Reiman Gardens

Yesterday was supposed to be the last beautiful, warm, not rainy day for a while (and maybe for months), so I took that opportunity to take the boys to Reiman Gardens, a beautiful place on the Iowa State University campus that has a butterfly house and 6 or 7 different gardens. We spent over two hours there, until they closed. The kids ran from place to place, checking out all of the gardens and having fun especially in the children's garden. I'm thinking a year long membership would be well worth it. Here are some cute pics. I took 73 pictures, which is very unlike me, but it was so pretty and I wanted some good shots. Here are the best:

The first photo has what they call their "Halloween" butterfly (notice the orange polka dots); the next one is newly hatched owl butterflies, and the last one is called the common blue morpho. When the lady who worked there saw that one with its wings open, she got really excited because she said it is uncommon for it to rest with its wings down like that. There are over 700 butterflies in the butterfly house. The woman told me it costs $1000 per week to keep up the butterfly house. WOW. And it cost 10 bucks for me and Ethan and Aidan to go one time, but for a year long membership for the whole family is only $50. Crazy good deal! The next photo is me and the boys in the butterfly house. Notice my cute new purse? Clearance at JC Penney!

The next place we spent at least 30 minutes was at the water pumps in the children's garden. Water comes out of the frog's mouth and, of course, the boys thought that was the coolest thing ever. Notice how in Aidan's picture his tongue is sticking out. That seemed to be the only way he could actually get water out of the frog. And it was cute because he would push on the pump handle, and then run over quickly to the frog to see the water coming out. But he was just never fast enough! Then we spent some time in the rose gardens, which were a little past their prime but still beautiful. And my favorite place was the conservatory, which was just like a little Garden of Eden. These last two pictures are there. The boys spent a lot of time in front of the pond, getting their hands (and sleeves) wet. We really had a fantastic time and can't wait to go see it in the spring, when all of the new greenery comes out.