Keep It Local: Brookside Gardens' "Wings of Fancy"

Happy Labor Day!  Summer is officially over  -- hard to believe, especially with today's incredibly hot and humid weather.  This week is back to school week for our whole family:  Kane heads back for another year of preschool; I'm all set for my first preschool experience; mom starts some continuing art education classes; and daddy, well, daddy continues schooling newbie lawyers in his biglaw school of hard knocks.  We have a lot on deck for the fam this fall and we've decided to scale back a bit on the blog for the moment.  Our current plan is to post three times a week, including one local spot to play, one art or craft project, and one whatever the heck we want (which will likely be a favorite moment of the week, funny thing we said, or particularly cute picture).

With that in mind, the local spot to play we're highlighting this week is Brookside Gardens' "Wings of Fancy" butterfly exhibit.  We've posted on Brookside Gardens before, but this was the first time we made it to see the butterflies.  We planned to meet some buddies there and completely lucked out by catching a gigantic black snake upon meeting up (see the pic our friend snapped below).  We wandered (mom wandered, we ran screaming through the gardens as usual) over to the butterfly exhibit and waited just a few minutes before entering -- they only allow a small number of people in at a time, which is why we had yet to visit -- it was so crowded this summer.  Upon entering, we received a great little "lecture" illustrating the life cycle of butterflies, complete with live examples of the different stages.  Kane seemed particularly interested in that.

Then we entered the greenhouse, which was HOT, but full of gigantic colorful butterflies.  Kane and I were truly enthralled -- we both sat quietly throughout the exhibit and patiently looked for the colors of the rainbow (we decided to try and find butterflies every color of the rainbow -- we succeeded).  We purposefully wore bright colors that day and one butterfly landed right on Kane's shoe!  And we both also enjoyed getting to hold specimens.  All in all, a big success.

"Wings of Fancy" is on exhibit until September 16th -- get there while you still can!

do you see the look on my face?  not a small snake.

Kane giving the butterfly cold shoulder.

OK, he can't ignore it anymore.  he has to explain the life cycle.

and it wasn't good news.

flap like a butterfly.

we knew dayglow shoes would come in handy.

my favorite -- the "polka dot one."

mom found a green one for Kane!

a quiet moment in the garden before splashing commenced.