Cherry Trees

Here is a picture of my cherry tree that I took a week or so ago.

Here is a picture of my cherry tree that I took today, and a close-up of opening blossoms below.

I think more blossoms are opening by the minute as it has turned into a very nice afternoon.

This weekend is the cherry blossom festival, or Sakura Matsuri, at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, "a weekend-long family festival of Japanese Culture and Arts." We went to this festival two years ago because we just so happened to be staying in Brooklyn that weekend visiting Lenny's sister, Sheila, and her husband, Jason, who were at Bethel at the time. Here are a couple photos that I dug up. The place was packed. The little kids were the cutest.

I learned an invaluable lessons about kids that day. We were all in Margot and Tony's van waiting in a long line to get into the parking lot. I had just downed a Starbucks coffee and I was hyper, so I suggested that Lenny, David, and I get out of the car and go on in to the gardens.

We walked around the perimeter and were still waiting for everyone else to show up so I remember asking David, "Do you want to keep walking around or what?" He is a very smart kid. He said, "What do you mean - or what?" So I said, "Do you want to sit here and wait or do you want to walk around more?" And he said, "Walk around."

The lesson I learned: Give kids 2 options. This way they still get to decide but you're not just leaving it completely open-ended. I imagine this would work in a gazillion situations. What do you want to eat - this or that? What do you want to wear - this or that? It was a major revelation for me.

So here we are, not sitting. And yes, it was easy for everyone else to find me in my bright orange coat.