Summer Fun - South Coast Botanic Gardens

Just like last year, we have a bunch of great play dates with our church buddies planned for the summer. I can't wait! Austin had so much fun at each one last year and I'm looking forward to seeing both my kids getting to experience new things this year too!

On the other hand, last year's plethora of play dates is what got me so far behind on my blog for so long, so I'm determined to stay caught up! I'm shooting for posting within a week of each event, but they will definitely be up before the next play date!

So all that to intro our first play date - South Coast Botanic Gardens. (Here's my post from when we last year. I can't believe how different my kids look!) We had a small group, but we had so much fun! It was a great way to kick off the summer!

We started out at the Koi Pond (which was designed by someone at our church!) Austin always loves fishies!

Look! Shish!



Then it was over to the Children's Garden. It's a cute miniature garden with miniature buildings and an adorable bridge!





This year they had a cute water pump and water cans. Of course Austin loved scooping and pouring out water over and over!





Next we visited the rose garden - Momma's favorite!

Oh, what I wouldn't give for a rose garden like this! As long as someone else had to keep it up!!


A couple of the pretties!


Austin knows just what to do with flowers!


Checking out the fountain. I think they are either trying to figure out how to get all the money out, or trying to decide if jumping in is worth getting in trouble!


I love this pic! I tried to get a shot of Austin up on a rock, but he wasn't digging the height. He was more than willing to take a picture with his Auntie Becca though!


Then we headed back up to the large gazebo lawn for some running around time and lunch. McKenna was horribly bored up until this point. She's still not steady enough to walk on all the paths and last thing I wanted was for her to faceplant into a rose bush! But the grass area was the perfect, almost boundaryless, area for the kids to play in!







McKenna's a little young to be chasing boys around but she sure had fun doing it! She kept poking Sammy. We are gonna have to watch this girl like a hawk!


Becca even caught her mid-poke!


I love that Austin will look at my camera and say cheese! He's becoming so cooperative!! =D


And as usual, I took pics of all our buddies! My friends have such cute kiddos!













I caught some cute momma dogpile moments too!


Stay tuned in the weeks to come. We have lots of fun outings planned. Should be a good summer!