Monarch butterflies

My awesome friend, Sandy F, got me hooked into the wonderful world of monarch butterflies. In no time, we identified all the milkweed near us, found a single egg and a 2-day old caterpillar. We soon added 4 more caterpillars of various ages to our menagerie.

Once we started looking for milkweed and caterpillars we were amazed at how many there are around here! Learning about their lifecycle was nothing short of incredible--in 2 weeks they go from an egg that you can hardly see to a 2"-long fatty caterpillar that splits it's last skin and forms an incredible green chrysalis with gold jewel-like trim. 

Then in 8-9 days that green chrysalis turns dark and then clear and then, pop! Out pops a beautiful butterfly!

 

Out of our 6 caterpillars we had 5 hatch into beautiful butterflies, only one of which was a male--and he was much bigger than the females! Their names were Radiance (RIP), Milky (aka Turkey), Sven, Stripey, Engbuhlite (aka Olaf), and Marshmallow. It was a magical 5 week discovery--with every new caterpillar we learned a little more about their life cycle. Maybe wherever we move next will be in the monarch's migration route--we sure hope so!!

Staycation

At the beginning of the summer we sat down as a family and made a list of all the places we'd like to go and things we'd like to do this summer.

We decided to have a "staycation" and have lots of fun with day trips--we really wanted to go camping on the North Shore, but decided our homeschooling camping trip was going to have to suffice. When I started planning what to do within an hour of home I was astonished at everything we could do!

Our first day we went to Minnehaha Falls and played in the water and visited the sandstone caves. Then we really splurged and WENT OUT TO EAT. It was kind of a big deal, even if it was just Smash Burger!

Day two we went to the Como Zoo, and then the Como Pool. Early on I decided to have fun and not try to get pictures of everything. The kids had so much fun being all together--including Daddy!-- every day. That night the boys had a pizza party to celebrate the end of soccer, so two nights of no cooking for me--a great vacation!

Day three we visited a little town on the St. Croix called Stillwater. We visited the old City Hall where the kids spent a good bit of time in the old prison, searching through old records to see why people were incarcerated. We also went to an ice cream shop called Nelson's, where a child sized serving is two softball-sized balls of ice cream. Most of us managed to at least make a dent in said ice cream, and decided we were paying for the experience, not actually eating everything. :)

We also visited the Warden's House, built way back before Minnesota was a state. The kids had fun climbing the walls...

The best part really was just being together with no constraints on our time. I think we'll do something like this again--it was relaxing to come home every day and sleep in my own bed. :)

Band-aids

The kids have been loving this cool summer, and have spent lots of time playing "Forest Children" and riding bikes & scooters in the driveway. This has resulted in much spilt blood and many band-aids. Unlike Grandma's house (where you get a band-aid for hurt feelings), I have to see blood before I pass out a band-aid. I'm mean like that.

Trevor got many a scrape, but once his band-aid was on, he was all better. 

However, the other day he really hurt his elbow. There was lots of blood, and even more tears. All through the washing he kept asking for a band-aid. It was heartbreaking after I put the band-aid on--he looked up at me with his big brown eyes full of tears and in shocked anguish said, "It still hurts!" 

Oh, little buddy! Yes, it still hurts. Band-aids don't actually make the pain go away, but don't I wish they did! I'd give them out to so many people!