One day I was feeling quite wanderlust(ful). And I asked my mom a question I like to ask others: "If you could travel anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?" And my mom thoughtfully replied, "Provence". She said she would love to visit the lavender fields there. I started dreaming of endless fields of fragrant lavender and what I would imagine to be quaint villages. I shared this with Y, hoping that one day, we could travel to the South of France with my parents.

Though we were not able to make that happen this summer, we looked into the next best thing: a lavender farm nearby. And I was thrilled to find out that there was a lavender field within an hour's drive. So last Saturday, my parents, the husband and I made a trip to Pleasant Valley Lavender.

To be completely honest, when we first got to "New Jersey's Only Lavender Farm", we all thought, "Oh... this is it?" I felt a bit disappointed that we had driven an hour. But once we met the people there (it's family-owned) it ended up being a lovely experience. They showed us the different fields of lavender: English and French. We learned about the differences between the two and they taught us how to cut our own lavender to take home!

After cutting and making our lavender bouquet, my parents enjoyed relaxing under the shade in the hammock while Y and I scoped out some of their handmade products. I ended up picking up a lavender eye mask and lavender linen spray. Y picked his very own lavender plant (and he planted it in front of our house as soon as we got home! Maybe one day we'll have our own little lavender farm.)

a photo break for Y & me (while mamabear busily cuts lavender)

On our back up from the lavender farm, we got to explore the neighboring towns, stopped by a few garage sales in the area (my mom scored a bunch of toys for her sandplay therapy) and enjoyed some pizza. So all in all, it was a quite a productive day! And I'm glad I got to check off my summer to-do list that I visited a lavender field!