow :)