Swan Lake

The kids wanted to know what I wanted for my birthday last month. I told them I wanted to go to see Swan Lake. Before you think I was going to drag my kids to yet another ballet, I really meant Swan Lake and Iris Gardens in Sumter, SC. I wanted a family outing and to make memories instead of accumulating more "stuff" .

The iris garden actually started as an accident. In the late 1920's a Sumter businessman was landscaping his home with Japanese irises. After the flowers failed to thrive, he ordered his gardener to dig them up and throw them in the swamp. The following year the irises bloomed! This same businessman began importing the swans. The lake now boasts as having every variety of swan in the world.

Once a year Sumter's Swan Lake and Iris Garden hosts an Iris Festival with a flower show, arts and crafts, food tasting and children's activities. The festival was held over Memorial Weekend. We were pretty busy with Aden's birthday party, so we missed the event. We went two weeks later instead.

Though it was mid-June, the irises were still gorgeous. Spring in the south is a sight to behold with blooming magnolias, hydrangeas, and gardenias. Around the perimeter of the lake were ancient cypress tress with low hanging moss. Cypress knees were bubbling up from the ground near the swamp. From our octogenarian guide, we found out no one actually knows what the usefulness of cypress knees, but it is speculated it is to protect the tree from being washed away in the swamp when the water rises.

We had a beautiful picnic under a shade tree.

Aden collected so many feathers for his "collection", he had his sister carry some for him.

I have been saving bread heels for some time in preparation for the trip. The kids had a good time feeding the swans, ducks and geese. We saw a momma duck with baby ducklings going for a swim. The kids also enjoyed watching the turtles and spent a good while trying to catch tadpoles.






From the pictures you can see why this is a popular site for weddings. What spring bride wouldn't want to get married in a fairy tale garden under a gazebo?

Happy Birthday to Us

My greatest birthday gift ever was the one I received 5 days after I turned 30 - my son.

Our birthdays were actually at the end of last month. Aden's party was at Chuck E. Cheese the weekend before his birthday since school would be over by the following weekend. We wanted as many kids to show up before everyone left for summer break. The kids had the times of their lives.

On Aden's actual birthday, Scott had just returned from a business trip to LA. I took the afternoon off to spend time with my husband and we baked Aden's cake together. Aden wanted a lemon cake, with blue frosting with the Superman symbol on it. Yeah, I could have bought a cake, but this was much more fun.

While I was busy stirring up a bottle of blue food coloring into 1-1/2 containers of frosting, Scott but his artistic talents to work. He found a picture of Superman's logo online and scaled the picture to fit the top of the cake. He used an exact-o knife to cut the paper around the "S". After I had frosted the cake, he laid the paper cut-out on the frosting and used writing frosting to do the outlines. As you can see by the edging, I've never taken a cake decorating class. One day I hope to enroll in a cake decorating class to add to my other hobbies.



Aden's face lit up the room when he saw his cake. Yeah, I could have bought a cake, but he was more excited over the one we made and to see his shining smile was worth taking off the afternoon (and having my fingers turn blue for two days from food coloring).