Going on a bead hunt? Let Crystal River Gems, lower level of Fifth Avenue Place, in Downtown Pittsburgh help!

Today and tomorrow, the store is holding a bead trunk show, where shoppers can peruse a bevy of beads and stones in a rainbow of colors and unique materials, perfect for jewelry making.

The store is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. during the event. Information: www.fifthavenueplacepa.com.

Blogger: The Rocking Pony, Somerset

When we got home at the end of the long day, Micah asked for Woody. For crying out loud, he'd just brought him in from the van. He lost Woody that fast? We searched the house high and low, searched the van, and realized that Woody was missing. Apparently he never came home from town with us.

Because I'm a sharer, I posted on Facebook that we were retracing our steps from a day in town, trying to find a lost Woody. All my wonderful friends know that Woody means the world to Micah. It's his favorite toy slash comfort item slash best friend.

Read more about how a newspaper ad helped find Woody...

Karen is a mother of four, parenting teens, tweens, and Micah, who was blessed with Down syndrome. Her life is crazy busy, and she wouldn't change a bit of it even if she could. Her blog post about going back to work was previously featured on PlayGround.

This old wisteria plant crawls across a building in the London borough of Kensington. Photos by Doug Oster

Last week the Post-Gazette had a story on wisterias and I had a photo of a 65 foot tall plant from Ohio Township.

As impressive as that was, wisteria blooming along the streets in busiest parts of London is amazing.

Wisteria is everywhere in London. This plant was growing up a building on a side street downtown near Harrod's.

It's used on the fronts of buildings and most are painted white, setting off the purple blooms beautifully. I walked for miles through London and saw ancient vines twining around trees, gutters and porch columns.

One of the cool things about visiting a country obsessed with gardening like England is seeing new plants. Usually most gardeners can get close identifying a variety, but I found three which stumped me.

The first two were photographed at the Victoria and Albert Museum in the John Madejski Garden.

I was was drawn to the purple blooms of a plant which looks kind of like a mum, but with purple stems and it's four feet tall. The bees loved the flowers. Have you seen it before.

The other is an upright, spike like bloom nearly six feet tall with small, pretty blue flowers. It resembles a verbascum.

The last flower I found on the walk back to the hotel. Maybe a camelia?

Take a look at the photos below and see if they look familiar and let me know what you think they are in the comments section at the bottom of the blog.

I'm finally on London time after a good night's sleep and can't wait to visit the 100^th anniversary of the Chelsea Flower Show tomorrow. The group I've brought have special access on members day. I'll post lots of photos tomorrow.

Do you know what this plant is?

I would love to know what this plant is. It's nearly six feet tall and filled with blossoms.

These beautiful white blooms covered a plant along the sidewalk as I headed back to the hotel in London. I've never seen it before.