Going for a Walk

Tyler and I escaped to a nearby park to take a walk and enjoy the beautiful weather yesterday afternoon.

It's funny the things he notices - like one screw, out of a hundred on the bridge, that was sticking out too far, or the small sign on the bridge indicating the maxiumum acceptable weight, or the couple mostly hidden piles of dog poop left by negligent dog owners, or the partially covered drainage grate in the gravel walkway. How many times have I walked by all those things (except maybe the dog poop) and not even noticed them? Yet Tyler does, and he wonders if the loose screw will affect the bridge's stability or exactly how the grate works and why it was placed in that specific location, and why they had to put a weight sign on a bridge way out on a path that vehicles can't access. (He just thought it would be amusing to take a picture of the dog poop.)

The wheels never stop turning with Tyler. That's one thing I love about him.



Here are some pictures from our afternoon stroll. (Tyler took the bridge picture.) If you click on the picture of the dragonfly with the red body, you can see holes in his wings, which I thought was kind of cool. The brown dragonfly's wings look pretty tattered, too. For the record, it's kind of difficult to get good shots of dragonflies when the wind is blowing! It was a lovely breeze, though.

Butterflies

1 chrysalis eclosed yesterday. 2 of them eclosed today. We released 2 of the 3 - a boy and a girl. (This is the male we released today. He was huge!) I think the 3rd butterfly has the butterfly disease OE, but I'm not sure. He was a rather sickly caterpillar. We found him curled up in the mulch one morning and put him back on the milkweed. Another time he kind of wandered away from it, like he forgot where he was supposed to be. His wings, abdomen, and proboscis are deformed. Thinking that he has OE, we wouldn't have released him anyway, but he can't fly or eat. I don't expect him to make it through the night. I know it's the way nature works, but it's kind of sad. Danielle enjoyed holding him, though.

We have one more chrysalis left, which I think will eclose tomorrow. Danielle is going to take it in to share with her class. Typically they don't eclose until a little later in the morning, so hopefully this gal will hold off until Danielle makes it to school!

While we were outside tonight, I noticed this bug on my lantana. It caught my attention initially because it looked like a wasp, but when I looked closer, I thought its wings looked more moth like. Thanks to my brother for the id - it's a peachtree borer moth.

Back to School

Today was the first day of school. Our elementary school building is brand new this year, and both kids were excited about their teachers and classmates, so today wasn't as painful as it could have been. I started working part-time as the cashier in the Jr. High cafeteria today, too. It's been almost 10 years since I've "worked", so it was a big day for all of us.


Here is a picture I took yesterday of the new elementary school building. This is just a small portion of the beautiful new building. It is huge! It is air conditioned! It has security cameras and locks on the doors! Most classrooms are nearly twice as large as the classrooms at our old building...which doubled as a bomb shelter. I found it pretty amusing when the kids told me about someone throwing up down the stairs and in the hall today. When kids are involved, "new" doesn't last very long!




My 4th grader





















My 2nd grader





























We are now considered walkers. The kids have been looking forward to riding their bikes to school all summer. We had a bit of an issue with the bike helmets, though. Our kids always wear helmets, but they really didn't want to mess up their hair before their first day of school. Since they ride on sidewalks and the ride isn't too long, I agreed they could go without them on the way to school. I brought them with me when I met them after school and they wore them home.























Our annual back-to-school cake. Last year's cake is hard to top, so I didn't try. I didn't have as much free time today, either. Hopefully you can tell these are supposed to be books! Tyler could tell from a distance, so I felt like I was successful. (The top book is actually a brownie because Danielle doesn't like cake.) Our annual cake has become something the kids look forward to, and it's a fun tradition. It's one of those "mom jobs" that I really enjoy!






















Speaking of jobs, mine went just fine. As odd as it sounds, I was actually excited about going in today. The kids aren't sure what to think about me having a job. At first they were disappointed I wouldn't be volunteering in their lunchroom again this year. Yesterday I asked Danielle if it would be easier or harder to go back to school knowing I wouldn't be home anyway. She said, "It will be easier because I won't be worried about you." I think it's sweet that she worries about me being lonely while they're at school. If she only knew. ;)

Vacation Pictures

I meant to post a few beach pictures from our vacation once we got home, but I never got around to it. I don't have anything else to post tonight, so thought I'd share some of those pics now. Better late than never, I guess.

Balloons

The neighboring town hosted a hot air balloon festival this weekend. We drove over late this afternoon to watch the balloons launch. We didn't actually pay admission and go to the festival. We hadn't planned to, but even if we had, the traffic was so bad we wouldn't have made it in time anyway. As it was, we made it to the place we intended just as the first balloon took off.

Although it was a cloudy and gray day, the balloons made a colorful scene on the horizon. This is another one of those times I was thankful for a zoom lens! There were some "normal", colorful balloons and some special balloons like a strawberry, football, soccer ball, and rocket. There was also a darth vader balloon, but it never made it off the ground. Unfortunately we only got to see the back of his head. The kids really enjoyed watching the balloons take off. After the balloons took off, a plane dropped 3 skydivers. The kids enjoyed that, too.

After we watched the launch, we went to dinner at a nearby Mexican restaurant to pass the time until the balloon glow. The food was good, and the tortilla chips were huge!

After dinner we went back to the same spot to watch the balloon glow, but it never happened. There were storm clouds in the distance, so we assume it was cancelled due to the weather. The kids were disappointed, but we had a fun evening anyway.


(Yes, we stood on the tracks to watch the balloons....along with lots of other people. No trains came.)