saturday outing part 2: hillwood

On a whim we decided to visit Hillwood, the estate of Marjorie Merriweather Post. It was such a gorgeous day, perfect for some gardens. I had taken the girls there last summer for the French Festival but Ben had never been. The gardens there are beautiful and it's fun to tour her mansion and see her various art collections. There was also a fun Cartier exhibit going on. Ben took Elsa through the house first while I explored the gardens with the others and then I went through the house with Elsa, Amelia, and Abi (Elsa wanted to see it again). (We didn't want to attempt to take Oliver and Simon in the house or into the Cartier exhibit.) It was really fun to walk through the house with the girls. They were loving all of Marjorie's fancy collections and picking out their favorites while imagining themselves living in her house. They loved seeing all of the fancy Cartier gems too.

Admiring her pink bathroom.

Hillwood Estate and Gardens

Hillwood has been on my list of places to visit for a long time. A few Saturdays ago I finally had a chance. It seemed like a place that might be stressful with Oliver (house tour, water features, etc) so I decided to make it a date with the girls (and Simon came along too). It happened to be their annual French Festival that day so I was hesitant to go because it likely meant bigger crowds. But we timed it just right, arriving an hour before the festival ended, so we caught some of the festival activities but then the place cleared out and the house and gardens remained open for an additional two hours.

Hillwood was purchased by Marjorie Merriweather Post (yes, the cereal heiress) in 1955 and was later turned into a museum to showcase her art collections. The gardens were beautiful and fun to explore. We felt like we had them to ourselves and wished we'd brought a dinner picnic to enjoy. It was so fun just to watch Amelia and Elsa and not have to spend my time chasing Oliver around. We had such a great time.

We each got French beauty marks as part of the French Festival (the following day was Bastille Day).

After everyone had cleared out, the girls had fun performing their own dances on this stage for me while I fed Simon.

The girls got to decorate gold boxes for part of the French Festival.

They had some outdoor games to play and Amelia was excited to demonstrate her hula hooping skills. Elsa just got frustrated.

The pet cemetery.

I thought we would just look in the house for a minute, not thinking it would interest the girls much. To my surprise, they were in complete awe of every single room in the house and insisted that we see everything. It was so fun to see their excitement. I think they would have been good friends with Miss Post. They were in love with her pink bathroom which included a rug that had a picture of a dog on it. It was a beautiful home and fun to see all of her amazing collections. It was a self-guided tour and we had the house to ourselves which was fun.

The fun theater room.

A rainbow spotting on the way home! Amelia took some photos from the car.