More Summer Fun

We went to the state fair yesterday. It was very hot, but we had a nice time anyway. We were there about 10 hours, which is a record for us. It was family day plus we took advantage of another deal, so we only paid for one kid's priced admission. There was also a special on ride bracelets, which we NEVER buy, but did this time. It was buy a ride bracelet, get a free ride handstamp. We were just going to buy one for the kids, but Ron struck up a conversation with the lady in line behind us. By the time they were done talking, she had given him her free ride handstamp because she only needed the one bracelet and Ron just brings out the best in people. So, Ron, Tyler, & Danielle enjoyed some of the fair rides, which was quite a treat for the kids. We also enjoyed all our other fair favorites: the food, the parks department displays, the food, the animals, the food, the pig races, the animal shows, the food, etc. We had a great day together.

We did not try this, but it seems like every year they come up with something else to deep fry!

Here come Tyler & Ron sliding down...and Danielle coming back down the stairs! It looked too scary from up there!

You haven't been to the fair until you've watched the pig races!

Deep fried milky way...mmmmm!

I've heard of chocolate covered bacon but not bacon cinnamon rolls. Ick!

The kids tried the bacon but said it was just too rich after one or two bites.

One More Win

Danielle finished up her extended softball season today. Their team played in another tournament this weekend and came in 2nd place! Danielle did a great job. We have really enjoyed watching her play this summer. She tried hard, learned a lot, and had fun. That said, I can't deny it will be nice to have a few free Saturday mornings before the next sport starts!

Apparently playing 4 games in 2 days in HOT weather makes you a little tired.

More Summer Fun

Today we went with Mamaw, Papaw, Aunt Nikki, and cousins Beth & Seb to the wild animal park and went on a safari tour. It was quite warm and humid, but there was a nice breeze while the bus was moving, and the animals were neat to see. We spent a few hours on the tour and looking at the animals and finished with a late picnic lunch. The kids and I walked over to look at the butterfly garden before leaving. There weren't many butterflies out because it was mostly overcast, but the wildflowers were beautiful. Next summer I think we should just seed our entire back yard with wildflowers and let it go! We had a very nice day and appreciate everything Mamaw did to make the day so special. Here are some pictures from our outing.

This baby raccoon positioned himself near the catfish feeding station and cleaned up the extra fish pellets.

Back to the Park

We got some much needed rain this morning. We had planned to go swimming after the rain stopped, but instead we decided to look for tree frogs at the metropark. There is one little hiding spot in the shelter house where Danielle can usually find a tree frog, and one was there waiting for her again today. She fished him out of his hiding spot to better admire his froggyness. At one point he jumped onto her shirt and then hopped onto her face and finally onto her head. I was a little concerned he might pee in her eye, but she thought it was pretty funny. After admiring him for awhile, she put him back into his hiding spot and we moved on to look for other wildlife.

We saw lots of bullfrogs, painted turtles, and dragonflies. Tyler spotted this baby bunny hiding in the wildflowers. He was very cute but also a little camera shy. We also saw some butterflies, although not as many as usual because of the rainy morning. There's not much water left in the wetlands at this point in the summer. At the boardwalk there was still a little bit of water and two tiny little turtles looking for food.

Lest everyone think I only have one child because I never post pictures of Tyler, here he is. He is most uncooperative when it comes to taking pictures, and after the first 15 minutes at the park today, he was ready to go home. This was past those first 15 minutes, so he was grumpy and whiny by this point - every bit the moody tween.

Another Win

Danielle's All-Star team did much better in this weekend's tournament. In fact, they won all their games and came in 1st place! They played one game Thursday evening, one game yesterday morning, and 2 games this afternoon. It was very hot this afternoon, so that made those games that much more difficult. Interestingly, the team we played for the championship was coached by someone Ron went to church with when he was growing up. It really is a small world.

Danielle played really well this weekend! She got a handful of doubles and even had a couple triples. And she had a good time. Of course, the trophy and the ice cream at the end of it all made it that much sweeter. We have one more weekend of tournaments next weekend and then we'll be done for the season.

Milkweed Visitors

While we were eating dinner tonight Danielle and I were excited to see a beautiful monarch visiting our milkweed plants. This was the first monarch we have seen in our yard yet this summer. Danielle was quickly disappointed, though, when I went out to take a picture and discovered this one was a boy. She was really hoping for monarch eggs.

After dinner Danielle and I sat outside to watch the hummingbirds and were excited to find that we were wrong. Obviously the male butterfly was not our first visitor because we found 2 little monarch caterpillars!! Upon closer inspection of the milkweed we found several holey leaves and an egg. The caterpillars can be tricky to find when they are little, so maybe we'll find more over the next few days. We don't usually find any eggs or caterpillars until the first week of August. They are a couple weeks early this year, which makes sense because just about everything else has been early this summer, too.











I've got my eye(s) on you!

While we were sitting outside we saw other creepy crawlies on the milkweed plants. There were a couple of these little spiders climbing around the blossoms. I didn't have my tripod out, and I can't hold my hands still enough to get a sharp picture, but I thought this was creepy enough.




This guy was so crazy looking! He looks like he has stuffing coming out of his rear end! It's got to be the weirdest bug I've ever seen! Thankfully it was near a leafhopper bug so I was able to identify it relatively quickly. It is a leafhopper nymph, although I'm not sure what type of leafhopper it is. Compared to some types of leafhopper nymphs, this guy is pretty drab looking. Nature is so interesting. Danielle and I had the best time giggling over this crazy creature.