Spring is my favorite time of year but I dream about late August all year long because it’s when the dahlia field is bloom and we get to walk around the heavenly Swan Island farm. We’ve been going here for 7, maybe 8, years now and I just learned that Swan Island is the largest distributor of dahlia tubers in the United States. It’s so cool to have such an incredible place just 30 minutes away.
Murphy’s first trip to the dahlia farm! I can’t believe it but this was Tennyson’s third time visiting the flowers. Crazy how fast the years are going by.
It has been unusually hot here for the last 2+ months. Luckily we got one overcast weekend in August and we made sure to used it to visit the farm. Feels nice to wear long pants again!
A lady walked by while I was taking these photos and said, “Aww! Such cute brothers!” and proceeded to ask Tennyson about his “little brother.” We didn’t think Murphy looked like a boy but maybe the lack of hair bow and blue onsie made this lady assume baby Murphy was a boy. We didn’t correct her.
On Tennyson’s first trip to the dahlias (same age as Murphy is now 4-5 weeks) a lady called him a girl. We said, “Actually he’s a boy” and she replied, “Well you wouldn’t know it by the way you’ve dressed him.” He was in a newborn gown that ties at the bottom but I guess it looked like a dress… Either way, we’re 2 for 2 on people mistaking the gender of our babies based on how we dressed them at this farm.
This year they added lots of events at the farm that haven’t happened before, like a farmers market, yoga in the garden (I’m hoping to go to that next week!), flower arranging class, arts/crafts classes, etc. The farm seems to become more like a formal destination each year. I’m excited to watch it continue to grow.
I thought it would be extra difficult to get a family photo of everyone looking and smiling in the right direction since there are now 4 of us, but then I remembered it’s the same as usual (just 3 of us) because Murphy doesn’t know how to smile yet so she can look anywhere she wants. It turns out, it’s harder than ever to get Tennsyon to cooperate for photos because he rarely stops moving and he doesn’t exactly like being asked to do something that isn’t fun to him. Thankfully he LOVES pressing the button on the camera remote so we have something to entertain him with.
I can only imagine how difficult it will be to get a photo of all 4 of us smiling once Murphy and Tennyson are both active little kids.
Tennyson loves looking for bees. It’s a great game for him to play in our own garden at home and all the flower gardens we visit.
The sprinklers spray the entire walkway which makes it tricky to avoid getting wet and primes the path for excellent puddles. Tennyson stepped into a small puddle out of curiosity, then he happily jumped in every one after that. The main character on Tennyson’s favorite show (Peppa Pig) loves “jumping in muddy puddles” so it happens almost every episode. When we got back to the car Tennyson said, “Jumping muddy puddles Peppa Pig.”
Tennyson didn’t seem to mind getting his shoes and pants soaked, but once he made a splash that got his shirt a little wet he said with a sad face, “Mine shirt all wet.”
We tried to time it right to run through the walkway between sprinklers, but it was a short window so we didn’t make it out completely dry. We tried to get Tennyson to run with us but he wouldn’t so he got sprayed pretty good. Even though he was already very wet, he felt trapped in the sprinklers so he just stood in the middle of the walkway and cried. We encouraged him to join us on the other side of the sprinklers and after probably 10 seconds (which is a long time by the way) he ran our way. (See next photo for sad Tenny) We didn’t know it at the time, but there was a group of older folks behind us watching the scene play out. One guy said, “We all took bets on who would win, you or him. No one took your side.” : )
I already can’t wait to go again next year!
