A New Hobby

Remembering the fun he had as a kid & wanting to share that with Tyler, Ron bought a model rocket for the two of them to build together. The boys spent some quality time putting it together yesterday and they launched it this afternoon. Danielle and I were allowed to tag along and watch.

Ron told Tyler stories about his first rocket and how it didn't take off correctly and smashed back into the ground. Tyler was a little worried, but his first launch was a success. Here is the video proof. I got a little excited when it lifted off and forgot I was taping for a second. My favorite part of the video, though, is listening to Tyler's squeals in the background (and the cheering at the end).

Danielle enjoyed fetching the rocket when it landed.

The boys set it off 3 times, and each time was successful. It really was a lot of fun!

We picked a park with lots of soccer fields surrounded by soybean fields to set the rocket off. While the boys were getting the rocket set up, we heard another blast at a nearby field. Turns out there was a local rocket club there launching a bunch of their rockets, too. They had a lot of custom rockets, and some that were really big. Ron and the kids talked to them for awhile, and that made Tyler all the more enthusiastic about delving into this hobby even more. I think it's a great hobby because it's something the boys can do together, it engages Tyler's interest in building (& exploding things), and is relatively inexpensive at their level.

More Caterpillar Pictures

Well, actually these are mostly chrysalis pictures. But, if you're already bored with the caterpillar pictures, you probably won't find these interesting either. I, on the other hand, find the whole egg-caterpillar-chrysalis-butterfly process fascinating, as does my daughter. It's fun to share this experience with her. And that's why there are more pictures.


First, we woke up this morning to find a painted lady butterfly hanging on the side of the enclosure. Later this afternoon we found another one hanging on the side of its split chrysalis. I think the rest will probably make their debut tomorrow morning. Although the literature we received with them said they don't eat the first day, Danielle put some sugar water and fresh cut oranges in with them this evening. One of them flew right down and drank some of the orange. We have to watch Clara carefully around the butterflies when they're fluttering around. In the "wild" Clara loves to chase butterflies and has even snatched one from mid-air once. I didn't think she'd pay any attention to these, but we've caught her watching them a couple times.



I was able to watch our second monarch cat molt for the last time and create his chrysalis. His skin split just under his head and then he wiggled until he pushed it all the way up to the silk button. Once the skin got to the top, the caterpillar wiggled wildly and stuck out it's cremaster post (I've drawn yellow arrows pointing to it) to resecure himself to the silk button before fully shedding his skin. Once he was firmly planted, he flicked the molted skin off so it wouldn't stick to the chrysalis.

Here are some pictures I took. I took a video at the end when he was flicking his skin off. I couldn't get my camera to focus on such a small object for the video, though, so the video is a bit blurry. (This is also why I took pictures instead of taking video of the whole process.) Although it's a little blurry, I think it's interesting because you can see how wildly he's moving.

Caterpillar Update

We woke up this morning to find the smaller of our 2 monarch caterpillars in the "J" position, ready to make his chrysalis. Danielle was SO excited!

Around midday the other caterpillar suddenly stopped eating and almost frantically started crawling around the enclosure. He did this for several hours and finally started bothering the caterpillar who was already hanging. Danielle was so upset and worried he was going to hurt the other one or somehow cause it to not form its chrysalis correctly, that we removed him from the enclosure. I kept a small pot of milkweed in the house when I split some a couple weeks ago, so we relocated the caterpillar to that pot. Danielle has been wanting to hold a caterpillar, so she was delighted to do the relocating.

We eventually settled the pot on the island and watched him crawl around. For about an hour he continued to scurry around the plant. Finally, he found a place that must have felt secure and started to make his silk button. I didn't realize they make this using special glands in their mouths. (I thought it came out the other end!) We enjoyed watching him make his button. Once he was done, he turned around, crawled down a little, and attached himself to the button. About an hour later he let go of the leaf with his other legs and formed the J position. He'll probably be making his chrysalis around the time we get up in the morning.

In the meantime, Cat #1 started making his chrysalis in the hour we went outside after dinner to ride bikes. Danielle was disappointed she missed most of it (we came in and got to watch the last little bit) but is hoping she'll get to see the other one form his tomorrow. If all goes well, it should take about 10-14 days for the new butterflies to eclose.

Here is a video Danielle took shortly after we relocated Cat #2 to his new plant.

Also, we noticed today that we can see wings through some of the painted lady chrysalises, so they should be eclosing any day now. (And in the video you can see our lone tadpole. We are a very nature loving household.) :)

Nostalgia

Danielle has to fill out a "get to know me" paper for kindergarten and has to include a baby picture of herself. Personally, I think it's kind of cruel to make the mom of a new kindergartener look through baby pictures of said kindergartener. Anyway, while we were looking for a picture today, we ran across this video from our beach vacation in 2005. Ron had just taken Tyler for a ride on the go karts. Tyler was 3.

Kindergarten Assessment & Other Stuff

Danielle had her kindergarten assessment today. It's a state mandated Kindergarten Readiness Assessment - Literacy, aka KRA-L, test for kindergarteners. Afterwards her teacher told me she got a perfect score, which is something even her intelligent older brother didn't achieve (but don't tell him!). We stuck around after her assessment to see Tyler during his lunch period. She was still sleeping when he left this morning, so he left a good luck message on the chalk board for her. When she told him how well she did, he gave her a big smile and patted her on the back. It was very sweet. He is so excited about her being at school, too. No matter how much my brother and I fought, I always liked having him around (or knowing he was around somewhere) at school. I think that's how Danielle & Tyler will be, and I'm glad.

