Butterfly Kisses

We discovered last year that we have milkweed in our backyard. At first, I pulled them all out and it was not until Heidi and I were reading about Monarch Butterflies that we learned that milkweed is what they eat and lay their eggs on. So, we raised about three caterpillars last summer in jars and were able to see them turn into butterflies. What an awesome experience! This year, we were prepared! We had our jars ready and looked everyday for butterfly eggs. Last year, we found them as caterpillars, but this year, we hoped to see the process from the very beginning!
On the leaves of the milkweed, we were able to find one tiny caterpillar and three eggs. Heidi named them Kenny, Martha, Mars & FiFi =). Not all of them made it, but we found more eggs as needed. It is absolutely amazing to see how tiny the egg is, to see the caterpillar emerge, to see how much they eat (we had to add many more leaves for food) and to see how fast they grow.
We forgot to take a picture in between the egg and full grown caterpillar - oops! Anyway, after the caterpillar is full grown, he attaches himself to the top of jar and hangs there for awhile. We had always missed when the caterpillar makes his chrysalis, but this year Heidi and I got to see one of them do it! Amazing! Here is a video we found online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY-Fiyq8jc4&feature=related

Here is Martha in her chrysalis and below is when she emerged as a beautiful butterfly.

Finally, we were ready to let her go. Heidi had her on a stick for awhile, but then Martha crawled right onto Heidi's hand! She said it tickled, but enjoyed the experience. After a few minutes, she flew off and Peter was able to get one final picture of her in our lilac bush.

"Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy; they will sing before the Lord, for he comes, he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his truth." Psalm 96:11-13

Camera Troubles...

Lately, we have been having serious camera troubles which has hindered me from blogging for the last few weeks. It all started when the button on our camera fell off! Definitely a bit tricky to take pictures without a button =)! We bought the camera less than a year ago, so it is still under warranty - that would be great if we could locate the receipt....we are still working on that =). So, we dug out our old camera and finally located a battery online that was not too expensive - just in time for a friend's wedding and our trip to the Adirondacks. Alas, a couple of days into our vacation, the battery died and is mysteriously refusing to be recharged. So, most of our vacation pictures were taken on our camera phones =)! Anyway, I was able to get all the pictures down loaded from the various sources and I am now set to get going again on my blog!

Trees! Trees! Trees!

For those of you who have been to our house, you know we have a forest in our yard =)! Over the course the of last year, we have taken down three trees and have trimmed up a few of the others. We actually had grass in our backyard this year! Unfortunately, most of the trees are not climbing trees. Although, our kids have discovered that the Japenese Maple by our front door works pretty well and here they are showing off their climbing skills.

Bathroom Project Begins

One of the rooms that we never got around to painting is our upstairs bathroom.  We have been inspired to get going on it because we are having company in August and would love to have it looking much better by then! 

I have always been a bit baffled as to what to do with the lovely blue tile, or shall we say - aqua?  turquoise?  I'm not really sure, but it is not a blue that is currently in style and therfore, no towel, bathmat or rug will match!  The previous owners attempted to match the blue and paint the walls the same color....it didn't quite work out =).  So, I will leave the ingenious color scheme we came up with for another blog that will include our "after" pictures, but for now, I thought you might enjoy seeing the "before" pictures.
Please notice the lovely dark brown cabinetry that we are so relieved to have taken off the wall! The room already looks better without them!  The light switch just makes me laugh!  When we moved in five years ago, every single light switch was like this!  This is the last one to go (sniff!)...

The window trim is in pretty bad shape - lots of chipping paint, so this is really good that we are getting some fresh paint on there!

Alright!  Here we go!  We've scraped, spackled, sanded and washed and now we are set to go!  Here's my little helper (?).  One of the rolls of tape had only a little bit left, so I let Derek go to town.  He had an incredible amount of fun pulling the tape off, but got a bit frustrated that he couldn't get it to stick to the wall - mostly it just stuck to him!I'll be sure to update with "after" pictures as soon as we are done!!

Adventure in Hamlin

What better to do with a 91 degree day than to go to the beach! We have not been too adventurous with our young kiddos, but this summer we are determined to get out there and make some family memories =)! So, we decided to head out to Hamlin Beach State Park, which is only about 40 minutes west of us. More info here.

When we got there at 9:00am (we wanted to make the most of the morning and then head back home after lunch for nap time), the beach was pretty much deserted! We were able to pick a great spot to dump our stuff - the only shady spot on the beach =). We Bertrams get grumpy if we are too hot, so it was perfect to have a shady spot to retreat to.

During this time the lifeguards were practicing their skills with a rescue boat and surfboard. The kids were interested for awhile in watching them, but were getting antsy to go in themselves. By this time, we had discovered that the lifeguards were not "on duty" until 11:00am....it was about 9:30am at this point.....

So, we got busy playing in the sand to pass the time =).

Of course, playing in the sand is a favorite activity for Heidi, Kip and Derek! Even Peter got in on the fun for awhile =)

Finally! 11:00am! The lifeguards gave the go-ahead and Kip and Heidi were off. Kip decided it was tooooo cold, but Heidi stayed in for almost an hour. Peter and I took turns out there with her. Heidi asked if I still remembered how to swim =). She was very impressed by my handstand, although she made sure that I knew it wasn't straight =).

We packed up our beach stuff around 12:00 and headed over to the picnic area to have our lunch. We had just gotten out all of the food onto our plates when it started to sprinkle, then rain (Peter ran to the car to get the umbrella), then pour! We huddled under the umbrella - our food stayed mostly dry, but all of our backs were soaked! Thankfully it only lasted a few minutes and we all had lots of giggles over our predicament =).

We headed home for a much needed =) rest time....

Until next time!