Action-packed, and not

the last day of May

""The air is like a butterfly
With frail blue wings.
The happy earth looks at the sky
And sings."
~Joyce Kilmer, Spring

We had fantastic lightening last night here - well, inside the thunder boomers level with the airplane as it descended to the Dallas airport



and in the dark as we drove from the airport, and then while I lay on my air mattress in Jenny's living room with the blinds open watching. The blinds open at night at my own house never ever happens, so I made that happen here from 11:00 when we hit the sack, til after 1:00 a.m. When I decided groggily I'd seen enough theatrics and I was ready for sleep. For real.


-----

There's no telling yet what I'll do here while Jen's at school today... it's early and she's gone and I could go back to bed I'm so drowsy. We both woke early. It's gray outside still, probably super humid - duh, it's raining. Don't want to walk miles in that though I want the workout. Hm. I'm surrounded by boxes and piles of things she's begun organizing. Disorganizing. Jen'll be home this afternoon ready to say... We need just time together, dirctions, and boxes to build - and tape to strap them!

I did luxuriate in seeing the Today Show a while on her TV, but it's not all that. I'm used to catching snippets on the rec center TV waiting for Laura to come work out with me, stretching and getting my pulse up - not stretches of reporting while I'm tucked into my daughter's comfy bed in soft clothes and, well, my eyes closing.

I'm out

I'm out this afternoon heading for Dallas. For Jenny for a week and a day of wrapping things up at her apartment and in her school room as the school year ends. As her job ends, this life she's had... four years... we did this in 2008 bringing her from here to there for the teaching job, and if it weren't now for Robert and the boys and falling in love and getting married and having another job, a different kind on the horizon, she'd be getting ready to fly here in a few weeks for vacation like she did last summer, to stay awhile with me instead of me going to her.

Me going to her to tape up boxes, label and stack them, some for the post office to be shipped, some to be driven to Michigan with them two weeks after they're married and can swing down for them. (Just another Herculean effort this summer!) Sell furniture and give off things that aren't making the trip with her and Robert away from her apartment to their little house. To be theirs - not just hers anymore - if there's not room for it or if there's already one, why bring it? To pack luggage and baggage that'll fly home with us to Utah in eight days to help her be here, our guest, get married and go on her honeymoon and come back ready to travel further to more celebrations in another state with family and friends before she flies away at last to be the wife and ready-made mom. (They get home, Robert goes to work and Jenny wakes to make breakfast and do dishes already. Play with the boys or give them jobs. Set up the house. Make dinner.) To sift and sort and throw out what's now possibly junk after these four years in Dallas - oooh, we dejunked and cleaned all those years ago, dumping her out of her apartment there (link to July 25 2008 post) and Jenny knows I clean up a place like nobody's business, no mercy; giving to Goodwill whatever's not that, but only just, and can be used.



No more time to write. My bags are packed. The perishables are out of the fridge. I'm out.

Memorial Day and a get together

But the freedom that they fought for, and the country grand they wrought for,
Is their monument to-day, and for aye. ~Thomas Dunn English



On Memorial Day yesterday, with flags flying in our neighborhood in slight breezes, I hosted a picnic on our back porch. The weather was good to us. Clouds've rolled over the mountains away from here and the sun's poured on us, bringing us to 71 degrees. By dinner time the highest temperature in three days of rain. Time to all be together in the back yard! Dan and Amy and their kids came, Ellie with her sweet baby smiles and the boys all high energy. Scott came with Emily and she was introduced around. They're holding hands and beaming at us and each other. With mom and dad and Kent and me we made eight adults and the two kids to eat.

Last year dad and mom and Kent and I made the trip in the Pilot to Springville to decorate dad's and mom's parents' graves. It was the beginning of the end for Dad in a way, or rather a transition - for worse, not better. On that day he walked so much around the cemetery, got so much in and out of the car, rode so far in one position making that trip that his knee went kablooey. And it's been uncooperative all year. He's happier not moving around much...the best he likes to do is go down on his walker with mom to the dining room.

