The Garden Walk of Death by Melting

This year Matt & I finally made it to the Friendly Garden Club garden walk in Traverse City. Linda got to go with us by default. Any regular day would have been a great day for a garden walk, but this year it happened to fall on the hottest day of the year: 96-101 degrees with 95% humidity.

I could tell you we were uncomfortable, but that would be like saying Dick Wolf has had a bit of TV success. We knew it would be hot, but we wanted to try it anyway. Linda was game, but on one condition - no pictures. (I managed to sneak in a few ... hee, hee).

We toured six gardens despite the liquid heat (including the fairy garden below).

Lots of flowers, lots of plants, lots of fun features.

Without question, Linda preferred the garden flying the Polish flag.

She didn't make it through all of the gardens, but she did enjoy the flora and fauna before the heat got to her. Though she missed three of the gardens, we have photo evidence from the walk so she can forever enjoy the flowers.

Hopefully next year it will be a little cooler and we can all enjoy all of the beauty (and the adorable little frogs riding on the backs of fake ducks).

The Bike (and Horn)

It's here! Linda's bike arrived three days early, but she was not willing to wait to get it going. She kept asking Matt when he would be able to put her bike together (he said it was every hour on the hour - I wasn't here to witness this, but I don't doubt it). He sneaked outside to work on it while she was distracted with the cats.

Aunt Linda picked out a bright pink Schwinn to ride around town. Since everyone in my family likes to make sure others know where we are at all times, she also selected a horn (which she and Matt tested ... in Wal-mart ... multiple times).

It didn't take long for Linda to wonder what happened to Matt, so she came outside to boss, er, um ... supervise.

Almost done ...

Success! She wasn't quite ready to ride it around town yet, but everything is adjusted to her liking and it's ready to go. Now we just need to give her some errands to run ...