My birthday will be this Memorial Day weekend and we will be gathering again with our group of friends. Last year was a “milestone” birthday and I celebrated with our friends choosing some of my favorite activities and places to go and they were all able to make it! Let me show you what Dawn, Kim, Myself and Barb did.Our first stop was at K & K Gardens in Hawkeye, Iowa, and look, we had pie for breakfast! Since 1996, Keith and his family have been offering Northeast Iowa the largest selection of new and unusual perennials, annuals, woody ornamentals, water garden plants, water garden equipment, accessories, garden gifts, tools, and an incredible selection of hosta. They are listed as Iowa’s #1 destination garden center. It has the selection of a commercialized center, but it’s not like that. It has a home like feel to it and if Keith does not have what you are looking for, he will order it in. Sometimes on the weekends the Mennonite ladies that work there bring in pie to sell, it is delicious. Here are a few more fun photos from there.The tag gives a hint of how old I was, I bought this one!Here we are in a beautiful landscaped area, our friend group, Noelle, Victoria and our “like a daughter” to us Lindsey.
Malanaphy Springs in Decorah, Iowa was our next stop, you can find out more information about this beautiful site in a blog I did last week. Here are a few photos from last year when we went. Here is Victoria, Noelle and I at the springs.Dawn and Noelle can’t believe what they see!Barb is trying to move the tree out of the path for me, Kim is serving as backup! As you can tell, we try to have lots of laughs and fun!We had a few more stops throughout the day, but the final one was at Winneshiek Wildberry Winery,, us girls like a little wine here and there and I had not been here, so it was on the list to stop.This winery tends to specialize in dry wines which I do not prefer, so we did way more talking than drinking here!It sure was a great day, yes we went to some of my favorite places, but I think you would agree with me, what matters is who you are with. I hope you are as lucky as I to have a wonderful group of friends you can count on.Oh, and one last photo, It’s me with my birthday cake Noelle made, white angle food, and yes you will see a future blog post on angle food cakes. Have a wonderful weekend:)