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Check out how gorgeous their flora was… I was truly in SoCal plant heaven. I looooove this part of the country.

The succulents were amazing.

I don’t know what this one is, but I want it.

And the FRUIT TREES!

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Here I am last night with my coworker & pal, HGTVGardens Community Manager Mallory Colliflower, who is also here at Mom 2.0

Mom 2.0 is a fantastic event, and I am so happy to be here this year on behalf of HGTV.

I’m also tweeting from Mom 2.0, and you can keep up with all the conversation around the event by following the Twitter hashtag #mom2summit.

Also, if you’re at Mom 2.0 this year, I hope you’ll find me and say hi!

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Above, you see a photo of two year old G snoozing away in her carseat. All seems well, right? Well, that’s only because she’s asleep.

Last weekend, while I was driving home from Bell Buckle, G realized for the first time that she could take that chest buckle, and push it down to her waist, and then wriggle completely out of her carseat. She was delighted with this new discovery, and she did it again and again…and again, meaning that I had to stop and buckle her back in about 20 times on the way home.

So now, obviously, we have to get a different carseat for her – one that she can’t unbuckle herself. She weighs about 30 pounds and will be three years old at the end of June. Do any of y’all have any recommendations for a G-proof carseat? If so, I’d love to hear them.

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Yum!

(I’m reading up on how to keep the birds from eating all my berries…)

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And so I was thrilled when only a week later, one of the seeds (only one though!) sprouted, and immediately began growing at an insanely fast clip. Every morning for the last six weeks, I’ve gone out to find that my morning glory vine had grown at least an inch up the obelisk, happily twining and wrapping itself around the metal structure.

By mid-April, the super-healthy vine had reached the top of the obelisk, and last week, I noticed that it had produced its first flower bud!

I was really excited to see this because I’d read online that Morning Glory “Heavenly Blue” doesn’t generally start blooming until mid-late summer. And yet, my clearly superior gardening skills had coaxed a first flower bud out of my plant before May 1st!

Two days ago, that first bud finally showed its colors…

Hmmm… That doesn’t really look much like a Morning Glory, does it? Much less a blue one.

Here’s what the flower should look like.

I was truly baffled. This flower looked to me to be some kind of Clematis. How did I plant Morning Glory seeds and end up with a Clematis? Was it possible the seeds were mismarked? Not likely since hardly anyone really grows Clematis from seeds.

Where had this rogue Clematis come from?

And then I remembered!

Last year, in June, my first attempt at growing Clematis had failed miserably. The small starter plant I’d bought died almost immediately, before it even reached 3 inches in height. But before I tossed it in the garbage heap, I snipped off a tiny piece of root that looked less dead than the rest of it, and I stuck it in the ground at the foot of the obelisk thing, where I promptly forgot all about it.

That was last year in late June. And now, 10 months later, that teensy snippet of root is a big, healthy, blooming Clematis plant – the variety is Jackmanii superba – and I’m pretty psyched with this turn of events, even though I still don’t have any Morning Glories…

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To wit:

WOOHOO!!! ONLY TEN DAYS!!

As I’ve mentioned, this will be my very first trip to Disney World, and also the first time there for G and C. Plus, of course, it will be our first trip there all together as a family. In fact, this will be the first time we’ve all flown anywhere together at the same time – all 6 of us – Jon, me, J, E, C, and G. (It turns out that my sister Betsy and her family are on the same flight with us next Wednesday. It will be the Cousinpalooza Disney Flight!!)

Our family is going on our Disney trip on these particular dates because I am going to be attending this year’s Disney Social Media Moms Conference, which is no doubt going to be fantastic, and will include some terrific pre-planned activities for me/us. However, we will also have time to explore Disney World on our own, and since I’ve never been, I’ve been busily (and VERY excitedly!) researching what and where and how to spend our time during our 4 day visit, as well as asking all my Disney-veteran friends and coworkers for advice on which rides and shows and attractions are not-to-be-missed.

And frankly, I am feeling a bit overwhelmed (in a fun way, of course). For a total Disney neophyte such as myself, it’s tough to know where to even start in deciding what MUST make it on to our “must do/see” list while we’re there. I think you could spend a month at Disney World and still not see everything. Also, we are definitely trying to stick to a budget (there are six of us, after all), so I am focusing on the stuff that’s included in our park passes. That’s not to say that we won’t get in a few extras, but they need to be kept to the “few” category.

Here’s my draft punchlist of things that I don’t think we will want to miss at Disney World (obviously, some of these will be for the littles, some for the big kids, and some for all 4 of them + cousins together):

-The nightly electric parade.

- The “It’s A Small World” Ride

DINOSAUR

-Phineas & Ferb: Agent P’s World Showcase Adventure

-“We the People” at The American Adventure

-The Jungle Cruise

-Mickey’s Philharmagic

-Pirates of the Caribbean Ride

- Journey of the Little Mermaid

-Haunted Mansion

- Turtle Talk with Crush (C happens to be slightly obsessed with sea turtles)

- Star Tours: The Adventures Continue”

-Peter Pan’s Flight

Gosh, now that I’ve written all that out, it seems like a looooong list to try to squeeze in in only 4 days. Plus, I know I’m missing some must-see stuff with my list so far, which is why I am turning to you, gentle blog readers (or at least the ones of you who have been to Disney World), to ask this question: If you could only do ONE thing while at Disney, what would that one thing be? What’s the single “must-see” Disney ride, show or attraction that you would encourage us to be sure to take in on our very first trip to The Magic Kingdom?

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