Amarillo Botanical Garden of Christmas Lights

We have been to see the Christmas lights display at the Amarillo Botanical gardens before.  I took the kids in 2014, and they even sat on Santa's lap for a second.

Sidebar:  We saw Santa at the mall a few days ago, and I asked the kids if they wanted to sit on his lap or get a photo taken or tell him what they wanted for Christmas.  They said no.  Connor informed me that he is too old for such things.  He said, "Come on, Mom, I am almost ten!"

Anyways, we saw the lights.  The whole family went.  It was an evening full of holiday magic.

Photos, to wit:

But first, let me take a selfie with this Christmas agave tree.

Lex, hanging out with his friend, a violin-playing toad dressed as Santa.

This is our *official* family photo.  It was taken by a person who was working there, wearing a badge that read, "Ask Me to Take Your Photo."  Seriously.  I don't know how qualified she was for her job.  But we look great in front of that waterfall, no?

Lex, in the wild blue holiday yonder.

Here's that Melodious Toadious guy again.  He seems suspect honestly.  But, I suppose he can't get far with those lights tangled up in his feet.

I like this Nativity Scene.

Here is our second attempt at an *official* family photo.  It worked out much better.  Connor is a little ninja.

This one is almost all of us.  Some of us were missing and completely done being a part of *official* family photos.  And that's all right.  We were there to have fun, and we did.

'Tis the Season, Y'all.

Night Blow 2016 at WTAMU

On Saturday night, I took the kids to West Texas A&M University for an art event.  It was located in the campus hot shop, and there were two visiting artists from Dale Chihuly's studio that were doing a glass blowing demonstration.  A better reporter would have made a note of their names, but alas, I did not.  I was just there for the show.



The kids and I watched them make a brown and orange glass fox for a while.

I have always loved watching people blow glass.  We used to watch the demonstrations at the hot shop at the Franklin Park Conservatory when we lived in Columbus.

The boys eventually found some of their friends, and they spent more time playing with them than actually watching the demonstration.  I think they missed the entire tumbleweed part.  It's okay, because they had a wonderful time.  Hopefully in the future they will remember this event and connect the wonderful time that they had with the art.

The finished product was a fox sitting on a (somewhat abstract) tumbleweed.

After glass blowing demonstration was finished, there was a dance performance.  Which was lovely.

Then the kids discovered the joys of flying paper airplanes from the second floor down onto the first floor in the atrium of the art department building.  Let's just call this part of the evening their hands-on origami and physics lesson, and not what it really was, which was five little boys running around and causing a raucous at a university art event close to their bedtimes.

And then we went home.

Amarillo Botanical Gardens - Christmas Lights Edition

We visited the Amarillo Botanical Gardens earlier this fall to see their pumpkin displays, and while we were there, we saw some guys installing some of the lights for the Christmas display.  So I've been looking forward to going and seeing the lights for a while now. 

Finally, we got to go see the 100,000 lights in the gardens.

Lex gave it a thumbs-up.

 Say "Cheese" and stay still at the same time?  No.  No way.

Waterfall of lights in front of an actual waterfall.

Santa was there!  It was an unexpected surprise, and if the kids had known beforehand that this was going to happen, they would not have agreed to go.  In fact, they had to be bribed with candy canes to even go see Santa once we were there.  Neither of them told Santa what they wanted for Christmas, though.  It's no big deal.  We all already know what they want.

Amarillo Botanical Gardens

When I heard that the Amarillo Botanical Gardens had decorated with more than 1,000 pumpkins and gourds, I decided it was time to go for our first visit.



Because pumpkins.

I mean, we all know that I love pumpkins.  And flowers.  And taking photos.  So it was a perfect way to spend about 45 minutes one afternoon, which is how long the boys would abide such nonsense.





None of us had ever seen these awesome flowers before.

It's Midnight Ginger.

Banana!  (You must say it like the Minions.)

This reminds me of the waterfall in the Cleveland Botanical Gardens.

It turns out that pumpkins and roses go together perfectly.

I may not have a Texas Drivers' License yet...

...but I do have a local Texas library card.

And now, I have a membership card to the Houston Museum of Natural Science, too.

You see, when we went to visit last week, after we had added up the admission prices for myself and the boys, I was only $1 less than buying a family membership for a year.  So I went ahead and splurged that extra bit.

And I think it was worth it.  We didn't make it through the whole museum that day, and there are several areas that I know the kids are going to want to visit again and again.

Like the dinosaur hall.



There are so many different T-Rex skeletons on display!  Which makes the kids happy, because that's one of their favorites.

Another favorite?

Quetzalcoatlus.  For real, that thing was H.U.G.E.  And it could fly.

We also visited the Butterfly Center, and it was A-MAH-ZING.  You all know that I loved the annual Blooms & Butterflies exhibit at the Franklin Park Conservatory in Columbus, and this was so much bigger, butterfly-wise.  Everything really is bigger in Texas, is what Connor always says. 






There were hundreds of butterflies everywhere.  Maybe even thousands in the room.

You almost couldn't walk through the exhibit without having them flutter around your head.



It was enough to make some certain people nervous.  But not scared, because who is afraid of butterflies? 

This guy.  He likes to be picked up.

Our friends.  So glad you could join us.

Then randomly, we came across a male green iguana named Charro.  He's orange because he is 13 years old.

Lex calls these ones zebra butterflies.  He wasn't interested in looking at the guide to find out what they are really called.

So there are probably already enough photos of butterflies for one post, but here is another one anyway.



Because, why not?

Blooms & Butterflies & Boys

It's that time of year again when the butterflies are on display at the Franklin Park Conservatory.  Since it has become something of an annual tradition, I took the boys again this year.

Photo by Connor

This is some sort of moth.  It isn't flying around in the gardens, but there were several on display.  They are huge!  Probably the size of a dinner plate.  I'm sure that if I ever saw one flying around outside in the dark, I would mistake it for a bat.















 

The End