A Happy Day

Today Rodrigo and I had a date, a real one, just the two of us, and little Claire ;-). We almost never go anywhere without all of the kids, but today, in honor of our anniversary we left the boys with their grandparents, and went out exploring the town! We had a wonderful lunch and then went wandering the aisles of a couple of antique malls. After that we felt like we needed some fresh air. So we set off to find the local Botanical Gardens. Oh! It was so worth it! We had a wonderful time exploring all of the old greenhouses and potting sheds, and the grounds were awe inspiring! The gardens were built on the site of an old family farm that had been a continuously running (for over 217 years) family business as a farm/plant nursery ever since the land was granted to the family in 1786 by the state of North Carolina. (Before Tennessee was even a state!) It was converted to the Botanical Gardens in 2001. It was such fun imagining what life must have been like on that farm over the years. If you are ever in the Knoxville area of East Tennessee you should really try to make time to visit the Knoxville Botanical Garden and Arboretum. Sadly our camera ran out of batteries about 20 minutes after we arrived… so I don’t have nearly as many pictures of all of the wonderful things we saw there today. We didn’t even get one single picture of the two of us together :( But here are a few pictures we did manage to take before we were left camera-less. I plan on taking the boys back sometime soon to spend the day there. We’ll take a picnic and explore to our hearts’ content… with fresh batteries in the camera next time!!!

The gardens were full of paths and pretty stone walls, there were these adorable little round stone houses that looked like they were something right out of a fairy tale. We found “secret gardens”, stone green houses, sunken gardens, and huge virgin growth trees!

Isn't this potting shed just gorgeous? Oh! I was a little jealous of all of those neatly stacked clay pots waiting to be filled! The possibilities...

 We even found a greenhouse decorated for a wedding later this evening! So romantic and such a lovely place to be wed. The Botanical Gardens were a wonderful ending to our very happy day together, just the two of us (and baby Claire)…