A week or so ago we made a brief visit to Bennett's Creek Park in Suffolk with our friends. The park features a playground, skate park, and fishing pier, but our favorite part was climbing rocks and exploring the tiny beach down by the Nansemond River. It was incredibly muddy but that's spring, isn't it? Tons and tons of mud. An added plus: on your way out you can stop by Bennett's Creek Farm Market for some of their amazing she-crab soup, yum!



We've had a lot going on lately, including a trip to Asheville (such a gorgeous town!), Easter (here's A. and G. in their finery), and oh, yeah, by the way, Anouk turned FIVE last week. Five! Can you believe it? We made our annual donation to March of Dimes in honor of our former preemie and if you haven't already made other plans for your charitable giving, we hope you will, too.

So in case you hadn't heard: there are BABY TIGERS at the Virginia Zoo! The zoo's breeding program for this critically endangered species has prospered and been fruitful and now little 000 and 001 (temporary names for the tiger cubs) have taken up residence in our fair city. Every day at 1:00 PM the almost 10-week-old cubs are on display at the Animal Wellness Campus and put on a display they really do, at least the three times we've visited, rolling and tumbling and biting each other and playing with toys. Just generally being adorable. So exciting!

For those of you not in the area (or those of you who are but can't make it to the zoo on any given day), you can see our precious cubs on the Malayan Tiger Cub webcam here. As a general note, be sure to check the time that the tigers will be on display before you visit -- it changes as the cubs grow and their schedule changes.

Speaking of cubs, how big are these ones getting?


We love our zoo now more than ever!

The Norfolk Botanical Gardens being closed for a month to set up for Lantern Asia really put a cramp in our style. I never realized how often we go or how much we depend on the Garden as a place to play on warmer days! But now that we've walked through the Lantern Asia exhibit, I can safely say without any doubt that the wait was worth it.

Lantern Asia is a traveling lantern festival put on by the China-based Tianyu Culture Communication, and features a mile of incredible lanterns to explore. The 36 lantern installations are made of silk and steel and represent Asian traditions and landmarks found in China, Japan, India and Korea, among other Far East nations. There's a giant color Taj Mahal, an elephant parade. Dozens of kawaii pandas tumbling over lighted flowers, and a child-sized ladybug parade. By day, the lanterns are sculptural works of art, detailed and colorful and lovely. But at night -- they're magic.

Our big kids -- Anouk and her two-year-old buddy, T. -- had an amazing time running around each exhibit and exclaiming over all the tiniest details (caveat -- it was increibly hard to keep them from touching and in one case, T. almost ran over an electrified rail (!) so just a strong tip, keep to the path). Even Baby Gus had a good time watching the lights (when he wasn't snoozing). All in all, our walk took about two hours, and this is including the time spent standing in line at the food truck court.

Lantern Asia will run through the end of April, with daily admission free for Garden members from 9:00 AM - 2:00 PM. After that, all garden guests have to pay, though admission is discounted for members ($15 versus $20). Kids 3 and under get in free! Worth pushing back bedtime a few hours (and we take bedtime super seriously in this house).