Beautiful day, beautiful garden.

Last week the weather was beautiful and I was so excited to get the opportunity to go to the Frederick Meijer Gardens with my cousin Catherine (technically my cousin Cory's wife, but I'm claiming her as my own). :) Catherine was one of the four cousins pregnant at the same time about three years ago, and so she has a son, Joshua, who is just three weeks older than Elijah. We had a gorgeous day, and the boys played together very well. With the only exception being when Eli pushed Joshua off the picnic table while Joshua was climbing up. Eli thought Joshua was heading for his food. So other than my son being a bully, they played well! Catherine and I played together well too, and she never tried to get my food so I didn't have to push her. :)

I hadn't been to the gardens for over 10 years, and my how it has changed. It has expanded drastically and I just loved the walking paths and sculptures. We spent most of our time in the children's garden area, and that was so great just in itself. I'm definitely going to be getting a membership to the gardens!

There was so much to explore, but first the boys climbed a big giant hill next to a big giant horse sculpture ( I didn't take a picture of the horse for some reason), and then realized that their mommies were at the bottom while they were at the top. Hmm. So up the hill Catherine and I went as well. At the children's garden Elijah and Joshua chased each other in a maze, banged drums, rang bells, explored a tree house, had a tea party, dug up dinosaur bones in a giant sand area, played in a beaver's den, and splashed with boats in a big winding river. Whew! What a lot to do! To top it off we all had lunch together as well. Catherine and I were busy running after them most of the time, but we had a chance to chat and have fun too (not that we didn't find tree houses, dinosaur bones, and winding rivers excitement enough).

I think the highlight of the time for me was watching the boys play in the maze together and run around. They would run around corners and surprise each other and then both just laugh and laugh, then run away and surprise each other again. And when we had tea together the boys would politely fill each other's cups, pretend to drink, and didn't bicker at all. What a pair of delightful boys! I'm hoping we get to see more of Joshua and Catherine this fall and winter!

I didn't get out my camera very often, so if you want to check out some more pictures, you can see Catherine's blog as well. She has some great ones there!