Community Day at Hershey Gardens

One of our very favorite days of the year is Community Day at Hershey Gardens. It's something very special and poignant for me--a few years ago, our Sunday spent there was a very, very bright spot during an extremely low period for me. And that's saying something. It was very difficult for a while there to get me to feel anything, let alone anything upbeat, so Community Days at Hershey Gardens mean a lot to me. We're very blessed to have it and live in such a beautiful area! Absolutely refreshing and rejuvenating to the soul!

The Community Day also hosts a lot of educational and community groups -- horticultural groups, beekeepers, etc. They've even had the Dauphin County Master Gardeners there! Makes us think of Grandma, since she, too, is a Master Gardener! Next time Papa and Grandma come, we've GOT to do the gardens!!

We've had a GORGEOUS day--wonderful stake conference session with Elder Bednar, beautiful weather, gorgeous scenery, and we've made some wonderful new friends (who also happen to be new neighbors!) -- there's a family of 9 who lives down the street from our new place and they also homeschool. The Mom and I have been emailing and she spotted me right away and we spent the entire afternoon with them. They are DELIGHTFUL! SUCH nice people, so much fun. We're thrilled to be neighbors!! Our kids have COMPLETELY hit it off (it's all our kids can talk about and even in our prayers tonight, expressing gratitude for our new neighbors and friends) and are so happy to play with them!

These pictures pretty much speak for themselves . . .

Some fun games sponsored by community service groups -- good, old-fashioned fun outside games like croquet and hula hoops, etc.

Eating lots of honey sticks provided by local beekeeper associations--YUMMY!

Studying a hive - "We've found the Queen Bee!"

Buddies!

Gorgeous Vines -- like being in a jungle!

A bunch of monkeys!

My favorite garden -- the Japanese Garden

It's full of koi!

Guessing which Hershey Kiss will spout up water and steam next . . .

Okay, I LOVE this!! This is the first time The Butterfly House has been open for this event (that I know of). OMIGOSH! I had NO idea!! I thought it was a museum of pictures of butterflies. Not so! You walk through the butterfly house and there are LOADS of beautiful and colorful butterflies EVERYWHERE! And they fly around and land on you. Absolutely AMAZING!!

These two are buddies, too!

He LOVES to match things!! Scavenger Hunts are very, very fun!

Making music in the Children's Garden! And hey, there's my new friend. Now that we've met, we're more than "email friends!" :)

Good Buddies!!

Breathtaking!

C'mon guys, take a couple of nice, smiling pictures . . .

. . . and you can do a goofy one, too!

Our daughter photographer

Our son photographer :)

See? With all we've got going on, we stop to smell the roses. ;)

Playing hide-and-seek in the rose gardens

They also host beautiful chamber music and local opera and playhouse singers. Gorgeous--we followed the sound of a deep, beautiful opera tenor to find the music area! This is a group of kids playing Suzuki Violin--very pretty! We love sitting on the grass and enjoying the beautiful sights and sounds! Lovely!

My Vavo has always had these kinds of flowers --

Beautiful Day. We love Community Day at Hershey Gardens!