Amber and Zach: April 2010

So I work up at 0400 this morning for really no reason. We decide to have baked french fries for breakfast. I decide that today is just going to be weird. We get bored and it's raining outside. Like a true nelson, we decide to go to Wal-Mart ('cause that's what grandma nelson used to do daily). We walk around looking at stuff, then we walk past the pets department. I see this fish among the dead/ugly fish...looking at me. Then he begins to dance. I INSISTED we buy this fish, 'cause he's happy. I need happiness around the house, so we find one of the grumpy ladies that works in the area and tell her to pick him out. She gets him in the bag and he literally jumps for, what I can only assume is, joy (most fish die at walmart...wouldn't you be happy?). Even the grumpy lady smiles and says, "yeah that is one happy fish."

He loves me, you can tell:

I just imagine him saying, "HEY, HEY, hey...hey....hey.....I love you"

This is my second favorite place on Earth. Robert Allerton Park is so magical. We are going to try and go every season and take pictures of how it evolves.

Zach said, "at this point a nerd would say 'it looks like Edward and Bella should step out from behind a tree.'" Funny he thought of that before me (the Twilight freak)...

This is one of my favorite flowers. It smells like lilac.

I thought this flower looked cool.

Sometimes I just let my camera hang on my wrist by it's strap and let it take pictures. Sometimes it looks pretty darn good :p

I...love...daffodils

This is the pavilion of the golden Buddhas or something like that. I wouldn't go in because there was a rather large hornet's nest.

I am allergic to bee stings....but I can't help getting a picture of them. I like the way they look.

Zach's favorite part of the garden...the fu dogs.

After I took this picture Zach says, "I didn't make that face on purpose. That was my 'concrete is digging into my hand rather painfully' face."

Climbing isn't really my thing.

Zach knew a girl that insisted that violence and murder was exclusively a human trait. I'd just like to point out that there were vines all over the place, wrapped around dead and dying trees. Mostly the vine had put welts onto the trees. It looked pretty violent to me.

This little red flower taught me a lesson. It showed me that even in the ugliest of places there is beauty. You just have to look hard enough.

This is the "goldfish pond." This is the ugliest pond I've ever seen.

The exit of the fu dog garden.

A whole field of daffodils.

I dunno what kind of flower this is, but it sure looks cool.

This reminded me of a song by Nightwish called Meadows of Heaven.

Who doesn't want to live here??

there were hundreds of these in the reflection pond....tadpoles! I've never seen one before this.

I...love...koi. These ones are HUGE!

So beautiful...and hungry!

This is the exit of the Sunken Garden. When I was little I wanted to get married here. Maybe we'll do a vow renewal here. The recently restored the fish and wall (hence the shininess and whiteness).

Closeup of the guardian fish. Allerton found the design on top of a Japanese castle in Tokyo. Lords usually made them out of gold (like the originals to Allerton) and they thought it would guard their castle and it also signified the lord's importance.