But this day he did agree to bring mom for our get together. Maybe because he knew there'd be potato salad and hamburgers grilled with onion and made with a big slice of tomato. Hot dogs besides, apple-banana-marshmallow salad, watermelon, baked beans and ooey gooey carmelitas. By Lulu the Baker (link)

32 caramel squares, unwrapped
1/2 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1 cup flour
1 cup rolled oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
6 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
-----

Or this version (link) which doubles the recipe and uses Caramel topping instead of unwrapping and melting 32 caramels:

2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups rolled oats
1 1/2 cups butter, melted
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 jar (10-12 ounces) caramel ice cream topping
1 bag (11 ounces) milk chocolate chips
1/2 - 1 teaspoon sea salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine caramels and cream in a small saucepan over low heat. Stir until completely smooth; set aside. In a separate bowl, combine melted butter, brown sugar, flour, oats, and baking soda. Pat half of the oatmeal mixture into the bottom of an 8x8" pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Remove pan from oven and sprinkle chocolate chips over crust. Pour caramel mixture over chocolate chips. Crumble remaining oatmeal mixture over caramel. Return to oven and bake an additional 15 to 20 minutes, until the edges are lightly browned. Remove from oven and cool completely before cutting

*A stint in the fridge will help them cool off if you're pinched for time. They shouldn't be served cold, but all of that molten caramel takes a long time to cool down. They should be stored and served at room temperature.



These cut into three-by-three squares are decadent.



And there were the banana chocolate chip cookies I made a few days ago. (Why do I get obsessed with treats, and not so much real food? At least I hold nothing back here.) There was a black banana, ew, that needed using then and these are my go-to cookies for such. Mom took one bite of hers after dinner and lit up. Gooood, she said. It was good for me to look across the table at her and see that reaction. So much else so much of the time now is confusion for her. This flavor and texture (her own recipe) she can remember! I love that.

This day almost marks the beginning of summer. We had a good old-fashioned summer time.

Chaff from the wheat

Kent's reading still from Journal of Discourses. Volume 2 now; and read to me last night part of a speech by Brigham Young about persecution and trials.

Well, do you think that persecution has done us good? Yes. I sit and laugh, and rejoice exceedingly when I see persecution. I care no more about it than I do about the whistling of the north wind, the croaking of the crane that flies over my head, or the crackling of the thorns under the pot. The Lord has all things in His hand; therefore let it come, for it will give me experience. Do you suppose I should have known what I know know, had I not been persecuted? I can now see the hearts of the children of men with the same clearness as I can your persons in the light of day. I know we have been sunk in the depths of poverty and wretchedness, by the hands of our enemies, but in this we have seen the works of the Lord, and the works of darkness intermingled; this has taught us to discriminate between the two, that we may learn to choose the good, and refuse the evil; or in other words, to separate the chaff from the wheat.

I had Kent repeat the last part: "...this has taught us to discriminate between the two [works of the Lord and the works of darkness], that we may learn to choose the good and refuse the evil;" I said, Did you catch that, Kent? Choose good - not just know the difference.

It brings to mind being little and learning to sing "I Am a Child of God" in Primary. I do remember sitting on the front row of the chapel for Primary (Tuesday afternoons those years) in my dress with a full skirt and bow at the back and white rolled down socks and black Mary Janes... I remember the music leader telling us that the lady who had written the song wrote "Teach me all that I must know to live with Him someday." But that Primary leaders had *changed the words to "Teach me all that I must do to live with Him someday." As a little girl I learned there is a difference between "know" and "do."

So "...do you think that persecution has done us good? Yes. The Lord has all things in His hand." Life is a winnowing, a threshing. Rubs us the wrong way oft times that we may know by our experience; ah, but not only - to know isn't enough. That we may be good, choose good, and refuse evil. Taken in our hands we may separate chaff from wheat, choose which to keep and which to throw away.



*Randall composed the first three verses of "I Am a Child of God" at the request of the general board of the Primary Association, of which she was a member.The board wanted a song that could teach children about LDS Church teachings on the nature of a child's relationship with God.The song was first performed at a stake Primary conference in 1957. After hearing the performance, LDS Apostle Spencer W. Kimball asked the Primary general board, of which Randall was a part, if the phrase "Teach me all that I must know / To live with him someday" could be changed to "Teach me all that I must do / To live with him someday". As Kimball later explained, "To know isn't enough. The devils know and tremble; the devils know everything. We have to do something." Randall accepted the change.

