Ahhh! Jan took this picture the other day over by the pond near our house. It makes me just want to take a deep breath of summer. I wish I could bottle it up for a cold winter day.
We've had a ton going on this summer, hence the lack of posts (too busy out doing good stuff) but I thought I'd try to catch up on a few "events" this evening. One of the main summer highlights for the kiddos have been "All God's Creatures Great and Small." Our neighborhood is like a wildlife preserve for big things and small critters. Elizabeth has loved bugs since she was a baby and her interest in them continues to grow (and she seems to be getting her brother hooked on them as well). We have bug boxes all over the house with different beetles, caterpillars, lady bugs, butterflies, ants, rollie pollies, crickets, grass hoppers. You name it, we've got it. And when I say bug boxes, there are at least 6-7 of them full on any day. The amazing thing to me is that Elizabeth does a really good job keeping them all alive. She feeds them lettuce or leaves and grass, gives them little bottle caps full of water, cleans their cages etc. She has these three huge beetles that she has kept alive for months now. And they are going strong! And every once in a while, one of them gets loose in the house. But we usually find it within a day!
Last week, a momma deer had three baby fawns in our back yard. This little guy, we think, is about 3 days old. The momma leaves him by the AC unit while she goes and gets some food and he can get some rest. I heard her calling for the fawns a few nights ago. We see them running all around our neighborhood; they are getting so big already!
This is Joan, our pet frog, who used to be our pet tadpole. Jan waded into the pond up to his waste to catch her back in March. It was right after I returned from visiting a friend/colleague in Orleans France, also the "home" of Saint Joan of Arc. The kids and I were reading a book on Joan of Arc during that time so Elizabeth decided that would be the tadpoles name. We kept her all these months and watched her turn into a frog. It was really amazing to watch. She just recently started acting like a frog (although she still has a bit of a stub of a tail) so we made the decision to let her go back home to the pond. We actually really miss the silly little frog and find ourselves still looking for her in the kitchen aquarium or going over to feed her.
And I just had to include this one of Andrew. This is "Elizabeth's attempt at getting Andrew dressed for school." Don't worry Grandma, he didn't get out of the house dressed like this! :)
