Red Butte Garden and Mom's Birthday/Mother's Day

 Over the weekend, my family went to the Red Butte Garden (local botanic garden) with our family friends who are members there (i.e. discount entry fees).  The warmer weather definitely gave a boost to the garden's flora.  But before we went to go look at the plants, we browsed the gift shop there...

...And spotted these cutest fairy gardens!  It's basically like a fairy-themed terrarium that's set up outdoors I guess.  I have an obsession with houses shaped like mushrooms.



 

 Now I want a terrarium...

Then it was Mother's Day...and also my mom's birthday.  They both fell on the same day this year.  I planned to make a cake and get her something she had always wanted...

A fig tree.  Yep, she wants a fig tree.

A few online searches came up with a nursery in Ogden, which was a good 40-minute drive.
It was HUGE.  I'm talking like a mall-sized nursery.

 This is the trees and shrubs section.  Mind you, this is only a quarter of the actual nursery.
They also had a bunch of greenhouses with more fragile plants, like roses, flowers, vegetables, and Japanese maple.

...Another fairy/gnome garden spotted.
On the day of , upon her request, I made my mom a Japanese-style strawberry shortcake.  In America, a strawberry shortcake consists of biscuit-like shortcakes stacked with whipped cream and strawberries.  In Japan, instead of the shortcakes, a vanilla sponge cake is used, and the entire cake is decorated just like a regular fancy cake with whipped cream.  This results in the melt-in-your-mouth cake accentuated with freshness of strawberries.

I finished it with chocolate decorations and pistachios.  Happy birthday mom!