Trip to Otts

So I know that it's pretty amazing that I am posting these pictures the very day they were taken. Less than three hours after we experienced the Mountain of Mums (our name for it) you too can experience it as well!

Today we took the kids up to Ott's Nursery to check out the Mountain of Mums (again, not sure if they have something they call it officially. I was also referring to it as the Flower Tower. Whatever you call it, it's pretty cool!). The flowers were in full bloom and just gorgeous. Below is just one of the twenty shots I took of just flowers.

We walked to the top of the mountain. Catherine, for some reason, but not necessarily suprisingly, was scared.

Of course it was pretty cold at the top (you know...like Everest) so Ella and I had to snuggle to keep warm. Those are Matt's flowing locks in the picture as well.
So of course we had to take advantage of a great photo opportunity and get some pictures of the girls surrounded by flowers.

Notice how loving they look. They're holding hands. In a few seconds Ella starts to wrestle Catherine.

After our outdoor adventures we checked out Ott's greenhouse which was really amazing. I mean people pay almost $20/person to go to Longwood Gardens. This was like a poor man's Longwood Gardens. "Like" as in similar, but not quite equal. Please don't think I am dissing Longwood - it is pretty amazing, just not something I can do while trying to save money for Christmas

There were so many interesting plants to check out. Jerusalem Cherries, Crown of Thorns, Lemon Trees, probably a hundred varieties of cactus - some that were bigger than us and others as small as my thumb. And of course my favorite....Ornamental Peppers

Who knew? I should have posted a closer shot because they were so cool - really looked like mini peppers. Because that's what they are.

Then we went through a tropical area where we could walk up stairs surrounded by plants and look into a small pool of fish. The final shot below is back at the bottom checking out the fish again. I had to include it because it's so rare to get a shot of Ella smiling at the camera and standing still.

We finished off the day by heading to a park where the kids could play in a sand pit and then walk down and play at the edge of the Perkiomen Creek. We all threw rocks in the river and Matt showed off by skipping rocks (I was impresed at least, the kids barely noticed). No one got hit in the head with a rock so overall it was quite a successful outing. Hope you enjoyed the pictures.