Sunday, March 30, 2008

The Conservatory

Now that most of our pressing house projects are off our plates, we decided to do something fun together this weekend! And with the weather continuing to be so cold, it had to be an indoors fun thing. And preferably a free fun thing. We decided on a trip to the Volunteer Park Conservatory.

The conservatory is made up of several connected glass houses and each has it's own temperature, humidity, and collection of exotic plants which makes the whole place feel like a field trip to another land. There's the palm house with it's jungle-like feel, the seasonal house which is always full of lots of color and flowers in bloom that I often recognize from local gardens, the desert house, the bromeliad house, and my favorite, the fern house.

The air in the fern house is heavy and warm and it has a grotto. Actually I think they call it a bog, but there's a an area in the middle that is dark and cave-like with plants tumbling down into pools of water. There's even a little waterfall. And the plants here are huge and strange. If you ever visit Seattle, you should check it out. Here are a few photos:


There's Beck and the entrance. It was built in 1912 and modeled after London's Crystal Palace.


Inside the seasonal house.


The boys saw this giant orange when we first walked in. Beck shouted, "A big apple!" and ran straight toward it. It was probably some kind of rare specimen or something and I noticed a few visitors looking on with alarm. I turned on the good mom routine and shouted for him to stop even though I had to chuckle to myself at the whole scene. And I knew he wouldn't touch it!

4 comments:

Jen Z said...

Hi Susan,

Yeah, I'm probably just being paranoid, but Lisa told me that she didn't want me posting any information, even about our paperchase, in the process. We are finished with that though and are now waiting, so we're a couple months behind you in line. I'm kind of bummed to see you've been waiting more than 2 months... was hoping it would be moving faster now. Did she give you an idea of how long you'd be waiting?

Good luck!!

Jen

los cazadores said...

Susan, is Beck your son? He's such a pretty child. :)

Gladney policy seems to be that adoption blogging is fine, that they understand the desire to make connections to other adoptive parents, but to not post pictures or details of the referral because technically the child is not legally yours before the Ethio court authorizes the custody. Also, fundraising from your blog could give a bad financial impression to the Ethio govt.

That's it in a nutshell.

:)

Cindy

The Ravenstahls said...

Hi Susan,
I linked to your blog from Cindy's and I love it!! your guys are precious. I like your baby name list... and your taste in books!
Hope you don't mind my poking around.
Nice to find a cool new blog :)

los cazadores said...

Susan,

How is Buddhism for Moms? I have read a few books on Buddism and really like the precepts.

Do you mind if I link to your blog?

Cindy