Our Butterflies

I wanted to provide an update about our butterfly garden.  We have added to our garden throughout the summer and it is doing quite well.  Hopefully most of the plants come back next year.  We were all excited when we noticed some caterpillars crawling up the side of our house and settling in on the overhand right over the butterfly garden.  It was even more exciting, though, to come back a couple hours later and see that the caterpillars had become cocoons!  Cocoons are quite intricate and beautiful with the little gold colored specks on them.  We have had a total of 4 cocoons in our butterfly garden thus far.  Unfortunately, nature takes its course.  One of the cocoons fell down for reasons we don't know.  We think a spider may have attacked a cocoon that is currently hanging up.  The other 2 cocoons, though, have become beautiful monarch butterflies.  

We noticed each of the cocoons turning from a bright green to a dark, blackish color.  If you looked closely at the cocoon you could see the details on the butterfly's wings through the cocoon.  Shortly thereafter each of the butterflies came out and were seen flying amongst our butterfly bushes.  I know I have spent a lot of time writing about this, but it has been neat to watch and exciting to share with the kids.

  

Sarah has started the new semester as well as her practicum at the VA in Topeka.  Her schedule is a bit crazy and Tuesdays are the worst day with her starting work at 6am and finishing at 9:15pm.  Patrick has had some respite from coaching, but starts back tomorrow.  We are hoping this will be a great swim season!

Elle will be spending her last days at daycare this week.  Starting next week, Jay will be going to daycare.  He will be going during the hours that Elle is at preschool.  I think he will have a blast playing with all of the other kids.  This past week we took Elle to the Arts Center, where she'll be going for preschool, and she saw her classroom and met her teachers.  There are two teachers and one aide in the class.  On Wednesday this week she will go to preschool for a half day and then finally get to go for a full day on Friday.  There is an open house for parents this week, so I suppose we'll get to learn more about the teachers and their plans for the school year.  Elle is very excited to go to school.  Whenever Sarah talks about having to go to school, Elle says, "just like I go to school."  If only Sarah could color and go out on the playground still!

What else have we been up to?  Last weekend Sarah had to work on Saturday.  Patrick took the kids to Pendleton's, which is right outside Lawrence.  They have a gigantic butterfly garden with caterpillars, cocoons, and butterflies everywhere.  They also picked some apples and purchased some wine grapes that are from a nearby winery.  The next day we all went up to campus and had a lovely picnic near Potter's Lake and the Outdoor Dance pavillion.  We took kites and flew them with the kids.