Reason #173 As to Why I Live A Charmed Life

I have the greatest best friends that a girl could ask for! One of these besties happens to be Tanya, my partner in crime :) Tanya has given me some truly awesome gifts in the past (the Gourmet Chicken Wing Dinner at Hooters with a bottle of Dom Perignon, tickets to Wicked, Victoria's Secret goodies, etc.) but I think this year's birthday gift has those beat! She showed up at my door the other day with news of my belated gift: we were going to get year passes to the Botanic Gardens that border my condo community's property!

For 5 years I have vowed to obtain these magical passes, and since voting day I have been obsessing! What a beautiful place to cast your presidential vote! And yet I could not pass those gates into the Wonderland beyond. Until now ...

So after a few glasses of champagne, we found ourselves sitting in the back offices of the gardens, talking to an adorable lady named Norma. She smiled a glowing smile that emanated pure happiness and welcomed us into the botanical community!

The next day we adorned ourselves with comfy clothes and entered our magical kingdom of flowery bliss! We knew exactly where we wanted to start our adventure: the white rose gazebo to the left of the property; so we dropped our purses haphazardly and ran all willy-nilly to our destination:And then we found a fountain that looks like the one in Avery's garden if I'm not mistaken:

As we meandered, we found beautiful trees:

And trippy moss:

Then we saw a sign for a lake, and we made it our mission to find it! It probably took us a good half hour to locate it, as there are SO many intersecting paths along the way (not to mention our distractable selves stopping every few feet to "ooooo!" and "ahhhhhh!" at things ... at last we found it by following the sound of "quacks":

After a long laze upon the lakeside benches, we carried on with our exploration. We found an amphitheater:

A rose garden:

A desert garden:

(more purse abandonment!)

And a children's garden:
At last, we made our way back to the beginning where we checked out the gift shop and left the gardens with much more to discover in trips to come :)

Here are a few more pics of random pretty things!



Crystal, I really think you should get a pass too! Think of all the amazing photos you could take here! It's so much fun!