Philadelphia Flower Show 2015


Earlier this month, I headed to Pennsylvania for our annual trip to the Philadelphia Flower Show with my Mom! The theme this year was Celebrate the Movies.



I loved it especially because when you walked in, there were movie compilations playing on a giant screen above you and it smelled my popcorn (which is one of my favorite smells).


If you read this blog regularly, you know that I am a big fan of the Miniature Landscape portion of the show. I think we accidentally discovered that Miniature Landscape Design is only at the show every other year. Or, they hide it every other year and my Mom and I can't find it. Regardless, we didn't see it this year, which was a major bummer. BUT I think our interaction with a blue ribbon winner still made the show a success?


Here's a lesson we learned at this year's show: If you're going to be critical of the plants, do it very quietly. We got to this section and I said to my Mom "How did this win a blue ribbon? The flowers look dead!". And my Mom said "Linda McCarthy is in the Cactus and Succulent Society!" and then the woman next to us said "I'm Linda McCarthy". We just about died.

Linda told us a lot of great information though (I'm hoping she didn't hear me say that her flowers looked dead) including: you can buy plants at Lowes and enter them and also sometimes you need grow lamps in your house (she has a "basement full of them"). I don't think my Mom and I will go the grow lamp route, but its good to know that's an option!

The flower displays at the show are always really beautiful, especially the ones that have to do with the theme, but my favorite part by far is always the plants (Linda's forte) and the bonsai display (My Mom loves the dioramas but there is always a line and I feel like you can't look at them for too long with out the people behind you breathing loudly).

This bonsai was 30 years old! That's as old as John! And they had one that was 77 years old which is almost as old as my Nanny! I'm just fascinated.


Groot? (Sometimes I do watch movies!)


I loved this one...look how perfectly round it is! And no dead flowers...I totally understand why this one won a blue ribbon!


Some of the flowers in the Celebrate the Movies section...

The Magic Carpet from Aladdin!


The House from Up (I loved this one so much)!


I have no idea what this is from but I loved it!


My Mom has gotten really great at making picture collages on her phone. She can make one in under 30 seconds, I'm not even joking. Here are two of my faves from the day:


This one is a compilation of all the penis like plants we saw that day that my Mom decided to Instagram with the caption "And now for the phallic competition! #peepeeflowers". The bottom right ones are particularly upsetting to me, thanks Mom!


See you next year, Flower Show!

Is the Winter Over?


I feel like whenever there's an extreme weather situation, I automatically forget all previous extreme weather situations. For example every time it snowed this winter I thought to myself "IT WILL NEVER BE WARM AGAIN!". But I can promise that when its 100 degrees in July and I'm melting on the subway platform I will think to myself "WHEN WILL IT BE COLD AGAIN?"


My ideal temperature is somewhere around 52 degrees. Actually its 43 degrees but I don't think that's socially acceptable to say (every time I say it someone yells at me) so let's say its the cold side of 52 degrees.

Since its almost Spring (read: the point of year where temperatures begin to increase to an unacceptable level) I thought I'd dump some of the snow pictures I've take all winter on the blog.

Don't they look nice? New York in the snow is beautiful!

Lies. Here's a realistic photo.


Is the Fall yet?

John's 30th Birthday

On Friday, John turned 30! It was a weekend full of celebrating (and so much cake), starting with cake and games on Friday night with our friends (this picture is the first time I ever used the timer on my phone! Jon set it up beautifully and I recommend that you befriend him for his timer skills).


On Saturday night we went to Barcade with our pockets full of quarters for his birthday party. I was able to reserve a big table in the back for our group, which was great. Everyone had a place to put their coats and bags and a place to sit when the exhaustion from too many arcade games. Here's the guys playing NBA Jam, which is apparently a super intense game?


We got a beautiful cake and whoopie pies from our friend Teress' friend, Veronika. She did such an incredible job and the cake was delicious (want a cake? Email me and I'll connect you with Veronika!).


John hates the Happy Birthday song. He doesn't like to sing it and he doesn't like to have it sung to him. He especially doesn't like when a group of 20 of his friends scream it at the top of their lungs in a crowded bar. He was pretty mortified, but my heart was so full while we were signing...it was kind of the best.





Happy Birthday, Babe. And thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate!