A trip to Longwood Gardens.

My husband (Pete) and I moved to Chester County almost 8 years ago. We have been talking about going to Longwood Gardens in the Spring for about 7 of those years somehow we've never made it. We would always get busy doing other things, working, cleaning, sleeping, trying to catch our breath, the normal stuff that fills our life. I look back now and wonder where the last 8 years have gone and why can't we make the time to go see some flowers?

So we made the time...

And it was pretty great.

We planned the day about 2 weeks ago. We both had about 3 hours one morning on the same day, which is an amazing event in its self. The weather forecast looked good the night before and so we were excited. When I woke up Wednesday morning, I saw that the sky was dark and cloudy. The perfect kind of day to sleep in, but I got up saying to myself over and over "you want to go, you've been trying to go forever, keep moving, push on through." I packed lunches, made coffee, made breakfast, we ate, showered, dressed and got out the door ( keep moving I chanted to myself quietly). As we started driving the rain began to fall and not a light easy rain. It was more of the down pour kind of rain. Then the conversation of "should we still go?" "It's all outside", I was mad, it was supposed to be sunny and beautiful, in my mind at least.

But it took us this long to get 3 hours and I thought, when will we ever go again? Once again I kept repeating the (You want to see Longwood push on through, let go of the fairy tale) as we got closer the rain calmed down and eventually stopped.

The Fountains

Cheery little pansies

So we had 2.5 hours of walking around Longwood Gardens Oohing and Ahhing at the beautiful flowers and trees, talking about what we wanted to plant in our garden beds back home. We were snapping pictures, and reading the names of the plants, you might saying stopping to smell the flowers... and in our case we literally were.

This picture reminded me of The Secret Garden

The flower walkway was amazing and probably my favorite part. White, purple, blue, yellow, and red. Tulips, Snapdragons, Daffodils, and Peonies were weaving in and out of each other in a wave like pattern. ( and I didn't get a good picture of it, I will have to go back)

Walking through the woods listening and looking at the fountain garden, I felt like I was in another world. Winding through the topiary gardens, we tried to guess what the shapes were really supposed to be.

Then the rain started again, light and cool. This time there was no panic.

So the things I learned that day were, living and experiencing can be hard. If you wait for enough time or the best weather you might never do anything at all.

Weather will get in your way. You will want to sleep in. But it was a great day. A day that we might have missed, if I had let those little hurdles stop me. So if you haven't gone to Longwood Gardens I would go, make the time to stop and smell the flowers...