Conscience

“Life is change. If you aren't growing and evolving, you're standing still, and the rest of the world is surging ahead.” ― Louise Penny, Still Life

“I was tired of seeing the Graces always depicted as beautiful young things. I think wisdom comes with age and life and pain. And knowing what matters.” ― Louise Penny, A Fatal Grace

“Now here's a good one:
you're lying on your deathbed.
You have one hour to live.
Who is it, exactly, you have needed
all these years to forgive?” ― Louise Penny, A Fatal Grace

“Or - perhaps - I should just worry about my own behavior and let others be who they are.” ― Louise Penny
-----

Good quotes. I'm still spellbound by the books they come from which are the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache mysteries by Louise Penney.

STILL LIFE
A FATAL GRACE
THE CRUELEST MONTH
A RULE AGAINST MURDER
THE BRUTAL TELLING
BURY YOUR DEAD
A TRICK OF THE LIGHT

I finished "The Brutal Telling" last night. Here's a quote from the last page - where almost at the last paragraph still the mystery is being solved - that had me in awe. So that I called Scott and got him and he listened while I quoted it (as we do with bits from great authors) while he was driving. He's the first I always want to tell. So that I was resolved to post it here:

“But there was no hiding from Conscience.

Not in new homes and new cars. In travel. In meditation or frantic activity. In children, in good works. On tiptoes or bended knee. In a big career. Or a small cabin.

It would find you. The past always did.

Which was why, Gamach knew, it was vital to be aware of actions in the present. Because the present became the past, and the past grew.

And got up, and followed you.

And found you."―Louise Penny, The Brutal Telling



Now I've gotta' say that before you run pell mell to download these books or borrow them from the library on my recommendation I was disappointed and saddened by bad language after the first one, "Still Life." There was none in that - that seemed a miracle to me: eloquent, intelligent, compelling writing and a darn good story. Spellbound I have been! And I waded right into the second book where the writing and the story are equally gripping, but took a hit in an explosion of bad language. I tell you I staggered. The story would settle then there'd be another eruption.

I'm walking point now through each book, wary, as through a land mine. Though my kids protect me from hardships in books and movies and songs these years days saying, don't, mom, it'll hurt you, I DO know to flinch and step lightly. And when to put it down. I'm mortified she did it - gave "ugly" and "sullen" strong speaking parts in her lovely, even lofty dialogue - and wasn't it so in heaven from the Beginning? - but to Louise Penney's credit or my shame I haven't put a book down yet. Go figure.

Disclaimer done. If you want the characters' lives and mysteries in sequence, read the books in the order above.

Or perhaps just go back to the top and enjoy one of Louise Penney's quotes again.
-----

"Don't mistake dramatics for a conscience." ―Louise Penny, A Fatal Grace

Again

We hiked. Again - not a week after being at Red Butte Garden I was itching to be back on a trail.



Kent likes to do this but it wasn't until we'd hiked an hour or more and had that to walk back that he said he'd rather be playing racquetball! All roads lead up in the beginning and we broke out often with breathtaking views.



Too pretty!



Kent's good the way he'll hike hard a while generally letting me go ahead, and then slow or stop for me to crouch beside a little something on the trail.



Our goal this day was Elephant Rock, way in the distance, see? I wrote about it on my other post about Mueller Park Trail using Internet pics. Well who knew then if I'd'a been looking up instead of at my feet, and'd known where I was headed, I'd'a seen the big rock in the distance most of the way.



Beautiful, shimmery day!



More up close... trees have been felled by the wind and chopped up by park rangers I guess to keep them off the trail. Is this bugs? I asked Kent, pointing to these tracks, who nodded. In the breezes around us the trees still standing creaked at their tops, miles high it seems.



Everywhere right now, new growth.



And the light!



Don't you just love this man!



And the view... far



and near.



I never tire of taking pics of the path - coming and going. What's the attraction? Each is the same it's evident, dirt packed by walkers and bikers, rock-studded and softly fringed especially now. A mystery each is though, straightening or undulating or curving ahead of you, and even when you turn to see where you've come it's another view altogether.



