Mother's Day 2013

A beautiful surprise from my girl!

Only 2 months behind now on my blogging, being off for the summer really has it's advantages  :)

Mother's Day morning, my daughter Dani surprised me with this crazy wonderful sculpture that she made for me from cereal boxes and silk flowers.  She alerted Jim that she was downstairs and when I walked down all sleepy eyed, she jumped up from her hiding place behind the dining room table (scared me to death  LOL) and yelled out "Happy Mother's Day".  Then my poor baby had to trudge off to work, so my son Zach showed up to whisk me off to one of my favorite south land places, Roger's Gardens in Newport Beach.

Thank you Dani girl for that beautiful piece of art, I will treasure it and bring it out every Mother's Day.  You couldn't have given me a more special gift.  I love you!  

Newport was a sunny 74 degrees, perfect weather for visiting this amazing place full of plants and garden design.  We walked in to the most lovely and delicate bouquets of flowers, just dying to go home with us  :)

And then there were the Hydrangeas, the blues and purples my favorites.

And we couldn't pass up a visit to their greenhouses full of blooming orchids of every variety.  The one below really caught my eye.

And the anthuriums from Hawaii were in full bloom as well.

Once outside again we found the blossoms on this tree to be highly unique as well as it's fruit.

What I especially love at Roger's are the creative and artful displays like this very cool water feature, and the paper mache' and wire birds with paper collage.  Zach bought me one of these.  I had really missed doing paper mache' this year with my Beginning 3-D students, so I'm thinking we might try some birds next year and these are such great examples. 

These paper collaged 3- d cut-outs were really unusual, I wish I would have picked up one as well.   

Zach treated me to a bite of lunch beach side, then back home to check out the nasturtiums in my lush May garden.

What a fantastic day you two planned for me.

I love you both so very much...all the way around the world!