A Day at the Garden

We took advantage of the weather today, and headed to the Garden. We had such a fun time today. We were supposed to go w/some friends, but there was an illness, so they couldn't come. So it was just Linda and I. We really had a great time. We only stayed in the children's garden for a short while, and then headed out to explore. There are over 12 miles of walkway in the garden to explore. It was fun to find places we haven't been before. Linda was commenting several times on how beautiful everything was. One time she said, "thank you Heavenly Father for leaves." It was so sweet. We ate lunch near a lake and out in the sun. The sun was come and go, and at times it was windy, but it was quite warm. We shed our jackets early in the day. We stumbled upon a whole garden themed around camelias. How beautiful they were. There must have been hundreds of them, and most of them were in bloom. They smelled so good too. Linda must have walked three miles today at least. She is so active. She didn't ask to get in the stroller one time. I used the stroller to carry all my stuff (jackets, drinks, lunch, travel potty, etc). We really had a nice time. It was one of those days I wish she didn't nap so we could stay and enjoy it more. We got there at 8:45 and left at 12:10. Did I mention what a nice time we had?

Linda's reading is really coming along now. She understands that words she sees actually mean something. We were looking at cards w/pic of insects on them. She was looking at the pic and didn't know the name of the insect. She saw the word and knew it was the name of the insect. She tried to sound out the word to find out the name of the insect. Too bad the word was cicada. But the fact that she tried was really neat. She is getting good at spelling now too. We play a game and she will say what letter does the word park start with. I'll sound it out, and come up w/the right answer. Then I ask her. She gets it right almost all the time. So now we have started to move on to the second letter in the word. She has peaked interest in reading books w/me now too. I have consistently been bringing home beginner reader books, but she never wanted to read them, even though she had the ability. A few weeks ago I pretended to have a hard time reading one, and asked her for help. She liked helping me figure out the words. Now when we are reading a reader book, she will say to me, "You have a hard time reading. I'll help you." We have talked about some pretty advanced stuff now like ee, silent e, oo. I want to introduce ch and th soon too. She knows sh. She is just doing so well.

I guess that's about it for now. This has been a long posting w/lots of pics, but I wanted to share w/everyone what was going on w/us.