A Free Evening!

School softball is over. Track is over. Only 5 days of school left. The sun was out. A breeze was blowing. And we didn't have anywhere we had to be. Ahhhhhh!!!!

Band & Art Show

The high school band had their spring concert last Thursday. At the same time, the high school had their art show. Some of the middle school and jr. high students also had art in the show. So, we got a two-fer! We got to listen to a great concert by Tyler's band and see some of Danielle's artwork.

I've given up trying to get pictures of Tyler during the concert. He sits in the next to last row, about 5 people in. Sometimes I can see the top of his head. That's about it. They sounded great. He looked nice, too. Here is a picture of the two of them before we left.

Danielle had 3 pieces in the art show. This one is my favorite (the pig). I hope she sticks with art throughout high school. I'm eager to see what she does with her talent.

Photo Sundries

The last dance of the year was on Friday. The theme? Neon, of course!

Salsa sampling station. I just liked the way it looked. 

Not much to say about this one. She's a dork.

Mother's Day lunch at Olive Garden.

The kids helped me pick out flowers for my Mother's Day gift. This is some of them.

Beautiful sunset last night. Wish I'd had more than just my cell phone (& a moving truck) to capture it.

This & That

The district track meet was this past Saturday. This was by invitation only and fewer athletes were asked to compete. Danielle was asked to compete in 2 events - the 100m dash and the 4x100 relay. In order to compete in the 100m dash, Danielle had to run in a qualifier first. Only the top 8 finishers qualified for the finals. Danielle was #8. In the finals, she finished 6th. (The girls who beat her were all a grade older.) It was extremely cold and windy, and no one's time was as good as it had been in previous meets. Even so, Danielle was happy with how she did and glad she qualified and placed. The 4x100 relay team didn't do as well as they had during the regular season. The coach changed one of the runners, and that made a huge difference (not for the best).

The state meet is next and is even more selective. Only a small handful of athletes are invited to compete at that level. Danielle was asked to compete on the 4x200 relay team. That has been a really strong team and has come in 1st in every meet Danielle ran in it. Unfortunately, Danielle isn't able to go. Her travel softball team has a tournament that day. It's been scheduled since last fall, and we feel like it's important for her to honor the commitment she made. We were up front with the track coach all season about her availability and he knew she probably couldn't make it to states. It really was an honor to be asked, though. Hopefully there will be less conflicts next year.

We saw this on the way home from the track meet. We also stopped by the outlet mall and entertained ourselves a bit.

A couple days ago I met up with a retired school teacher and handed over 35 caterpillars. The school she taught in raises milkweed in a greenhouse all year. They use the caterpillars in some of their AP environmental science classes. I think she was going to keep several of them, too. We are going to meet up again once they are in chrysalis stage so I can bring several of them back here to release. We kept one caterpillar.

Tyler noticed this when I took him to get his haircut the other day. He notices things that other people overlook. Both kids do, but it's different "things". This frustrated him because the opposite end doesn't line up with the opening. Lol!

 

Yesterday I had my first hummingbirds of the season. I know I saw a male. I thought the other one was a female, but sometimes they take a little while longer to get here. Maybe I just didn't see his ruby throat. Either way, they're back!

 

New Vase

I meant to post this yesterday but forgot, so it gets its own post. This is the vase Danielle made at our pottery outing in March. The color is a little washed out in the photo, but the vase is white and yellow. It's the perfect size for a bouquet of fresh cut lilacs! (It's also the only piece of pottery we've found a use for.) :)

This & That

Danielle did well at her track meet last Thursday. It was extremely windy, so she didn't improve on her time, but she still finished well! She placed in each event that she ran. Last Thursday's was an invitational, which means only certain people were asked to compete. She was thankful she had the chance to run. The district championship meet is this Saturday. She was asked to continue reporting to practice this week, so I think she'll be competing in that. They will send out the lineup tomorrow, and we'll know for sure.

I have 37 monarch caterpillars that are slowly eating their way through my milkweed. I wish I could keep them all. Wouldn't that be fun to watch - 37 butterflies all taking off into the sky at the same time! There are 13 caterpillars and one egg in this first picture (and some caterpillar poop). Some of them are starting to get their coloring now.

 

 

Tyler drove me home after I dropped Danielle off at volleyball practice tonight. I didn't think I'd be the one to teach him how to drive, but so far he thinks I'm more patient than Ron, which is kind of amusing. There have been a couple moments of anxiety for me, but I've only closed my eyes once. ;) He will start his classes the week after school is out. (I don't know what's going on with his fingers in this picture. He might have been turning the wipers on because it started to sprinkle?)

We played our final school ball game last night. I'll post about that later. The team finished 20-0! It was a lot of fun and we are all sad it's over. Track will be over after this weekend, and volleyball will be over after next weekend. It's as though our whirlwind schedule has suddenly shifted into a light breeze. Danielle won't know what to do with herself when it's all over and she's waiting for travel ball to start.

Raindrops on a Dandelion

Fuzzy Foxes

There is a family of foxes living under a storage building in the parking lot where I work. I was lucky enough to catch them out and about the other day while waiting for Danielle's softball game to start.

 

Monarch Eggs

The monarch came back last Sunday and laid more eggs. Out of desperation, I emailed our wonderful metropark system to see if anyone there had any resources that might be able to help me save some of the caterpillars if they managed to hatch. Someone there got in touch with someone else who got in touch with someone else...and that person connected me to a group of people that are also monarch enthusiasts. Several of them have milkweed, and we were able to make arrangements to distribute the caterpillars among the folks who could feed them if they did indeed hatch.

Guess what we found today?! Danielle and I found 22 teeny tiny, newly hatched monarch caterpillars! And there are at least 10 eggs that haven't hatched yet. We brought the caterpillars inside to protect them from the fluctuating temperatures. I have enough milkweed to feed them until they're a little bigger, so my plan is to see who survives and grows and then "rehome" them. Seems like a lot of work for a caterpillar, doesn't it? Maybe it is, but I think it's important to do what we can to save them.

Softball Update

We only have 6 school ball games left. This has been much more fun than we thought it would be, and we'll miss it when it's over. Here are some pictures from this past month.