We've said it before, but it's worth repeating - we love our city! Atlanta has a ton to offer, and one of my all time favorite spots is the
Atlanta Botanical Garden. It is like a little oasis inside the city, and is such a great attraction year round. If you are ever in Atlanta, I would put it on the top of your "must visit" list.
A few weekends ago, I cancelled everything we had planned, and decided to buy last minute tickets to visit the garden. As much as I love a clean garage, and we needed to grocery shop for the week, I felt like we needed something a little more fun in our day. The weather was just too beautiful, and I had been wanting to see the
Chihuly in the Garden exhibit before it disappears. I love Chihuly art, and we are so lucky to have so many pieces so close to our home for a short while.
(The exhibit goes on until October 30th, so if you are in town the next few days make your way over!)
My little family was super excited about the day's new plan. Mr. Cute I think was most excited of all. I was shocked to learn as an Atlanta native he had never been to the gardens before!
Amazingly, there are over 100 scarecrows sprinkled throughout the garden. It is always fun to see what different themes and supplies each entrant uses to create their scarecrow.
The kids instantly had some favorites. This pirate one was a huge hit.
And they absolutely loved this octopus.
I'm not even sure what was used to create it, but it was so neat and colorful in person.
But this one had to take the cake over all.
It was titled "The Unicorn Formerly known as Prince".
Cute couldn't quite figure out if this was a real skeleton or not.
He was totally convinced that this portion of the garden was haunted by a football player though. He talked about it for a good thirty minutes. And told anyone who passed by to "beware of the haunted football forest".
The kids favorite part by far was the Children's Garden. It is a green space filled to the brim with fun interactive activities for kids. It has a tree house themed playground area, a water painting wall, a construction area where kids can build things out of pieces of Balsa wood, and during the summer months there is a splash pad area for them to cool cool off in as well.
The Children's Garden also had a few additional activities going on during our visit. I'm not sure if this runs through the end of the month as well or if they rotate activities out depending on the season.
There was pumpkin bowling, (which my kids were super pumped about because they were able to throw real pumpkins), apple painting, pumpkin toss and more. They had a blast and would have stayed there all day if we let them.
But then they found the musical outdoor amphitheater and all thoughts of anything pumpkin related were out the window. This had to be their favorite part of the Children's Garden. They loved created performances with the other kids on the stage, and if you know The Cutes, you know that they are not ones to be shy in the personality department. Or the loud department. So this was right up their alley.
They were heartbroken when we said that we needed to eat lunch and see the rest of the gardens. Luckily the city of Atlanta can be graced with their musical acoustics year round.
The Atlanta Botanical Garden has a few spots on site for you to
grab a bite to eat. We wanted something quick and easy since the kids were with us so we opted for the Quick Cafe attached to Linton's. I had the turkey chili and it was quite yummy. I will say the options are good, but they are slightly pricey for their size. So just be forewarned before you go - convenient, yet expensive.
After refueling, we walked around to enjoy the main reason for our visit - Chihuly in the Garden!
The Chihuly pieces are sprinkled throughout the entire garden, so everywhere you turn is colorful glass filled surprise.
It was amazing to see how detailed each piece was (my iPhone photography does not do it justice), and how carefully placed each one was placed.
The pieces during the day are gorgeous and mixed in throughout both green spaces as well as water features.
The exhibit is also open during the night for Chihuly Nights. I wish we could go back to see it at night because I can only imagine how stunning it is!
The kids thought the exhibits were fun, but they also are a little young to appreciate them. Some of them are also quite close to where you stand and we had to repeat quite a few hundred times to "not touch the pretty glass!".
But even with my blood pressure going a little high at times, it was totally worth it to enjoy seeing with my family.
The gardens will always remain one of my favorite Atlanta attractions, and I love that my children have grown to appreciate it just much as I do. The Garden always host a ton of great events and this little outing was a great reminder that we need to utilize this attraction a little bit more than we have in the past (especially if this was Mr. Cute's only visit!).
And with the holidays just around the corner (Eek! It stresses me out to even type that!), my Christmas bucket list this year definitely includes
Garden Lights, Holiday Nights. I've always heard it's ah-mazing!
Have you been to the Atlanta Botanical Garden? What is your favorite part?
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