i have wanted to go here forever.....

the holland tulip festival on the west side of the state. we decided to take a day trip there. we had beautiful {but a little cold} weather but we were somewhat (very) disappointed in the festival. now granted we didn't see the entire festival but there really wasn't much to see. the gardens where these pictures were taken were beautiful and i got some great shots but it was a much smaller scale than i expected. we took austen and scarlett and she was less than her normal self. i think she was fighting a stomach bug so she was a bit crabby and uncooperative for photos. dang...
the flowers at the garden that we did see though, were beautiful. however, it cost us 6 bucks apiece to walk into their catalog. because then at the end we were suckered into buying dozens of these gorgeous bulbs. we had to be picky because they were expensive and there were hundreds to pick from. in another part of town, they had a craft fair with some pretty nice art. but as always it was expensive. i did talk don into a beautiful garden sculpture as a mother's day present. {there goes my camera lens i wanted...sigh}
we could not have asked for a prettier day. not a cloud but pretty breezy and actually pretty darn cold. we saw windmills, buffalo, beautiful landscape and of course, tulips, but we were disappointed in the actual town. we thought that there would be tulips everywhere but the fact is they were basically at the tulip farms and in a few planters on the main strip in town. we thought that they would be lining the highways and main roads and on every corner. after all, it's holland, michigan but there were only a smattering of them around other than the few gardens.
don actually got some pictures of me. austen is photophobic at the tender age of 8 so we had to bribe him with money to behave for some photos. scarlett was just plain grumpy so it was a crapshoot (ha) with her. all in all, i am glad we went because now i can cross this off of my "to do before i die" list. one last thing, who the hell makes the decisions to close....as in shut down.. close.. a freeway in the middle of the day on a saturday for construction. .....idiots.