Little Gems

Little gems doesn't refer to the little piece of heaven you see here, it refers to those places you aren't looking for when you're looking for someplace else. Does that make sense? Of course! You see, we found this place on our way to finding another place last weekend.

They had the most beautiful rose gardens. While the kids were hurrying to see what was inside the building, I had to smell a few. My second yelled, C'mon mom, hurry up! I made them all come back and spoke to them of the importance of literally stopping to smell the roses. I have never seen so many different kinds in one place. This was just a small example.

It wasn't a very big place, but full of big wonders. Besides the many different roses they had a grape arbor masquerading as a small covered sitting area. In fact, none of us actually realized there were grapes until we walked over to sit down. Not just one kind either, at least three different kinds we tasted.

This was like one of the 8th wonders of the world to my second born. Did you know that on New Years Eve at his Grammy and Poppy's one year he once ate so many grapes that his dad said - "For goodness sakes kid, will you stop eating those grapes? Here, have some chocolate!"

We weren't really sure if we were allowed to pick them, so I went inside to ask. Before I got back however, they had fist and mouthfuls. They turned out not to be seedless. But they didn't mind.

They also had little ponds sporting water Lilly's and another "RMF" (rare Minnesota frog) He seems to be following us.

So we eventually made it inside to find homemade jellies, fudge, caramels, cheese and lots of things made with apples. They even had a special little refrigerated room with some of their best apples and a guy slicing off samples. It seemed like it was 20 degrees in there and the kids each picked out one of their favorites to take home. They were called "Zestars". Give ya one guess whose apple didn't make it home.

Mom had to try the apple donuts, so we bought one for each of us. At 50 cents a piece I should have bought more! They were still hot. All in all I it was a great day at- wait, where were we going again? I don't think it mattered after we found this place!