Brookside Gardens Field Trip

This past week we went on Laneah's final field trip for the school year. It was at Brookside Gardens. The weather was worrisome; it was supposed to rain but luckily held off and the temperature was perfect. The Gardens has a butterfly house, which was the main purpose of the field trip. I wasn't sure exactly how Brooklyn would do since at Christmastime she screamed her head off at the butterfly house in St Louis when about 10 of them landed on her, but she was very excited. She kept pointing to the butterflies and saying "bu fi". The garden inside the butterfly house was beautiful. It was small and full of potted flowers and there were lots of butterflies. Some of the butterflies flew around, but a lot of them were content just to sit still on the flowers. 

Laneah loved it. The butterfly house in St Louis is set up like a rainforest and is very hot and humid so Laneah doesn't like to stay in it very long. It was warm in this butterfly house, but it wasn't hot or humid, so we spent about 30 minutes or so inside. 

Laneah desperately wanted one to land on her or get on her finger. 

Ms Debbie showing Laneah the caterpillar part of the butterfly. 

They had a little station set up where the kids could touch (dead, but preserved) butterflies. The girls thought this was really cool. 

I love her expression in this photo. Total awe. 

Brooklyn is so funny. She gets very focused in activities so even when she is having the time of her life she has the most somber expression. 

The girls were excited to learn that the butterflies liked watermelon. Laneah asked "mom, can I have some?" Ewww

I brought a yellow cardigan for Laneah because I thought the butterflies would like it, but it was too warm to wear in the garden. She was so desperate to have a butterfly land on her that I wrapped it around her waist and sure enough a butterfly landed on her. But it was on her side and as soon as I told her she swirled around to get a better look and it flew off. You can still see it flying off though. She was very happy. 

As you can tell from this picture. 

I tried to get a picture of them together. I think they made a pact not to smile at the same time or something. 

Laneah and Braiden off to get a closer look at the butterflies. 

After visiting the butterflies we went out into the gardens. They had beautiful flowers, fountains and elaborate landscape. The had a huge section of roses and it had rained that morning so there were huge glittering rain drops on the roses and it smelled like heaven. 

Then we had a picnic lunch before talking a walk. 

The park was huge and we only saw a part of it. We went to a pond and walked across and stone bridge to a gazebo overlooking the pond where we saw lots of turtles, fish and geese. The kids couldn't get close enough; I was afraid they were going to fall in. 

They also had a little kid park with a treehouse, a little garden, a hallowed out tree with the cutest little door and cute little outdoor tables and chairs for tea parties. 

After the kids area we separated from the group and went over to ride the carousel. The train wasn't running because of the rain and mud from earlier, but the girls were content to ride the carousel. 

It was a great field trip and the girls loved it.