LEGO in the Gardens

We were over at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens in Gainesville today, using our family pass to get in and take a stroll around the grounds.  It was just a nice occasion for a walkabout, and it was a pleasant walkabout, although the sun was beating down a little too warmly later on, particularly in the more exposed areas. 

We were wanting to see this LEGO exhibit before it was taken down, part of which you can see above.  This life-sized family of deer is made of LEGO blocks, hundreds of them, and all throughout the garden area there were fifteen other sculptures created by a pretty talented LEGO artist.  

This one was interactive!  The old-school "put your head in the picture" idea was back here, and again remember that this is created entirely with LEGO blocks.  Mom and Maddie were ants, crawling along the tunnel.  The pictures you see below are the others we took this afternoon at the garden.  There are some of flora there, but many photos here highlight the LEGO creations, and Maddie too.

This is a recreation from that scene in "Goosebumps."

Yeah, that's creepy.  It was pointed out that this is not a juro spider, which of course we can see tiny ones starting to pop up in large numbers all around, even on the LEGO sculptures...

That's a big hummingbird.

This is a real butterfly.  Not made of LEGO blocks.  Just putting it out there.

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

These ants probably bite.

This LEGO bonsai didn't take as long to grow.

That's a cute ant.

They have this place in the kids area where you can "paint" with water on a wall... this is Maddie's message of hope for all the children.

And of course I tried to do a goofy.  It was drying out pretty fast...

It was a nice trip out.  We dropped by Dairy Queen and that made it even nicer, everyone picking up some ice cream for the trip home.  Also, I picked up some mulch because we're still working on that back yard.  Mom's got a big vision for one area, and it'll require some digging soon enough.

Backtracking a bit, this morning we were at the martial arts studio, where Maddie was practicing for the upcoming Team Edge performance at Summer Xtreme.  I did my 45-minute walk through the park there nearby, getting in my steps for the day.  Practice was about two and a half hours or so, the students working really hard to perfect their routine.  After that, Maddie and I went over to get some boba tea, because that's been our tradition of late.  We keep trying new teas, never really settling on one particular flavor - they've all been pretty good so far!  

Tonight we watched one of the movies that Maddie has not seen before:  "The Planet of the Apes."  We opted for the Tim Burton version because it's a stand-alone movie, but my goodness, there are eight other "Planet of the Apes" movies out there, making nine total "Planet of the Apes" movies.  Back before the new movies, Mom got me for Valentine's Day a box set of the original five movies, and I can't explain why, but we love them.  The first one of course is a classic.  The remaining original four are enjoyable, but you have to go into them in the right way, enjoying them for what they are and loving all these apes running around in people costumes.  The new movies - the most recent three - are really great, and they put a lot of the 70's movies in the rear-view mirror.  But those original five are so nostalgic, like watching the original Star Trek series on television.  There's a bit of camp to it all, but it's super fun.

Anyway, Maddie got to see an Apes movie, and I have no idea why we've waited this long, but it was a fun Saturday night.  We had a decent day today, and of course there's church tomorrow, so we got to bed at a reasonable hour, reading a bit from our book and saying our prayers before quickly falling asleep.