An Afternoon in the Garden

We decided to meet after work at the Botanical Garden, since it was a nice day. To get a workout, she used the baby carrier instead of the stroller. The new sunshade worked nicely, and Gabriel was in the shade the entire time.

There were lots of bullfrogs outside in a little pond, and we got to watch them "talking," swimming, and watching us. It was a treat, because we've never seen actual bullfrogs before. We've heard them, but they usually hop away before we can see them on our hikes.

After years of trying, we finally found poison dart frogs in the conservatory. There are always some in terraria, but there are also many that roam freely. From the sound of their chirping, there are lots of them, but we've never been able to find one. Today, we found 4 or 5 of them.

We also found a new hallway called the "orangerie," which literally means a greenhouse for orange trees but in this case is a place for all types of foodish trees. There was star anise, coffee, yerba maté, climbing oleander, curaré (a poison/medicine), cinnamon, ginger, vanilla vine, cocoa, curry leaf, bay leaf, annatto (has substance that is used to make cheese orange), and a few others.

By the time we were finished walking around the gardens, the Chipster was fast asleep in his daddy's arms. We had trouble looking at the plants, because we just wanted to watch him sleep. We think he's far more interesting than just about everything, even when he's doing nothing but snoozing.

Later, Gabriel was playing quietly in the living room - a definite clue that he was up to something. We snuck in and found him pulling tissues out of the box one by one and ripping them to shreds.

He's also been picking his nose a lot lately. He seems to really enjoy it. And that's not all - he has been biting, too. He left a nice marking of 4 teeth on his mommy's leg today at the botanical garden while they were playing in the grass and waiting for Daddy. We think that this just the beginning of many bad habits with which is will be torturing us in the coming years.