art tuesdays: frederik meijer gardens & sculpture park

we made it to our first art tuesday excursion (on a friday) two days before the chihuly exhibit moved on. we went to the meijer gardens in grand rapids. i totally underestimated the entire place. i think i had heard the name "meijer" and thought of the massive supermarkets and hadn't thought the gardens would be that special. but i was totally wrong. plus, i don't think i'd ever realized it was a sculpture park as well?

the gardens were massive. and the art - the sculptures and the chihuly glass as well as the plants were incredible. we strolled along and i found myself completely content and so amazed by plants i'd never seen and beautiful greenhouses with thoughtful displays. the chihuly pieces were integrated so well into the nature - in rivers, on waterfalls, behind the leaves of tropical plants.

and surprisingly, i kept taking mental notes of things i was inspired to do to our house someday. like have chili peppers hanging and a variety of cactus and especially a hanging wreath of living succulents. and a greenhouse.

the rest of these images were some of our favorite spots.

two funny things happened while we were there: 1) we noticed that everyone, everyone, everyone seems to own a dslr camera these days. and 2) i was approached countless times (honestly, too many times to count) and asked where we were from in canada. my response was always "no, sorry, it's just a super comfortable hoodie i found at goodwill."

mateo saw his first miro!

in the middle of the day we went to the children's garden which turned out to be huge - there were treehouses and sandboxes and archeological digs and hands on exhibits and giant pumpkins. mateo did it all.

(including some careful flower-smelling).
i have to say, he behaved amazingly, especially with no nap and being strolled around in the cold for hours. i hope all of our art tuesdays are the same. not the cold part, just the content baby part.

at the end of the day we stopped in the cafe and bought a decaf coffee so that we wouldn't have to eat our picnic lunch out in the cold. and bonus: we got to sit under and gaze at more beautiful glass.