is it christmas?

the unbelievable has happened in new orleans and the surrounding areas. it snowed!!! real, heavy, sticky snow that stuck to the ground. out where i live, about 90 miles north of new orleans, we had at least 3 inches, probably closer to 4. there is still snow on the ground now and this happened on thursday. it was amazingly beautiful but i didn't have power all day so instead of being able to sip my tea and watch through the window i was curled up in bed most of the day trying to stay warm. it was definitely a sight to see!

bellagio conservatory in autumn

my mother has asked for more pictures from the Bellagio conservatory in Las Vegas, it is one of our favorite places to go see and she was not there on this past trip. I will have to say it was one of my favorite set-ups i've ever seen there because fall is my favorite season and i especially love creepy halloween-themed decor. fun fun. so here you go mom, all my pics from the bellagio--the trees above were really cool with water running down them, it was a strange contrast between the dead trees and the flowing water.



the tree and bug creatures were very cool...


the wheel mill was very cool too, life size and very realistic.

a great autumn

here are some random pictures that feel like fall to me. and i must say that as of last night this season has become extra exciting!! i am not usually one to go into politics in a public setting but

OBAMA ROCKS!!!! HUGE CONGRATS!!!!!!!

btw, i don't know why that paragraph of words is underlined... i'm too lazy to rewrite it.

anyway, back to the subject at hand, the above photo was taken on a recent trip to las vegas in the bellagio hotel, one of my favorite places to sightsee and eat at in vegas. these were giant glass leaves suspended from the domed ceiling.

this amazing creature was staged in the bellagio conservatory along with other really cool creepy things like giant venus flytraps, garden fairies and an enormous arched walkway dripping with pumpkins, gourds, bittersweet and other viney things.

this is a mini-landscape planting i saw when i was on my hurrication during gustav in anniston, alabama at a great nursery called bloomin' miracles. they have one of the largest collections of japanese maple varieties in the country, if i am not mistaken. it was an amazing place to be able to visit.

back in action

well, i have really been missing all my blogging buddies. i have been without a computer but my new laptop is supposed to arrive today. hope to be posting regularly again soon. i'm still here, sorry about the big gap of silence. hope to be in touch with everyone soon and thanks for all the new comments!

Gustav

hey all, thanks for checking in on me. all is well, i have been hanging out in beautiful anniston, alabama while gustav was bearing down on new orleans. don't know when exactly i will be going back, hopefully soon but i promise as soon as i do, and as soon as i get my computer back from being fixed i will start posting regularly again. miss you all and thanks again!! xoxo, laura

still here

i'm still here, just not posting. it's too hot to be outside and i've really let the vegetable garden go. even the okra is not doing well, ugh. anyway, i've been working on renovating the kitchen which is a huge pain in the butt, having no kitchen sink is a horrible inconvenience.

i have been working on some block prints and will get some of those posted when i return from a trip back home. look for some new art next weekend or in late july. maybe you will recognize some of the fish from my pictures from mexico!

akumal, mexico

my one big disappointment in akumal was that i never saw a sea turtle. we even took a miles-long walk on a beach where there were lots of turtle egg mounds. nope, not a single turtle. so sad. que onda was the little "hotel" we stayed in for the last couple nights of our stay. it was cute and quaint and had a really good restaurant that served breakfast, lunch and dinner. the best thing about it though was the access to the Yal-Ku lagoon for a fraction of the price most tourists paid to go through the main lagoon entrance. the snorkeling was the best in the lagoon, by a long shot.

possibly the best cappucino i have ever had, it was smooth, sweet, delicious and the foam was to die for.
the que onda restaurant with thatched roof, cute gourd-carved lights and mosquito spray on the tables so you don't get eaten alive while dining. the mosquitos were really bad if you weren't right on the water getting the heavenly sea breeze.
the next 3 pictures are the yal-ku lagoon. it was filled with tons of colorful fish, including some barracuda, rocky caverns and sandy bottoms and fresh water coming up from the underground rivers that mixed with the salt water and gave the effect of oil and water mixing or heat rising off a highway. i'll post more pictures of that.

this beauty was at the wonderful galleria lamanai in akumal. he was gorgeous, fully beaded with beautiful sparkly glass beads--unfortunately a little out of my price range. i'm usually not one for sparkly things but he was gorgeous, i love iguanas.

snorkeling

we did some amazing snorkeling in akumal, there was a beautiful lagoon with tons of colorful fish. i got a great waterproof case for my little canon elph digital camera and it worked wonderfully. i could use all the fuctions i normally can use out of water and there is even an underwater setting. it was still extremely hard to get great shots, what with fish being really fast, not being able to hold still underwater, the sun not being in the perfect location and cloudy water conditions. oh well, i still got some good ones. here are a few, they really don't do justice to the fish in real life but sometimes we have to take what we can get. the next thing i need to do is find a good book so i can id all these fish and have better reference photos for art!

Akumal, Yukatan, Mexico

i spent the last ten days in an amazing tropical paradise in the yucatan. most of the time we were in akumal, a little town about an hour and a half south of cancun. we also spent a couple days in playa del carmen which was a little too touristy for my taste. i would go back to akumal in a heartbeat though. here are a few of my fav pics just to start off the tour...

just so we are all on the same page as to what kind of vacation this was--no running around like a crazy tourist....

snorkeling was a daily event but taking underwater pictures is extremely challenging

more later

heat bloomers continued

lace cap hydrangea

blue salvia... not sure of the exact variety, just know i like it

buddleia, one of my favorite smelling plants. unfortunately this is my only variety right now, i wish i had tons of these, i really love them.

what would we (and the butterflies and hummingbirds) do without lantana in the summer??

ok, he's not exactly blooming but who gets tired of seeing cute lizards?

and i'll be out for about 10 days, we'll see what the garden looks like then....hoping for lots of rain.

blooming in the heat

summer is really here, ugh. it is in the nineties every day and it feels like it. spring annuals and cooler weather vegetables are wilting in the heat but some things in the garden are looking very nice. the meyer lemon has tiny, green lemons all over it. mmm.... can't wait for homemade lemonade.

sunflowers

a yellow ground orchid has come back from last year.

the dutchman's pipe with the biggest bloom yet!!

a perennial geranium whose blooms are the most beautiful shade of purple with tiny orange centers, none of which showed up in this photo.

dragonfly

i wish this guy had landed on a different colored background but i couldn't resist the beauty of the brown in the wings.

goodbye bees

well, the bee swarm was gone the next time i checked on it, maybe two days after i first saw it. i have no idea what happened to them, hopefully someone came and gathered them up and put them somewhere safe. i wonder if this one visiting my larkspur was part of that crowd?

i really never tire of watching the monarch caterpillars munching away at the milkweed, i have yet to discover any chrysallis though--still looking for those.

this iris, that i have had for at least 2 years now is finally blooming. i believe i got it at our folsom native plant society booth but i honestly am not sure.... it's very similar to our native louisiana iris except the leaves are different and the blooms are all clustered down around the bottom of the plant instead of shooting up and out of the leaves. i haven't tried looking it up yet to see what it really is. it was exciting though, to finally see it in bloom.