San Antonio Botanical Gardens, Pumpkin Carving, Family Dinner

We flew to San Antonio yesterday and arrived to sunshine!  Just had a quiet afternoon around the house and got unpacked.

But, the action started today.  Got up to clouds but decided to head to the San Antonio Botanical Gardens anyway.  Glad we did...it was cloudy but cool with a nice breeze and good for pictures!

As part of their Bootanica Halloween Event last weekend, they had a Scarecrow Hunt with 22 different Scarecrows around the garden.  They were created by different organizations, some garden staff groups and a few schools.  We'll do a separate blog for those.  

There was also a Savage Gardens Exhibit with four oversized sculptures that illustrated an insects perspective of real plants.  This was a Fanged Pitcher Plant.   

They have a huge children's program with large beds where different groups come in on the weekend to tend vegetable gardens.  It's sponsored by the gardens as well as the Texas Extension Service and several groups.  Boy...the tomatoes were certainly tempting!!

 There was a lovely Japanese Garden - Sister Cities Project...

 a pond surrounded by Bald Cypress with impressive knees...

 a desert garden loaded with cactus with a few in bloom...

a fern grotto and several conservatory buildings with a focus on water management.

We headed home for lunch and worked on a few items for dinner and got set up for the...

 PUMPKIN CARVING!!!

 YUCKY!!

 Creative time....

 Nice job guys!!!

Then Lynn's crew arrived and we had dinner...yummy brisket, salad, cole slaw, corn, garlic bread and ice cream!  Great to have everybody together again (except Ernie in Philadelphia)!