I looked straight up with my camera to the towering pines with their new growth. You can't see it but there are water drops on the ends of these branches (my kingdom to photograph a water drop up close on a day) that reminds me to say: it rained. Briefly, the sun shining right on us, the underside of a fat cloud leaving fine mist over us



then moving off through the treetops.



Elephant Rock - our destination and, whoa, we're above it. The trail comes out here? Who knew?



Kent looks straight down the mountain onto the rock - I dare not point my camera down there its so steep! I'd have to leave the bench I'm clinging to and walk over to the man...



... and I do, my stomach in my mouth, and take this shot.

Who would gallop down the hill to launch out onto that rock, dangling in space (I now see) off the cliff face? Looks good in pictures only. Remember the pics near the bottom of this post? (New respect for the guy on the rock, eh. I was trembling at this point.)



Our walk down was over an hour - never tired (only Kent), we lollygagged looking here, looking there...



... picturing things near and far...



Then it was good to be off and in our car driving home.

Under the sun

Afternoon on a Hill

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950)

I WILL be the gladdest thing   Under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers   And not pick one. I will look at cliffs and clouds   With quiet eyes, Watch the wind bow down the grass,   And the grass rise. And when lights begin to show   Up from the town, I will mark which must be mine,   And then start down!

"The poetry of the earth is never dead." -John Keats

"What would the world be, once bereft Of wet and wildness? Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet, Long live the weeds and the wildness yet." -Gerard Manley Hopkins

"All I want is to stand in a field and to smell green, to taste air, to feel the earth want me..." -Phillip Pulfrey

"I will be the gladdest thing under the sun. I will touch a hundred flowers and not pick one." -Edna St. Vincent Millay

"I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in." -John Muir

Things that Annoy Us

Love is never having to say you are annoyed.

"Annoyance" refers to whatever bugs us and also whatever emotional state we experience when being bugged. Things that are annoying grab our unwilling attention and prevent us from paying attention to other things. The frequently annoyed are less satisfied with life than those who are unflappable, don't you think? Those who are frequently annoyed may themselves be frequently annoying.

I wrote a shortlist of stuff that can bug me and then wondered what useful purpose it would have here... only as entertainment! We all have our stuff. You'll laugh at my almost wholesale aversion to the "dang public." I've said it before. This cartoon → makes me smile.

I wrote (kind of in the vein of Billy Joel's rant)

"We didn't start the fire,
But when we are gone
It will still burn on, and on, and on, and on..."

"...floor as big as Texas to mop, sliver, pantyhose, computer lag, hay fever, lost keys, traffic cones, taxes, chain mail, barking dog, paper cut, static cling, running late, stinky feet, weight gain, no thanks, leaky roof, loud

sneezes, one-way streets, freezer burn, broken nail, chapped lips, too hot, cold toilet, holey socks, cowlick, flight layovers, stubbed toe, dead battery, burnt toast, long waits, runny nose, spilled milk, 'on hold,' root canal, quiet please!"

Ordinary day

Every morning I touch NEW POST on Blogger and watch for the cursor to blink at the far left of a clean page. Blank, that page, like my head some days.

That blinking cursor's a huge possibility! Sort of a fix - what to write today? Tap, tap... it taps into what I'm waking up to or've been thinking about or doing. And committing to. (Again.) Mundane life is all, but didn't I just write a few posts ago (from Ted Kooser) about this:

"We honor the ordinary by giving it our attention."

I do have blogs I browse for inspiration.

• The Deseret News "Faith" (link) section is one
• And for a couple of years, simple inspiration (link)
• :zenhabits, and
• Segullah
• Jane's Gratitude Project (link)
• In the last week bentlily.com for Samantha's poem-a-day.
• Of course Dana's and Amy's blogs and Sandra's and Laura's, and 
• Georgia friends Linda's and Sherri's and Jenee's...
• Classic Poems (link) and
• Pioneer Woman

And a handful of healthy living sites:

• An Intentional Life
• Advanced Mind Health 
• Living Empowered
• Dear Optimists
• Simply Blessed

I love 'em for their perspectives...

          inspiring 

      
    crazy 

                                                   simple 

                                                             faithful 

                            direct 

                       sacred 

... on the ordinary. But gosh, times like this morning I draw a big old blank. It's a no-brainer - my ordinary is too ordinary. Just the clock ticking and a floor as big as Texas to mop and, well, the toilet needs scrubbing.

