Monday, May 5, 2014

The Day of the Tulips

Sometimes my family gets these really great idea.

"Let's go see the tulips!" they say
"It'll be a nice lovely stroll in the garden!" they think
"and a picnic lunch! Such peace, such reverence, such joy!" they claim

Lies. All lies. Except the parts which were true.

It was the last day of the tulip festival, which apparently means that every resident of the entire state must migrate to the garden. (Were you one of them? Hi Marianne! We saw you walking through the parking lot.)

After eating lunch at our park, which was crowded with the only 75 people who weren't at Thanksgiving Point, we headed for the garden. But when we got there ALL of the parking lots were full. And the line to be allowed the privilege of paying had filled the foyer, and was out the door and around the culdesac. I immediately declared that it seemed like a great day for a pony ride and ran for farm country.

Where we had a fabulous (and only a little crowded) time.

The kids were red faced before we even started because it dang hot outside.

Ryann, Lucy, Tommy, John and Ian

The kids were unreasonably excited about the whole thing. They couldn't wait to see the animals. Ryann was especially excited about seeing the baby chicks, and taught us about the egg tooth. Tommy saw I was taking a picture of the girls and cheese-ball photobombed. I love that kid.
Tommy, Lucy, Ryann, Grandma Fugal
 After riding ponies we wandered to the bird cages.
This peacock wouldn't stop showing off - which was SO cool.
I love this boy - and snapping a picture where he's not doing the cheesy smile is rare these days.
Tommy
Little John ran around like a crazy kid, then finally stopped to stare at the rabbits. He is rockin' the crazy blue eyes which I was certain would be long gone by now.
Little John
In "jail" we told the kids to make their bad-guy-est faces. The kid on the left wasn't with us, but he was in jail with us, and I suppose nothing bonds people like sharing a cell. 
Random kid, Ryann, Tommy
 Ian's eyes didn't stop sparkling the whole time we were there, and somehow I captured only 1 of 2 possible seconds he wasn't grinning from ear to ear.
"Baby" Ian
 Lucy got on the wagon and just giggled and giggled, she was so excited!
Lucy, Tommy, Ryann

Finally we were exhausted so we went to get ice cream, where we waited in line for a long long time. After ice cream, I still really wanted to see the tulips, so we headed to the garden to see if the line was still insane. It wasn't, and the air was cooler and there was a magic cloud cover which made the walking around much more pleasant. It was a beautiful evening. 

Since Katy watches my kids 2-3 times/week these kids know and love each other so well. I don't get to see them all interact that often, so it's especially fun for me to watch them be bestbuds.

Tommy, Ryann & Lucy open their arms and invite Little John to join them.

And then he does.
 Lulu posed by every flower for the first 15 minutes before she got bored of being "so beautiful". I wonder what it's like living with such a girly girl. :)
Lucy
I know Grandma's don't have favorites, but I feel a little confident that if they did Little John would be in  her top 12 grandsons.
Gramma offers a "bump it" to Little John

Little John accepts

Grandma explodes - sounds effects and all
 I'm not sure why, but there were some bouncy houses available. The old ones (me and grandma and grandpa) were bored and concerned that the kids thought the giant blow up slides were cooler than the beautiful flowers.
Tommy eventually got brave enough to jump and bounce down the slide. 
 It looks like we were there in the dead of winter, but the whole place was blooming, just not behind the "royalty bench".
Ryry, Lulu, T
 Somebody somewhere taught all of these kids that hills are for rolling down. Most of them aren't great at it (I mean really, look at Little John's form here....) but they all giggle uncontrollably the whole way down. So....
Lucy running, Ryann standing over Tommy and Little John "rolling" with both feet and head in the air while only his hip maintains contact with the ground.
 But seriously, the flowers were breathtaking.
pink tulips - so many pink tulips


3 comments:

  1. Ha ha, YES! It was AWFUL! We stayed for ten minutes and then left! I had already been with the kids last week on a really good day, but James missed out. Oh well! We were just killing time between Utah County commitments that day and we have a pass so it was no big loss. You're fired for not saying hi!

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  2. Lovely flowers and adorable kiddos!! Miss you guys! xoxox

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  3. It was such a beautiful day. I love those kids together! Thanks for taking the girls along for the tulips while I wimped out and went home with Ian bop. Love you!

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