Day 4 of my NJ trip (Well some of it)!

This was part of the last full day of my trip to NJ. I am going to break up this post. Today I will post some of my parents gardens and the botanical garden and then tomorrow I will post the rest of the Botanical Garden pictures. There are just too many! Sunday morning Megan and I went to Van Heusen and Bass outlet one more time. I bought John another golf shirt and I got 2 more tops at Bass for myself. Really love no sales tax on clothes in NJ! My Mom, Megan, my sister, Sue and I went to the Skylands Botanical Garden in Ringwood, NJ. What a beautiful place! I had gone to the Ringwood Manor when I was a child with the school but never to the gardens. You know I love flowers and I was not disappointed. NJ has been very cool this Spring so not all the flowers were out, but that didn't matter because what was out was beautiful! I also took some pictures of my Mom and Dad's flowers. I will start with them and then show you the Botanical Gardens flowers. Hope you enjoy the tour!


If you were a bird wouldn't you love to live here! My Dad made this and he is very proud of it-as he should be.


My Dad also built this gazebo and then planted a wisteria on it. He had to wait almost 12 yrs. for the wisteria to bloom and last year it finally did. This year it had even more flowers!


This is one view of my Mom's garden, which I love.


Here's another view of her garden. Not many flowers blooming right now but they will be soon!


My Mom has a constant battle with squirrels and this one just annoyed the heck out of her! She said it comes everyday and few times a day and perches itself on her birdbath and drinks water from it for almost 1/2 an hour!!


My Dad rescued this azaela from another part of the yard. It was doing well there but it seems to be doing really well by his barn/shop!


Mom has this azaela in her garden up by the house and it is always a showstopper!


My Dad planted this iris along the picket fence he has down by his barn/shop (my Mom claims he stole it from her garden-they just crack me up!!). Isn't it a beauty!


Their rhodedendrons just started blooming and they were absolutely beautiful!


Here is another pretty blue iris along the fence.

Skylands Botanical Garden:


Megan took a picture of me, my Mom and my sister, Sue at the beginning of our tour in the Garden.


Here is a closeup of the same picture of us.


Megan came down a spiral staircase and I caught this picture of her.


This picture I thought was a great one of Megan and my Mom.


I don't have that many pictures of my Mom, so I asked her if she could sit up on the wall and I would take a picture of her. First I didn't think she would be able to get up on the wall and then she just hopped up there!

Here are the Tree Peony's-they were all just gorgeous!







Here are some azaelas. We start with the white azaela and then move on to the Exbury deciduous azaelas that were growing along the woodland trail. They were just beautiful!!







Tomorrow I'll post the rest of my Botanical Garden pictures. There will be some beautiful iris, fountains, statues and lilacs! I hope you can join me!

Day 2 and 3 of my NJ trip

Day 2: Megan and I slept in a little bit, I guess because of the long drive the day before. Then we went to visit my niece, Devyn at the little place she works at called the Sprinkle Shack. Cute name! We had some breakfast there. Drove back to Mom and Dad's visited with my sister, Sue for a bit. She stopped by my parents and had breakfast with Megan and I. Then Megan and I left for Sarah's and Sally's house. Well really Sally's house-she is my best friend in NJ. Sarah is Sally's daughter, who happened to be visiting with her 4 month old son-they live in Texas now. The baby (Zachary) is soooooo cute! Megan and I had lunch at Sally's house. 2 other school friends joined us and one of the girls mothers did too! What a lovely reunion we all had! Then I came back to my Mom's. Dad, Mom and I had dinner together and then Mom and I went to the VanHeusen Store. I love the fact that NJ doesn't have sales tax on clothes!!


Here is my Dad on his 87 yr. old Fordson Tractor. He was so happy he got it started. He has taken quite a few years to restore it, but it looks gorgeous and he had so much fun driving it!


Here is a little closer view of it.


After Dad got done driving the tractor around he parked it just down from his barn. You can just see it from the road. He had it in the pasture before but the cows wouldn't leave it alone. They would lick it and they tried to eat some of it. I think it is safer just where it is!


Dad's 3 steer where delivered the morning after we arrived in NJ-perfect timing! I named them Racetrack around the eyeballs, Minnie and Howard. My Dad just laughed at the names! I think he will keep them though. They don't usually name them but this year he made an exception.



Here is little Minnie standing in the holding pen. She is so cute. She has such large eyes and curly eyelashes! When Dad let the 3 steer out of the holding pen they ran and kicked up their heels-it was a sight to behold!


Here's Megan with Zachary! What a good baby-he only cried once and it really was just a whimper-he was hungry.


This is Sarah, Zachary and Me. We had a wonderful, wonderful visit!

Day 3:

I woke up early and chatted with Mom and Dad for just a bit and then headed to Lafayette, NJ (which is only 12 mins. from my parents house) to have breakfast at the Millside Cafe with my neighbors that live in Branchville, NJ.


NJ has had alot of rain this Spring. This is the stream along side the Millside Cafe. I forgot to take a picture of the Cafe, but it is an old General Store. Really neat!


Sweet Peas Antiques store is one of my favorite shops. They have really pretty antiques, always a beautiful collection of things.


This is the Lafayette Antique Mill. It is a group of many vendors in an old lumber and coal store. I love walking around there-the floor boards creak as you go from room to room and there are many treasures there too!


There is a store called The Chocolate Goat next door to the Millside Cafe and this is the statue the owner had carved out of wood-a goat connected to a cart!



The stream runs along side an antique shop on the other side of the street.

That's it for Day 2 and 3-hope you enjoyed the trip!

Day One of my NJ trip

Hi Everyone! I finally got all my NJ trip pictures downloaded from my camera. I will share Day One with you.





Why are they always working on the roads in Pennsylvania and NJ? Well here they are working on the roads in Warren County, NJ.


I love this Christmas tree farm in Warren County, NJ. Everyone thinks NJ is like Newark or Jersey City, well where I grew up it looked like this!

There are some beautiful old barns in both Warren and Sussex County, NJ. Here are a few Megan and I passed.










Sussex County has alot of really rich soil, so the farming is great! This field is all plowed and ready to go!


Megan and I knew we only had about 30 mins. to go to get to my parents house once we hit the Welcome to Sussex County sign! YAY-12 hours in the car was definitely long enough!!


We were greeted by the lovely cows in this field! The grass is so green and lush. What a beautiful sight to behold!


Here is Mom and Dad's driveway! It was so good to be driving up to the house-we had enough of the car!




This is what you see when you look down the lower part of Mom and Dad's driveway.


This is a small section of Mom and Dad's backyard. Wouldn't you like to wake up to this every day! We would eat breakfast and look out at this!


This was another view of Mom and Dad's backyard. You can see part of my Mom's flower garden. Not much was blooming because it has been so cold up there.

Well that is it for now. Tomorrow I'll post the pics of my Dad's infamous Fordson Tractor and a little town called Lafayette, NJ. Hope you enjoyed the first day!

Sorry no pictures yet!

I know I told everyone I would have pictures on my blog a few nights ago and I started downloading them from my camera. I found out I had 168 pictures on there!! Holy Cow!! I have been editing them and getting them ready for my blog. I am pretty sure I will have them all done and start putting them on here Friday night. Life just has a way of getting in the way! Thanks for your patience!!

Hi Everyone-I'm Back from NJ!!

Hi Everyone! Just wanted to let everyone know I returned from NJ safe and sound. I had a wonderful trip and tonight I will post some pictures of my NJ adventures! The trip was too short as usual, but there is always next time! I saw alot of people, did alot of things for such a short period of time and spent some quality time with Megan! Talk to y'all later! It is good to be home!