River Farm Gardens

Today does not seem promising at this point. We woke up to an emergency alert alarm on my phone announcing flood warnings. Then Clare, who is never sick, became quite sick. We managed to get Meg to school and things have calmed down considerably, but I am so glad we had a fun afternoon yesterday.

We went to River Farm Gardens which is the home to the American Horticultural Society. It has a wonderful children's garden. Right now, the girls seem to have the most fun at places where they can run, play and fully use their imaginations. Parks and playgrounds are fun, but the right children's garden is ideal.

I wanted to go to River Farm Gardens because there is a child-size cabin there inspired by the Little House books, which, as I have mentioned, we are reading now. But the girls had great fun with all the garden's offerings.

There was the joy of sitting on a sofa made from a hill. Meg gets in trouble for sitting on the back of sofas at home, so she very much enjoyed running on the back of this sofa.

Then there was the great excitement of running through tunnels underground.

No day of fun is complete without a boat journey and River Farm Gardens provides a full-size boat on which kids' imagination can take them wherever they want to go.

Lest you think garden play is not physical enough, there was much running and climbing as you can see.

And yes, there was time to sit and ponder what it was like to be Laura Ingalls.

I was only able to convince Meg and Clare to leave with the promise that we would return soon. What a lovely place to spend an afternoon.