Amber and Zach: Springtime with Mr. Allerton

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.