Seven little Words

Nicole's 12th birthday
My sweet Nicole had her 12th birthday last month and I wanted to do something special that helped her to feel like a little more grown up. I decided I'd take her to do 12 new things this year, 1 activity a month until her next birthday. So for number 1, I took her to Olive Garden to have lunch. ..and right away, we had to laugh when they handed her a children's menu.

Lunch was really good and we had fun talking.

For our 2nd activity, we headed to Thanksgiving Point for a surprise visit to the Gardens. I had never been before and I had free tickets. Nicole didn 't know what I had planned for her. When we entered the Gardens, Wow! that is all I can say. It felt like we had entered another world. There is no hint of it from the street, so its hard to imagine that something so big and beautiful exists.

The first thing we saw was a little rabbit just sitting in the grass and a lizard ran across the path.

Arches and bridges, waterfalls and ponds... not to mention the endless variety of flowers. What a beautiful place.

Nicole was almost the same size as the statue- it will be fun to take a picture every year, watching her grow as the statue doesn't.

This is me at the entrance to the "Secret Garden" ...the lady at the desk told us, "be careful not to miss the secret garden" but she gave us no clues...we had no idea the secret garden would be a creepy dark tunnel that looked like a place we shouldn't enter. We are glad we did, or we would have

missed it for sure.

We spent almost 2 peaceful hours there and had no idea we were taking so long! We almost were late to see "Sorceror's Apprentice" with the rest of the family.

I thought Nicole would be a little bored or feel like it wasn't a Nicole thing to do, but she made my day with these simple seven words:

"I am so glad you brought me here".

I am so glad I brought her here too. I could never have imagined what having a daughter could be like. Nicole is a beautiful gift to me, and she fits right in with all the beauty we saw today.