Luckily today was not as hot as it has been lately. And since this will be the late weekend we have to go to the botanical gardens (the next few weekends my brother will be recovering form wisdom teeth extraction and then I leave for Japan) so it all worked out for the best. We walked comfortably through the garden grounds, visiting the different sections that are each designed for different parts of the world or different conception.
First we started off on one side of the garden, the Japanese garden, and then migrated to the other side of the garden which is the Fruit & Vegetable garden, meanwhile traversing through an English walled garden and a Home Landscape garden.

Looking at the Japanese garden from across the pond. 

As we passed one of the several small waterfalls, I found this flower hanging out over the rushing water.

As we were walking underneath this, my mom said that she wanted to build something like this over our patio back in Michigan. It would be a huge project, a lot of work, but keep it in mind anyway. It would be nice to keep some of the sun off the patio so we could be out there even in the hottest part of the day, covered in ivy and morning glories…

The same as above but form the side.

One of the gardens we walked through was the rose garden, which is also a plan for the backyard next year. My mom wants to plant fragrant roses around the gardens to keep it shielded from the path a little. 

Scattered through out the gardens were these massive statues depicting what I'm not quite sure. Some were humanoid, others were of animals.

Water lily. Amazing colors, there were blue and purple ones along with white and pink. 

At one point we stopped at the restaurant in the gardens and as we ate lunch these birds gathered around tables hoping for the leftovers. 

This picture and the following four were all taken by Nick, as Eric and I were handling the map and navigating.

Eggplant!

Walking through the apple orchard. Even though the trees had all be sprayed with what I guess is pesticides or some sort of fertilizer, the thick scent of apples wafted out form under the trees low branches.

And so ended our trip to the botanical gardens. Glad we went while most things were in bloom!

Recently, the plant that my dad is working at was visited by the president, Barack Obama who gave a speech there to the workers and toured the plant. My dad got to hear the speech first hand and took a few pictures. It's a little hard to descren, but enlarge the photo (click on it) and you can see the president.

Last weeks fiery sunset sky. Living so high up we get to see much more fo the sunset than when we were on the ground, where the sun was soon disappear behind the trees, out of sight. I think I'll miss this part about living at the top of this building when we move back to Michigan. But enjoying it while it lasts!!

おやすみ。