Sometimes she comes up with good ideas

Yesterday at lunch Liza practically begged me to go to the Botanical Garden. Never mind that we were just there two days before, or that it was already halfway through the day, or that we'd have to drive home through rush hour traffic downtown in order to make an appointment at our house ... she wanted to go. Now.

And then she went outside and played on the swings for an hour, despite my repeated reminders that we needed to leave soon if she actually wanted to go to the garden.

Finally at 1:15 I managed to convince her to leave, and by dint of hitting all the lights right, we managed to make it to the garden just in time for the butterfly release. It was worth the trip:
Yes, she has four butterflies on that hand, and eventually got another on her left hand, for a total of five butterflies at once. That big dude there is a Blue Morpho, not that you can tell because he's all camouflaged when he closes his wings. He was apparently all tired and shagged out, because he stayed on Liza's hand for half an hour. Do you have any idea how boring it is to stand around quietly so the butterfly doesn't get startled ... for half an hour? Luckily, I had my camera with me, and no other kids to keep an eye on this time around.

Mr. Morpho was even kind enough to let me get some macro shots of his wings, which was fun. Wish I could have gotten some with his wings open, but in some ways, the camo side is even cooler:

After all that standing around with insects on her arms, it was hard to convince her to take a swing through the "adult" gardens on the way to the children's garden, but somehow I managed it. And I got one of my favorite shots of her, ever:

Wish you could hear us both humming the theme to Jurassic Park while we took the picture - because head-high ferns just scream "dinosaur country" to both of us, even if only one of us has actually seen the entire movie :)