I just want to hang out a sign that says, bleh...

In the dark

If you read my post yesterday you'll know we sat in the dark two hours at the regional center for Regional Conference Sunday - the live broadcast from the Conference Center where we were taught by General Authorities. The fact that General Authorities were speaking (perhaps) brought lots of members to the regional center - it was packed. It maybe would have been anyway for the regular Stake Conference normally held now... maybe.

I was impressed with the turnout. We sat in the back in the dark like I said among a sea of people. We'd come early enough that minutes before the meeting there were no folks around us. But seats filled up as the lights came down and the broadcast began. A family of six filed into the row in front of us, the four kids grown from perhaps sixteen or seventeen to twenty-something.

As the meeting started three of them took out phones.



Each slumped or leaned forward on their knees and opened games. The young man in front of me ran a motorcycle on a high wire silently, crashing and restarting, zooming and fading away - reminded me of Rat on a Skateboard my grandson Joseph plays on my iPad - his older brother leaning into him and watching. Missionary and returned-missionary age. His teen-aged sister idled over Solitaire and other stuff. The oldest daughter and farthest from me bent over her phone, head almost to her knees. Beside her her father sat with his eyes closed while her mother, beyond him, watched the screen. Elder Holland was preaching "be not hearers only, but doers of the word."

I don't even know where to go with this next... you know I judged. I'll throw that right out here. But you know about me (I hope you do) that I felt observant and confused and sad.

I considered long and hard watching the lighted phones in a row that I wasn't concluding, as taught by Elder Oaks in a General Conference talk on judging... but assessing. That first knee-jerk thing we do all the time with each other. I promise. I'll tell you I didn't think it right they should have their phones on. Going away on purpose the minute the meeting they'd come to, the minute the inspiration we'd come for (get it? get where I go? who am I to think for others?) started.  I'll say I wondered that it was allowed, my eyes wandering to the mother and dad... stayed wondering, further, about this strata in our culture, youth entertaining itself against boredom; rebelling.

Oh brother. All generations do that then. That's what youth is. And imagine the things I don't know that I don't know about them. As much might I know about the driver of a car in front of me in traffic!

I could picture any one of my own children in the darkened room cradling cell phones. I stepped back emotionally and mentally, my generation removed and knowing it, feeling it - even from these parents ten to over a dozen years younger than me. I watched the kids' profiles and the backs of their heads and wondered what loving them feels like, being in their family. Being in their face. Hard to tell in the dark... what would be their eyes or demeanor? More like, their hearts? What would time with them, separate from their devices, one on one, be like? Would they light up like their phones?

And the work of family, parenting and preparing, for this mom and dad?

I can know it only from my vantage point within my own family - I can't know it. And therein is my final and only judgment.

Among a sea of people, each and all of us who took in the proceedings our own way, we walked to our car after the prayer was said and the lights came up.

Regional Conference

Sixty-five stakes joined together yesterday for a live broadcast into their stake centers, the regional center, and the Conference Center - words by Elder Shane Bowen of the Quorum of the Seventy, Sister Linda Burton, newly-called General Relief Society President, Elder Jeffery Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve, and President Dieter Uchtodorf of the First Presidency.

Elder Holland's were remarkable to me. He wondered aloud what good conferences like this are, really? (It perhaps stunned us, listening.) What good are the words from any pulpit in the long run - General Conference, Gospel Doctrine class, Seminary, Sacrament meeting, etc. if we be hearers of the word only, and not doers.

But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. James 1:22

His talk was deep and as always, riveting. He asked what, if anything, any one of us could remember from General Conference not a few weeks ago. The Ensign has come out in the last couple of weeks he reminded us. Have we taken time to look through it?

May you ponder the truths you have heard, and may they help you to become even better than you were when Conference began two days ago, spoke President Monson as he closed the last session just over a month ago. Elder Holland reminded us and asked who in attendance here could say they are doing this now... He quoted President Uchtdorf from the Priesthood session and challenged the men: Do you remember, he said?

