Little Baby Laila's Big Baby 🌸Hanami🌸

[dorchadas]

Chicago is not a city you'd usually think of for cherryblossoms thanks to our weather--yesterday it was 10°C and rainy on the first of May--but there is a grove of them near the Museum of Science and Industry. The Park District has a dedicated website for the cherryblossom forecast that started in 2019, but that year about half the buds didn't open because it was so cold through most of the year. And, well, we all know how 2020 and 2021 went.

But this year, sashagee is starting to feel better (about which more in another post) and Laila is doing great, so I told basically everyone I knew about the cherryblossom festival on May 1st (moved from April 24th due to rain), we woke Laila up from her nap at 11:45 a.m., and drove down to MSI for the afternoon.

Laila was super into the blossoms the whole time.

It was much colder down by MSI than it was up by us--I only needed a light jacket when we left the house but stepping out of the car at MSI it was windy and cold and we were worried about Laila freezing--so I wasn't sure how much Laila would be able to take. But we were able to stay there for almost the entire duration of the festival and only left when the rain started.

I say "festival" because it was the First Annual "Hanami - Cherry Blossom Matsuri" according to the event page, but we didn't actually get to do much festivaling because we were taking photos and trying to meet friends most of the time.

My sister wanderluster_kp said that Laila looks like Baby Yoda in this pic.

We parked south of the museum near the pond where most of the cherry trees were, but not where most of the actual festival was, so by the time we found the Garden of the Phoenix basically everything was over. There was supposed to be a taiko performance at 2 p.m. but with the threatening rain, it never happened; there was a table by the Japanese Consulate outside the garden but I'm not sure what they were handing out, because when we left the garden they were gone; and I'm not sure the traditional dance happened at all. We were at least able to take some lovely photos of the blossoms and see spacedragon, as well as j.johnson.754918, who I haven't seen in two years! Both of them were there on their own so we didn't get to have more than a brief conversation, but aaronhparker was there with some friends and we spent a lot of time chatting with them, about one of them and their Israeli wife's inability to take a break for more than twenty minutes at a time despite having a newborn, unless it was time for both them and Laila to eat.

Family portrait.

There were fewer cherry trees than I expected, after hearing that there were over 150 trees there. Down by the Garden of the Phoenix there were very few in bloom, though there was one weeping cherry tree that a lot of people were waiting to get photos near. We took most of our photos further north, near the lake south of MSI, where the winds meant there was even some blowing blossoms! Frankly, after the raging storm on Saturday I'm amazed that there were any blossoms left at all, but maybe Chicago cherryblossoms are a hardier breed. Or maybe just like the weather near MSI was colder than it was by our home, the torrential downpour and lightning concerto we got on Saturday was milder further south. Regardless, after three years of failed attempts to go to hanami, I'm so glad we finally made and got to make it a family outing!

If this were Tokyo there'd be 3423084089324 people in this photo.

Hopefully next year it'll be warmer! 🌸

Comments

[gwendraith]

Gorgeous photos of the blossom and your family. Baby Laila is adorable :)

I saw the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington DC one year, it was absolutely stunning.

[dorchadas]

Thank you!! 🌸

I really want to go back to the National Cherryblossom Festival--my parents tell me I have been there, but I was too young to remember it.