July 4th at Lewis Ginter

We took advantage of the free admission to Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens today and enjoyed a morning stroll through the gardens, splashing around in the water play area and exploring a house made out of branches and twigs. This has become a favorite Richmond destination, and as long as we're here we'll take advantage of the annual free day on July 4th. Here are some highlights from the day:


I can think of few pictures that so succinctly capture what life is like with Owen. He's our daredevil, our wild man -- the reason small children wear life jackets and why the tether harness was invented. This was supposed to be a "stand still and look at the camera" shot, but it turned into a "let's dive into the water" attempt.

We like taking picture of Owen sitting in trees. Soon all the pictures will be of Owen climbing trees.


Fun in the water play area. Owen's rocking the "board shorts" or swim capris, if you prefer.



Brennan's grin is due to the fact that he's standing on two of the water squirters. That's one way to clean between the toes.


After this picture was taken Naomi thought it'd be a good idea to sit down in the grass with the boys for another nice shot. Then a spider crawled on her as soon as she sat down and that put an end to that idea. The screams attracted quite a lot of attention, I must say.



Something new this year ... and pretty darn cool.



Owen on the butterfly bench. As you'll see below, we have a similar shot of Brennan, age 1 1/2 wearing the same shirt, July 4, 2009. He's growing up fast.