He acknowledge we might be feeling uncomfortable, begging pardon for what might seem a rant. (I didn't think so.)

He ended by quoting verses from the best and greatest teacher who ever lived, he said. Last words from one of the the best conference talks ever given to a congregation (astonished at his doctrine). From Matthew:

24 ¶Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:

25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.



26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:

27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.


-----

At the end of the two hours, the person giving the closing prayer for the entire congregation of stakes offered thanks for the words of inspiration, counsel and warning.

I took Elder Holland's words to be exactly this today.

My house is built upon a rock - literally. Here we are on this mountain. Symbolic? I turned to Kent as Elder Holland spoke... but I must strengthen my position personally. In my person, commitment and obedience. It should start in study of the gospel and personal prayer. (How many times have I posted about that here? The total foundation of happiness!)

We've been warned that there are storms to come. And personal tempests... I look, and I may be on sandy ground still.

Good with words

I discovered bentlily.com and found a girl - a mother - who writes a poem a day. I admit I'm stalking poets right now in an unorthodox way - they seem to be coming to me!

“Poetry and Hums aren't
things which you get
they're things which get you.
And all you can do is
go where they can find you.”
~Winnie the Pooh

I haven't looked past Samantha's poetry I stumbled upon like a whole sand dollar on the beach, though the web log hosts many persons posting a poem a day...  I've pasted below one of several poems of hers I sat and soaked into me a while this morning, beautiful words, good energy. Sunshine sparkling on water. Enjoy!
-----

... from herself...

WHY A POEM A DAY?

In January 2011 I was inspired by my friend to skip New Year’s resolutions and decide on one theme instead. After much deliberation I decided my theme would be “to be present.” As a new mother I figured this was a tricky way to get me to make sure the subtleties of my son’s first year didn’t go unnoticed.

But how does one just “be present?” I’m a lousy meditator and a compulsive list-maker, both of which launch me into daydreaming about the future much of the time. What does ground me to the very pinpoint of the present is writing. And so it was that I decided to make it my Year of Being a Poet.

I pledged to write one poem a day. To train me to see the world constantly with the eyes of a poet, which means to slow down, savour, take delight in, and note the very essence of the world around me.

To be present.

It wasn’t long before I realized I had become addicted. What was meant to be a one-year experiment has threaded its way into my being. I wouldn’t know how to stop now even if I wanted to.

If you have stumbled upon this site (link) I hope you enjoy the poems. But more than that, I hope you try it yourself. Be a poet for a day! I dare you. Let the world in and watch as it tumbles out from your fingertips onto the page, revealing shades of the day you would otherwise surely have missed.
----

Poem for MAY 11, 2012

Unsolicited advice from an old woman today in the park

Let him smell his food before he eats

it’s good for his digestion

raise a boy
who can dance

if you feel like yelling
try whistling

spelling matters

read to him

but make up stories too

he will stop asking for them eventually

but that doesn’t mean

he wants you

to stop

you will never feel
wise enough

but it doesn’t matter

your job is not to answer all his questions
just add fuel
to keep his curiosity
alive.

Common things

 "If you can awaken
     inside the familiar
     and discover it strange,
     you need never leave home."



"This four-line poem is a kind of credo for me," says Ted Kooser, the author. "In short, we have beauty all about us if we take the time to pay attention to it. We honor the ordinary by giving it our attention. We enshrine the ordinary in our art. Is there anything really ordinary, I wonder?"

The Adventures of Pooh and Eeyore

You'd think I don't stay home much the way these posts are lining up with my adventures OUT. Aren't I lately all over the Hundred Acre Wood!?



I a thousand times wish it was with my friends, just so...



but la-di-da, away I go without them if need be.



Yesterday I wandered about with Kent, lovable Eeyore, at Red Butte Garden. Ran away from home to play.


-----

A shout out to Princess Heather (linky) for slipping Kent and I a get-one-free admission ticket in the mail just after Christmas. We've been waiting for just the right day to explore the Garden for the first time, and this was it! So fun to only pay for one - loves to you and hope you get to go real soon, or again... it's on your Summer Bucket List! :)