Milkweed

Next summer, let's all plant milkweed.

A White Deer

The boys and I were treated to s surprise tonight when we drove into the Chick-fil-A parkng lot tonight...a white deer. Serious! I thought it was a fake and faded hunter's 'practice' deer at first, but then it moved. I have to say my jaw dropped and my mouth was wide open for over 30 seconds before I reached over and grabbed the camera. My pics are disappointing, but at least I think you can tell what it is! Neat! You know I'll be looking every time I go past the FV CFA now;-)

Rest of the pics.

Meet the School Boy

Joey had his first day of kindergarten yesterday. Actually, it was a full day assessment and his first class day starts next Monday (8/4). But, I dropped him off with all his stuff, he was there all day, etc.

He picked out a Batman backpack, a Spiderman lunchbox, a Speed Racer towel for rest time, and Cars themed notebooks and folders. GO FIGURE! I'm sure if we'd run into Star Wars or Lego stuff that would have been in the mix too.

All went well he said. He talked about a new friend named Sydney and enjoying building with smiley face blocks. He looks forward to trying the square pizza and their mashed potatoes and gravy. He said the playground was fun and that they went in the gym where they had a climbing wall for a few minutes. He was fascinated with the sink complete with water fountain that's right in his classroom. He just had trouble comprehending that it was nearly 4pm, day over, when I picked him up.

I think we're off to a good start:-) Way to go Joey!

I managed not to cry...I'd cried plenty on this subject before, so way to go Mom too!

Johnny was asking for Joey yesterday and very glad when he came home, so let's not forget that this is a big change for Johnny too.

Joey tracks out at the end of September for 3 weeks (he's on track 4) for his first break and is of course off for Labor Day.

Lots of Butterflies!

I'm very excited about the butterfly pictures I took yesterday. I have posted them to SmugMug and Picasa.

Soon to be 4!

I took this picture with Dad's camera just before Johnny's birthday party on Saturday.

We can't get enough...

...of the Museum of Life and Science in Durham. The boys and I have a membership, so it's an easy decision when the boys ask to go to the museum. We arrived around 12:30 today and basically closed the place at 5PM. Joey wanted to do the Kapla blocks first, so we stayed inside for a while. But, our train ride was at 2PM, so we headed outside to play and see the animals before our ride. The boys were quite thrilled with the water area as you can see from the pics. I didn't mind them getting wet until they started sitting in the little 'stream' between the top and bottom parts of the exhibit. Then I had to pull them away. The train ride was great like usual. You'll see how much fun they had screaming in the tunnel. We pretty much timed the whole day around being in the butterfly house at 3PM when they release the butterflies. We were not disappointed today. Joey got to hold a butterfly, and the one that got put on his hand stayed for over 5 minutes. Wow! Johnny tried too, but I have to be more careful with his curiosity. There is a new Carolina butterfly tent off the main building that showcases native butterflies. It's definitely worth a look see. Johnny was so excited by the butterflies today that he picked out a small butterfly stuffed animal:-) By then it started to thunder pretty loudly, so we headed back to the main building instead of the wind and sailboat area. Bummer, but next trip I promise! We finished up by going through the rest of the inside exhibits.

All the pics are here.

The best pics are here.

Wow!

Ya know, if you shoot hundreds of butterfly shots over the course of a summer, you are bound to get a few really good ones. Let's just say I am pleased with this one:-)

There are a few more here.