NYBG for the Final Time

I purchased a family membership to the NY Botanical Gardens and boy have I gotten my money's worth this year.  Just because I like to be nerdy like this, I calculated how much I would have spent in tickets and parking without the membership.  For the number of times I went, it would have cost me $492.  So the $120 I paid for membership saved me quite a bit of money.

I recently went for the final time of my membership with my sister and her family.  It turned out to be a sunny and beautiful day to be outside!  I'm looking at these photos and its so hard to believe this was just a few weekends ago before Hurricane Sandy, which caused so much devastation in the NJ/NY area. 

First, we headed to the Haunted Pumpkin Garden where we saw the pumpkin carvings and the kids ran through the mazes.

the kids and a caterpillar pumpkin

Along the way, the kids decorated science bags, potted buckwheat seeds, played in the puppet theater and dissected owl pellets.  Dissecting the pellets was their favorite part, as they picked apart the pellets to find and identify rodent skulls and bones.

"this is so much fun!"

"Look, another bone!"

"L" found a rat skull

Then we headed to the Giant Pumpkin Carving demonstration with Ray Villafane.  We stopped by early in the morning so we only got to see the beginning stages of the carving.

We ended our trip at the Monet exhibit with a walk around the courtyard pools.

the cousins all together

What a beautiful day it was!