Garden D'lights

Christmas is truly a festival of lights in the US.

One of the best things to enjoy during the cold winter days of december is to find out and visit special christmas lighting display in the area.
Garden D'lights is one such. Located in the Bellevue botanical garden, this is truly marvelous light show.

At the very beginning is the setup of a vineyard

A closeup shot...everything made of lights.

A variety of flowers, plants with butterflies, squirrels ...

 spider web, spider and mushrooms

A gorgeous setup of a pond with a fountain, floating ducks and fishes

Arrangements around the pond with beautiful flowers and a dancing peacock

a closeup shot of peacock..displaying the intricate work of lights

 ... japanese section of the garden

a chinese Dragon.

I read from their site that thousands of volunteer hours have gone into this fantastic light show. If you are in the area, dont miss this. It is on display till Dec 31, 2011.

Anyone interested to learn the secrets of these beautiful flower creations could join their classes. For more information, visit their website - http://www.gardendlights.org/

Information courtesy - Garden D'lights

Greetings......from North Pole

With the festive spirits already in air....heres bringing you greetings all the way from Santa's house in North Pole village !

Here it is christmas all 365 days of the year :)

According to traditions, it is believed that Santa lives in the north pole, in this village which houses his magical workshop. The surprise gifts and goodies however delivered only to the "nice" kids, on the night of christmas eve.

Kids from all over the world write to their dear Santa and its believed that these letters arrive in thousands each day during this holiday season !

In todays date, there is a beautiful souvenir store housed in this north pole village.

Santa welcomes every child and it is indeed precious moment for the child to sit on his lap and have few words.

The store has huge collections of souvenirs.

The most interesting of all was the display of some letters from children around the world, written to their Santa...

...this was so touching :)

Mushrooooms ~

White/brown button mushrooms - the type mostly seen in stores are the only type that I was aware of...

...until this nature trail I took few months ago that I am astonished at the variety of shape, color, size, pattern these fungi comes in.

Pumpkin Celebration...

....this Autumn. This squash has a season for itself :)

Pictures below from our recent visit to a pumpkin patch ... which I saw was customery for many before the Halloween.
Not just to pick pumpkins, but also for those interested in Ghostly adventures at night ;-)

We could walk around the farm to choose and pick our own pumpkins.

These cute trolleys were for our assistance. My little girl enjoyed the ride on it ;-)

Variety in size and price...you choose as per your need and budget !

For those interested on quick pick, there is also a huge selection as in regular store.

Also available are a variety of other squashs and gourds for decorative purpose. While I have only used them for cooking so far, hoping to give a hand decorating it...may be next year :)

Keeping aside the fun of picking pumpkins, these pumpkin farms also have a huge area set up for some fun activities...for adults and children.

This also included a huge corn maze that took nearly an hour for us to complete ! This was indeed an adventure due to the rains which made the path slippery and marshy.
In the same area there are ghostly adventure activities at night. I took excuse of my little girl and escaped the hall of screams ;-)