A trip to the zoo...

...all by myself!! I love my family and love taking the kids places where they can see things they normally wouldn't see. Love taking them to the zoo and the park and aquariums and all that kind of stuff. BUT it sure is nice to go to the zoo alone. I don't have to worry about anyone running away, getting lost, getting into things. I can walk around at my own pace and look at what I wanna look at without someone saying "This is boring!". Anyway, it doesn't happen very often, so I thoroughly enjoyed myself!! Some photos for you:
This is a mute swan...

Beautiful lioness...

Lancethead Snake...

Black and white ruffed lemur...

This peacock let me get about 3 feet away from him and he posed quite nicely...
It was cold today. That's really the reason I went to the zoo alone...noone wanted to go out into the cold. We're supposed to have frost over night tonight. Fun. Good thing we didn't plant anything like we had planned!

Our caterpillars now have names (courtesy of Kylie). Their names are: Buggy, Cookie, Max, Johnny, Cindy and Diamond. They're all on the potted milkweed plant now and they're just munching away. Here are 2 of them...no, I don't know which ones they are. :-)

On a different note, last night Hughes was supposedly upgrading our email system. It was supposed to be back in action this morning by 6. Well, here it is almost 9:15pm and we still can't access our email! Hopefully tomorrow...

OH! Big news!! My dad is now a Minnesota Vikings fan! It's because they drafted that kid from USC...Booty or Mooty or whatever the hell his name is. I guess he's good, so now Dad's gonna wear the purple and gold! Maybe we'll even get him into Michael's Vikings helmet!

Later gator! :-)

They're here!!

Six Monarch caterpillars arrived in the mail today! I'm sure I don't have to tell you that Kylie is beyond excited!! The caterpillars are about 1/16th of an inch long...so tiny that when we first opened the package we didn't even see them on the milkweed leaf!

Anyway, here's a photo if you can even see them. I know it's not the best shot in the world, but such is life without a macro lens. :-) At least I do have close-up filters, so that helps a little bit when trying to photograph something so tiny! You know I'll be getting more (hopefully better) shots in the next few days.

And here's Kylie with the sign she made for the caterpillars. In case you can't read it, it says "guys I love you". She made sure the caterpillars saw it and now it's sitting on the top of their cup. Pretty cute!

That's it for now. Tomorrow we have to mow again and Michael wants to take apart the shower in the master bath to try to find a leak. And we may be heading back to the zoo in the morning! Happy Saturday!

It's been a while...

...and I'm so sorry about that!! I’m a horrible blogger! I guess I have to get used to actually trying to do this every few days. I do know it’d be a lot easier if I could upload photos a lot faster. It always seems to take forever!!!

So…to update you on what’s been happening around here:

-Easter was cold (of course!), Connor was sick and Gypsy ate 9 of our 17 dyed eggs!!

-Kylie’s class hatched 6 baby chicks! They were so darn cute! The kids actually got to see 2 of them hatch!
Here's a cute little guy...

-I discovered that there’s a pair of Bluebirds making a nest in a cavity in our Sycamore tree! This is so exciting for me! Now I can keep an eye on the branch and hopefully see some babies! Here's the male adding stuff to the nest...
-I’ve been a scrapbooking maniac lately! I’ve been getting lots of layouts done! Love that!

-We got some Painted Lady caterpillars and watched them turn into chrysalids and then emerge into butterflies! It was very exciting for the kids (and for us!!)! Kylie named them: Piggie, Rainbow, Raspberry, Blueberry and Strawberry.

This one's ready to go into his chrysalis...

Chrysalis...

Newly emerged butterfly...
After being set free...

We set them free yesterday and I swear Kylie’s heart was broken. She was so upset! Even last night while she was in the shower she was crying about how she misses her butterflies. She wanted to let them go so they could “lay eggs and make new babies”, but just wanted them to stay with us. Poor kiddo! But, she’s happy again today because…

-We ordered some Monarch caterpillars!! Hopefully they’ll be here soon! Kylie can not wait! She was talking about it all morning while we were getting ready for school!

-We had purple finches come to the feeder and that was amazing for me! I’ve never even seen one and I had 3 males and 2 females eating sunflower seeds with the goldfinches and chickadees! It was soo cool! They’re gorgeous little birds! I’m glad they stopped by before they left the area for the summer! Here's a male at the birdbath...-Last week Kylie had her class field trip to a concert in Springfield. She said the concert was ok, but the best part of the field trip was having Sonic at the park!

-Last Sunday we had an awesome family day out! We went to the zoo and then had a picnic at the park and fed the geese. Then we came home and I got to mow the front yard (FUN! Not!).

Eating cotton candy at the zoo...

Playing with the tiger statue...

Peacock posing for photos...Feeding the geese at Nathanael Greene Park...-Yesterday Connor and I went on his class field trip to the zoo. Since he’d been there only a couple days before, he was an expert at where the animals were and what we were seeing. He had so much fun riding on the bus for the first time!

-Speaking of Connor, we’re done potty training! YAY!!! No more diapers or pull-ups! No more carrying around diaper bags and stuff “just in case”. With all the money we’ll be saving we could take a vacation! Seriously!

-A photo I took in Hawaii was published in an ad in the New Yorker magazine! I got paid for it and they gave me credit for the photo in microscopic print on the side of the ad! Pretty cool that now I can say I’m a freelance photographer! :-)

-Have you been watching American Idol?? David Cook ROCKS!!! He gets better and better every week! I LOVE this kid and can not wait for an album to be released!!
-Have you been watching Survivor? Man, I was so pissed Ozzy got kicked off last week! Why he didn't pull out the damn immunity idol is beyond me! UGH!! Even Kylie was upset about it!Now I'm all for James to win! GO JAMES!!!

The weather’s been amazing the last week! It’s so warm and the sun is out and we have all the windows open and are all wearing shorts and sandals! Yay for Spring!! Kylie and I decided yesterday that we’re gonna make a butterfly garden soon…maybe even this weekend! I just have a need to be surrounded by flowers!! This is a Red Admiral butterfly on our pear tree... Well, I hope that’s enough of an update and long enough for ya! LOL! I’ll try to write more from now on! Promise! :-)