The highlight of Tyler's evening was the cookie dough salesmen at the door tonight. The high school girls' volleyball team is selling cookie dough for a fund raiser and were going door-to-door in our neighborhood this evening. While seeing 2 tall, blond, high school girls in short shorts at the door is usually enough to make Tyler happy, the real bonus is that his teacher is the coach for the team and was driving some of the girls around. While her team hit the pavement, she visited the neighborhood kids in her class and stopped and talked with us for awhile. She was so kind to Tyler, who can be a bit of a clown in the presence of a pretty girl. She is SO young (maybe 24?) but seems very nice. I hope my impressions of her are correct because I really like her so far.

Our painted ladies are still hanging around. We probably have another 2-3 days before we see any activity there. Our monarch caterpillars, though, are HUGE! I can't believe how fat those things are. They are eating nonstop now, too. The milkweed is being reduced to stalks, and even some of the stalks are being devoured. It's very cool to watch...if you like that kind of thing...and we do.

2nd Grade

Today was Tyler's first day of 2nd grade. I think he was excited about going. He really likes his young teacher, and he seems to be in with a good bunch of kids. When he got home, he said the day went really fast, which I would consider a good thing. I know he's looking forward to taking Danielle under his wing next Tuesday.

After school - He missed his sister (or just wanted to chase her).

Tyler and his calculator cake.

Coming to a Close

Summer is quickly coming to a close. Tyler starts school this Tuesday. Danielle starts school next Tuesday. We fit as much as we could into our last week of summer. Actually, we packed a lot into our entire summer. I had a good time. Hopefully the kids would say the same.

This week we enjoyed our last day at the pool. Grandma C went swimming with us. Despite a few sprinkles late in the afternoon, we had a lot of fun.

We visited my great-aunt Mary on her 98th birthday!

Danielle's kindergarten orientation was also this week. She has the same teacher Tyler had, which is what we wanted. There are 20 kids in her class, including her, and there are also 2 sets of twins. A neighborhood friend and a boy from her tball team are also in her class.

Thursday night we drove up north to a hotel and met Grandma & Grandpa R. The kids enjoyed playing in the pool that evening. Friday morning we all drove up to PIB. Ron and I haven't been there since before the kids were born! We had a really good day. The kids laughed a lot, the weather was perfect, and we made lots of happy memories.
























Saturday night we pitched the tent in the backyard and camped out. We had a little fire, made s'mores, and told "scary" ghost stories (at Danielle's request). The stories were funny and the s'mores were yummy - a good combination. We played a couple games of Uno by lantern light in the tent before calling it a night. I'd like to say we all slept peacefully under the stars until morning, but it didn't exactly work that way. Ron and I are not as young as we were the last time we camped, plus I've been battling a cold, it was freezing out, and the tent was wet with dew. (Sounds a little like whining, doesn't it?) Around 2:30 in the morning we declared our camping trip over and carried the kids inside. Danielle was perfectly content to finish her night in a sleeping bag on our floor. Tyler, however, was still scowling about it this morning. Oh well, every adventure can't have a perfect ending...but we were really close with most of this summer's adventures.

And here is a caterpillar update because I know everyone is wondering. HA!

Danielle's painted lady caterpillars are all in the chrysalis stage. She had 11 caterpillars but one didn't completely form its chrysalis, so she's hoping to have 10 butterflies in about a week.

Our 2 monarch caterpillars are getting bigger every day!

More Butterfly News

Danielle asked for more caterpillars for her birthday. She asked for them before we had any eggs on our milkweed plants. After the eggs, we thought we'd have all the caterpillars we'd need, but things didn't quite work out the way we'd planned. Yesterday Uncle Ron gave Danielle her birthday gift - 11 painted lady caterpillars. In my opinion, the painted lady caterpillars and butterflies are not nearly as pretty as the monarchs, but they are alive, which is a definite advantage! Danielle is so excited about having them. She carried the jars around for awhile this morning, debating about what to name each caterpillar. Really, the chatter went on for so long, I tuned her out and have no idea what names she decided on. They look to be several days old already, so I don't think we'll have to wait more than a few days for them to start making their chrysalises. And the net is HUGE. Tyler got in trouble several times for trying to fit his body inside it. I think Danielle is most excited about all the butterflies she'll be able to let sit on her fingers, like before.

And at the risk of jinxing myself, I'm going to mention our surviving monarch caterpillars. The day after I posted about our lone survivor, he died. I went out to check our outside plants that same day and miraculously found one tiny little caterpillar. I brought him in and hoped he would make it. Well, so far he is eating and growing. While Danielle and I were looking for him the other day, we found another one! He must be left from the 4 I originally brought inside. So, we're still holding out hope that we will eventually raise a monarch caterpillar to be a butterfly. I'm thankful we have the painted ladies, too!

Our Lone Survivor

I think the mosquito fogging has claimed the lives of all our outside caterpillars. I saw one lonely little caterpillar last night and this morning but couldn't find anything except bodies this evening. What a bummer!! Eariler on the day they did the fogging, I visited the greenhouse and bought a smaller pot of milkweed. I divided it and put two small plants in our butterfly net we used for the painted ladies last year. Thankfully Danielle & I brought 4 caterpillars in the house that afternoon, so they missed the death fog. Out of those 4, I can find 1. It doesn't mean the others aren't alive, but I can't find them and there aren't any holey leaves elsewhere on the plant. So, we're placing all our hope in this one surviving caterpillar. Thankfully he seems to be growing and looks healthy. This experience certainly didn't turn out the way I would have liked!

Tyler & Danielle were determined to play in our little pool today. It was very hot & humid when I set it up this morning. By the time we ran errands and got home this afternoon, it had stormed and the temperature dropped significantly. The kids insisted on playing in it anyway, so I let them play for 1/2 hour. Danielle's teeth were chattering by the time I made them come in. Tyler and his goofy goggles, what can I say?

And here is Clara. She's 6 months old now.