Starry Night

On Sunday our family finally made it to the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens for the lights. We had planned on going before Christmas but it was too hectic. Sunday ended up being a perfect night since it was not too cold outside. The lights are really cool. They have some elaborate ones of a peacock and a unicorn. Then they had not one BUT TWO train displays. For those of you with boys and/or train lovers, this was a huge draw.

The first train display was really cool. There were buttons at the kids' level for them to push and the buttons activated little people and vehicles that were set up. One of them made a firetruck come out of a fire station and another made a house look like it caught on fire with real smoke. The second train display was smaller but pretty cool. This one had a large black engine leading the train. Griffin immediately pointed out that it was "Great Grandpa's train"! (Background info- back in September, he had received an old black train that was once his Great Grandpa's train when he was a little boy). After we made the boys leave the trains (Griffin kicking and screaming), we went into the Children's Garden for the rest of the lights. We had such a good time. They had a bonfire going and were selling S'Mores Packages (how convenient!) for $2 a pack. So of course we got some hot chocolate and made some S'mores at the campfire.

Then we went up to the treehouse and ran around some more. It was a great time although a bit too short. We forgot to feed the kids ahead of time, so Gray let us know when his tummy was empty. This kid does NOT mess around when it comes to food.