Norfolk Botanical Garden | Summer 2017

Hello Everyone!
   The first post of the summer and I went to the Botanical Garden in Norfolk, VA. The day was super hot and unfortunately I got a sunburn on our visit. Plus a few mosquitos had a great time eating my legs...but we still had a great time!
   We started in the rose garden, the largest rose garden on the east coast, 3 acres big, there was so many colors. Running along side the roses was a small river and a pretty stone bridge with vines.

The rose garden

   We made our way down a wood planked path, running along the lake, that had native plants and tons of lillies. It was a short walk till we arrived at the butterfly house. At the botanical garden they are breeding many types of butterflies that they plan to release later this summer.

The butterfly house

   Everywhere you go in the garden is surrounded by water. We took a small detour, while in the azalea forrest, and found the cutest little pink flower growning on the edge of the lake.

   After our long walk through the forrest we finally made it to the Japanese garden. The Japanese section was my absolute favorite part, I've never been to one, and the lotus plants were gorgeous! We took a small break at the cafe and had a smoothie, before seeing the tropical greenhouse.

Huge staghorn ferns!

Crab apples

Raspberries

   Surprisingly there are a lot of fruits at the garden: blueberries, raspberries, limes, pomegranates, strawberries, and crab apples.

Thanks for Reading!

Hello Again, New York

Hello Everyone,
   My Mom and Godmother just came for a super quick visit, they stayed for 1 week total, while they were here we drove up to Saratoga Springs NY. You remember that place right? It's where this blog was first created! It was really sureal being back "home" in a way, my home away from home, the east coast has turned into a small place of comfort. I remembered every street corner and could have walked the entire city by myself, some things had changed but it was all very familar. We drove by my old house and I almost wanted to go inside, pour myself a cup of tea, cook something on my gas stove(that I miss terribly!) and say: "yupp this is where I live :)".
    But since I was a tourist, and tour guide to my family, we stayed at the Saratoga Downtowner. I remember this place being something...not too fancy looking on the outside, but check this place out!

Inside the Saratoga Downtowner

 
We had a beautiful dessert for breakfast at Mrs. London's

   My favorite place in town is Northshire Bookstore, you can find tons of interesting books, stationery, and small gifts. It's very quirky so it always makes me happy to be there. 

Cute soap with funny quotes

A quite reading area in the back.

   

   A new store that just opened was the Saratoga Tea & Honey Co. A place entirely devoted to tea from around the world and local honey! I tried to smell all the tea they had but even then I didn't have enough time. As a passionate tea lover, I wish this place was around when I lived here.

The wall of tea!

You can sample the honey too!

      I took lots of pictures of old cemeteries on my trip but that will have to wait for another day. Stay tuned for some really beautiful cemetery adventures!

   Thanks for Reading!

Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center

Hello Everyone,
   I checked off a new year's resolution already; My husband and I visited the Aquarium in Virginia Beach. First of all, let me say, this aquarium was super impressive! I highly recommend going if you get the chance. They had an indoor touch pool filled with rays from the local bay areas, a sea turtle only tank(that I spent way too much time looking at), a huge shark tank, and crocodiles?!

   The sea turtle tank was by far my favorite exhibit, the turtles swim right up to the glass and I swear they were playing with us; Just around the corner they had baby sea turtles!

   The whale room was really cool, there's a machine that lets you hear the different communication sounds from a large variety of whales (I also spent too much time listening to it).

   Something I didn't expect to see was a freakin' Komodo dragon! And I was left speechless again when we found the Tomistoma crocodiles, they had a special swamp room made just for them.

eagle ray

A male sea horse plushie with babies!

Thanks for Reading!

Historical Williamsburg

Hi Everyone,
   Good day! That's how you say hello in the 1700's. I checked out historical Williamsburg and ate traditonal meat pies, drank some sipping chocolate, and got dirt all over my shoes lol. (They didn't have paved roads back then.)

  This church was crazy beautiful, simple but so relaxing. 

Mini greenhouses to protect their plants!

me!

   This offically marks my last blog post of 2016, here's to many more adventures in the new year! I started this blog as way to document my life on the east coast, that was 3 years ago, sharing my stories has grown a lot of self confidence in me that wasn't expected. I hope my blog brings you some sort of entertainment and as always...

 Thanks for Reading :)