M0ther Earth

Hellu,

Happy June to you all! April 22nd was Earth day and also when my mom & I had planned to hang out. She’s super into gardening and all that (green thumb whereas mine is black), so I figured Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens would be the perfect setting for our day together…

We grabbed drinks on the way for a day out in the sunshine ^ luckily the weather was clear and warm! I wore my Brave Wilderness tee and my hair in two braids to keep myself cool. We were both blown away by the endless tulips they had right when you walk out into the gardens. I’m guessing they planted them for Easter, but it was nice to see them still around for Earth day. There were so many different colors (:

The next area we saw was the giant greenhouse ^ I even caught a glimpse of a cute lil skink running under the plants! There’s an orchid room full of different variants and every shade you can imagine. I’m sure mom could’ve named them all too, she knows more about plants and flowers than I ever will…

We were very excited to see they finally opened the butterfly room ^ the last few times Justin & I had visited, it was still under construction. The lady that let us in warned how humid it would be, but it honestly wasn’t as bad as she made it out to be. Mom adores butterfly bushes and other plants that attract such pretty wildlife, so she seemed to be in heaven! My favorite are the ones with the big spots on their wings that look like eyes…

Next, we took a walk through the Asian section where they have a big pond ^ I don’t know if you can see the fish in my pictures, but they’re there! A very cute sailboat in the middle too. We also caught some up-close shots of a sweet bumble bee in the flowers. He kept moving quickly from one to the other, so it was hard to snap pics haha mom was cracking up about it (:

Overall, she really enjoyed the gardens ^ it was such a lovely backdrop for a day of simply walking & talking with my mother. We caught up about work, her moving, our summer plans. They had a bunch of origami exhibits placed throughout the grounds which was a neat bonus. It was a lot of fun showing her around a place she’d never been too! But the day wasn’t over then…

I decided to take mom out to a late lunch/early dinner at Pie Five ^ she really liked picking out everything for her pizza (which ended up looking very similar to mine) and said it was awesome! That was a WIN, but now join me in laughing when I tell you the biggest fail of the day- we were going to return to my apartment to spend the rest of the day just chilling and maybe playing with the frogs or something, but when we got there I realized I didn’t bring my keys. Justin had been there when we left, but then went to work, and mom had driven. So she had to drive me all the way out to Justin’s work. I felt so bad and kept apologizing, but thankfully she wasn’t mad about it at all. She was just tired, so she ended up going home after dropping me off…

I hung out at World Market for the couple hours Justin had left in his shift, and picked up a few cute finds ^ the frog was bought at the Lewis Ginter gift shop though. I got gold bee hair pins, a floral silk headband, an agenda that I have yet to use, and I tried to make polenta for us… Justin didn’t like it

For Mother’s Day, last month, I got mom a box set of baking spices that she was happy to receive- now that she’s in a house of her own, I’m sure she’s excited to get a lot more use out of her nice, big kitchen! My sister Chelsea joined us at mom’s packed up apartment to have the lunch we made for her. I cooked up some chicken breasts the night before, marinated in Italian and herb & garlic dressings. Chels put together a pasta salad and we mixed them in a big bowl for a very yummy meal (: we also went out in the HEAT that day to walk around downtown for a bit, stopped in a pet store to see a kitty, grabbed ice creams, and sweated our butts off! It was a super good time though. I love my mama (: