Butterfly In The Sky

The girls recently experienced their first ever camping trip, complete with fishing, canoeing, s'more-making, and sleeping bags in a tent.  By most accounts it was a success, though I think some of us came home more exhausted than others...

The state park we camped at offered a variety of activities, and on Saturday there was "Monarch butterfly tagging" offered at the trail center.  This is exactly the kind of thing the girls get excited about, so I brought them over to check it out.  Turns out that this state park partners with the University of Kansas to tag Monarchs and track their migratory patterns to Mexico.  It began with the DNR lady doing a little talk about the Monarch butterfly. 

Now, I should mention here that Cecilia is a serious nature-lover, and she's watched more than her fair share of nature programming on PBS, in addition to receiving various nature magazines for children over the years.  And she is a voracious reader of pretty much anything.  So then.

The DNR lady incorporated a number of questions for the audience in her presentation, and Cecilia - without exception - answered every single one of them (she raised her hand first, of course).  Life cycle of the Monarch?  She knew it.  What do they eat?  Why, milkweed of course! How long do they live?  Where do the migrate to?  What's the difference between a chrysalis and a cocoon?  She answered all of these correctly, much to the surprise and amusement of all the adults in attendance.  At one point an older gentleman said, "Maybe she should be the one giving the presentation!"  And then, after the DNR lady handed out the butterfly nets and encouraged everyone to move quietly and carefully through the prairie, all the kids took off like bats out of hell, tearing through the prairie and wildly swinging their butterfly nets.  But not my Cecilia, oh no.  She moved stealthily along the edge of the pine trees where the forest met the prairie, following the instructions to a tee.

Want to guess who came back with the first Monarch in their net? 

Fishing in the St. Croix river.

Memories...

It's that time of year again: I bought school supplies and pulled out the tubs of clothes that were put away for the summer.  Anyone who has seen Cecilia in the last month knows that the child experienced a monster growth spurt this summer, so I was worried about what clothes would still fit.  Turns out, none.  So I went looking for a photo of her little face so that I could remember what she looked like before she turned into a giant 5th-grader.  I found this:

Veg Out

Next weekend the girls will be going on their first, official camping trip. They've done some "lite" camping - sleeping in Grandma and Grandpa's pop-up trailer and sitting around a campfire - but this is the real deal.  Tents, sleeping bags, fishing for dinner, etc.  They're pretty excited, and the other night I asked them what they'd like to cook over the fire for meals.  Cecilia didn't think too long before deciding, "Hot dogs!"  When I turned to Rubes and asked what she might like to cook on the camping trip she thought for a moment or two and then proclaimed, "Veggie burgers!" 

Classic.

YouTube Probably Has a Policy

While driving in the car the other day, we were having a conversation about relationships.  Cecilia is still sorting through some things and - in her usual manner - is thoughtful and inquisitive about all the dynamics involved.  We have worked hard to support the girls as they make sense of some complicated feelings, and by and large they are adjusting beautifully to things.  But sometimes there are difficult conversations that are fraught with emotion, and this happened to be one of those days.  This went on for a while with nary a peep from Rubes, who seemed to be off in her own little world (as is often the case).  And then...

Ruby: Soooo ... are there videos on YouTube of people getting electrocuted? 

Nerd Girl

What do you get when you combine this eyesight

with this eyesight?

Something that looks like this:

First (of many) glasses!  Brown and turquoise Converse frames.  This picture is silly, of course, but when she just walks around with her new glasses on her face she's an absolute stunner.  Go nerds!

Hiatus

The blog has been on a bit of a hiatus for the spring/summer, in part because so much has changed in our world, but also because the little girls that we used to write about have turned into big girls - the blog just feels ... different now.  In addition, may of the little quips and anecdotes that populated this blog in the past five years are now being posted on facebook - maybe even 100% of our readership is now getting all this information there.

At the same time, looking back through old blog posts makes me sad that I haven't done a better job of updating things over the past several months, because it really is such a lovely little scrapbook of the girls' lives.  Seems like a good time for Adam and I to talk about the future of this space - update it regularly, close down shop, or something in between. 

The girls are now 10 and 7, respectively, and it's such a treat to look back at the photos, stories, and occasional video to see how much has changed since we started this blog in 2007.  Talking with friends who have infants of their own, I've turned into one of those parents who says things like, "It goes by in the blink of an eye!"  But really, it does.

I welcome your thoughts and suggestions on this if you have any!

Melissa