"B" is for butterfly

The weather the past few days has been beautiful—highs in the 70s, lows in the 50s and sunny (for the most part)—very un-June-like, but also very-un-pool-friendly. 

We tried to make a go of the fountains on Saturday:

But this was the only smile I could capture on my normally thick-skinned daughter.  Even she said the water was too cold to enjoy.  So, when Sunday rolled around with equally chilly weather, there was no denying it was an ideal botanical gardens day.

Little did we know what we were stumbling upon:

For those of you who live in the area, I highly recommend seeing this – it was incredible.  The exhibit is housed in the glass conservatory building and kept steamy and warm:

You’re instructed not to touch the butterflies (or as George kept repeating, “No touch bu-fly.  No touch bu-fly”) and to watch your step:

This poor little guy had already had one accident.  He was undeterred though and spent most of his time dodging in and out of our feet.

Besides that, you are free to roam, gawk and take endless pictures (or at least I assume you’re allowed to do all of that because that’s pretty much what I did the entire time):

Frances viewing the camera through the butterfly scope.  George tried his best, but kept putting the scope up to his closed eye.  Will and I were laughing too much to help the poor kid out.

Once we’d had ample butterfly viewing, we left the building (not without a volunteer sweeping us for strays – apparently some butterflies have been known to stowaway on the visitors) and headed down to the children’s garden:

My beautiful girl

My handsome boys

Same window, same children = one year later

The window frame (and George’s ‘do) looking a little worse for wear in a year’s time.  But otherwise, I think we’re all holding up pretty darn well.

Happy Monday, everyone!