Ringing in the New Year

We decided to head to the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens to kick off our New Year's Eve Celebration. They had a Family Fun Frolic in the afternoon with music, crafts, dollhouses, trains, exhibits, and then THE GARDENFEST afterwards (basically the entire garden area is lit up with Christmas lights and figurines). We enjoyed walking around the gardens and exhibits for almost 2 hours.

Grammy and Pappy Stickley came to visit us for the weekend. It was great to have them with us for our first trip the gardens. They not only were celebrating New Year's Eve but also their 40th Anniversary. It was a special day.

Train exhibit with lots of cool trains.

Hand blown glass ornaments- there were many glass ornaments around the gardens on display. Here are a couple samples.

Their was another exhibit of dollhouses. Some of them were pretty interesting- one was a general store, one was a house made from yarn and plastic, one was old colonial house, one was modern house, and one was doctors office.

Here is a replica of the Kids Tree House

Picture with Grammy and Pappy

Beautiful sky and sunset

Kids Tree House- it was pretty cool because the views of the gardens from the tree house were great. You could see all the lights and pond.

Old tractor and farmer

There are many cool little sitting areas around the gardens. This was on the way to the tree house and I loved the hanging stars.

Little girl swinging.

(I took pictures of many of the lights but it does not do them justice. )

More glass ornaments in the botanical house.

Picture in front of the bright, colorful christmas tree.

Here is the tree. There were trees all over the gardens decorated with fancy ornaments and themes.

Butterfly tree decoration

Sunset picture of gardens

After the gardens were we ALL hungry so we headed to dinner at Kenji, a Japanese Hibachi Restaurant. This was Davis's first time at a Hibachi restaurant and he did well, aside from eating so many snacks before our dinner that he was not able to eat much dinner. He didn't know what to think of the BIG flame at the beginning of the show. He cowered at it initially but continued to watch and at times sat on my lap to enjoy the show..

Sipping on soup... he would slurp and then say "Slurp, Slurp" each time he ate.

Enjoying his grandparents company after dinner.

We enjoyed our big dinner and then took Mom and Dad to see our favorite Tacky Light house before heading home to relax.

Happy Anniversary!!!