Celebrating Spring in Virginia and Pennsylvania

Spring is a fabulous time of year everywhere, I suppose, but I especially enjoy it here on the East coast. The cherry blossoms were a blog post of their own, but here are some pictures from the rest of the lovely places we visited this spring.

Since Kent has one of the prettiest yards in North Stafford, I thought I'd put some pictures from his garden in this post.

He's developing a new area of the yard with a small bridge and paths.

The clematis in our front yard had a bumper crop this year.

 I hosted a crepes party for the ward book group.

 It was fun to bring some of the lovely azaleas and spring colors from Kent's yard into the house for decorations.

In Richmond, Virginia, there's a historic mansion completed in the 1890's during the Gilded Age.

The owners had no children, so they left the estate to the city of Richmond.

The home and grounds are now a public park. When we were there it was spring break in Richmond, so there were lots of children and families enjoying the spring weather.

We took a tour of the home, which has been maintained as it was when the owners lived there.

There were many lovely architectural details, as seen in the photos below.

I'd toured the home before but wasn't allowed to take photos, so it was fun to be able to this time.

A dining room table set up a la Downton Abbey!

A Worth Ball Gown from the 1890's.

A unique swan bed.

Me in the front entryhall. Kent took the picture from the staircase.

Out in the formal gardens.

A better picture of the garden.

The path on the way down to the Japanese garden.

There were cherry blossom trees in bloom!

There were bridges, streams and waterfalls.

It was a very enjoyable spring day!

I'd heard about a tulip farm about an hour's drive away from us and wanted to see it.

I have to say it was very expensive and very disappointing.

These pictures make it look better than it was. The tulip fields were very underwhelming, but I guess when you've been to Holland and seen the tulip fields in Holland, nothing can compare! 

 As evidence I submit these photos from our trip to Holland in 2006. (Above and below)

Another rather disappointing place we went was the Winchester (Virginia) Apple Blossom Festival. Somehow I envisioned rows of apple trees covered in blossoms, like the cherry blossom trees in DC. Nope, just a few blossoms here and there that took some looking to find.

It was a waste of a drive and an afternoon, so we won't be going back to the Apple Blossom Festival!

We went up to Pennsylvania to go to thePhiladelphia Temple, and on our way we stopped to see the tulips in bloom at Longwood Gardens.

Their tulip gardens were not a disappointment!

We went last year in May to see the tulips, but it was the end of the season and not many were still in bloom, so it was rather disappointing.

We went earlier in the season and I think we hit the peak bloom this year.

The fountains were on at the Italian gardens.

The corner of the gardens with the castle's turret and waterfall is always one of our favorites.

Don't Cry for Me, Argentina

The last stop on our South American trip was Buenos Aires. We flew out of the small airport at Iguazu on the Argentina side of the waterfalls.

 I took this picture out of the window of the airplane as we were landing in Buenos Aires.

 I love it when airports have nice welcome signs to their country or city! 

Our hotel was the Pan American, which was right in the middle of downtown, overlooking this plaza with the obelisk and the "BA" standing for Buenos Aires.

There was even a demonstration going on at the city center plaza while we were there, but we didn't know what it was about.

Our first stop on the city tour was to the Presidential Palace and plaza.

 This is the balcony where Eva Peron would wave to her adoring fans.

We watched a changing of the guard while we were in the plaza.

We visited the large cathedral in Buenos Aires.

 It has the tomb of the liberator (from Spain) of Argentina in 1816.

 Our next stop was the La Boca area, which is a colorful touristy part of town.

 I took this picture trying to get a good shot of the flag of Argentina.

 We went to the city cemetery

 to see where Eva Peron is buried.

That night we had a tango lesson at the hotel.

Afterwards we went to the best ice cream shop in town, (according to our tour guide)

 but I didn't think it was nearly as good as the ice cream we had at Iguazu Falls!

We posed for a night time photo in front of the obelisk.

This was a cool sculpture that we saw as we were driving around Buenos Aires.

There were lots of beautiful flowering trees in April.

We went to the Grand Splendid Bookstore, billed as the most beautiful bookstore in the world. It's housed in an antique theater that was built in 1919.

 Our pictures definitely don't do it justice- it really was incredible!

We found an open air market and found a vendor selling nativity sets. Lots of stores were closed because it was Easter weekend so I was happy to find somewhere to buy souvenirs.

I  bought a cute one that the vendor claims was made in Argentina.

One of the days we were in Buenos Aires there was an all day optional tour to a working ranch that we didn't take, so we took an Uber and went to temple instead.

The temple was on the outskirts of the city and it took about 40 minutes to get there.

It was very busy while we were there because it was the Easter holiday weekend and lots of people had time off from work and school.

There weren't many workers who spoke English in the temple, but we were able to get along okay doing an endowment session.

 Another day we spent visiting the Japanese garden in Buenos Aires.

 Again it was very crowded because of it being Easter weekend.

 Near the Japanese garden there was a Rose garden.

 Our last night in Buenos Aires we were treated to a farewell dinner in a nice restaurant. Kent and I had steak almost every day we were in Argentina! After the dinner we walked around the city, and enjoyed the lovely evening with a full moon.

As we were driving to the airport the next morning we drove right past the temple again, so I took this photo from the bus. Our tour guide even pointed out the "Mormon Temple", so we thought that was pretty awesome.

 We loved our trip to Brazil and Argentina!