Growing Butterflies

For Christmas, Carley received a butterfly kit from a friend of mine. And as the weather got warmer, we ordered the butterfly larvae.

The caterpillars took less than a week to arrive. They came in a "larval culture cup" that had food at the bottom of the cup.


4/9/10

For the first week, the caterpillars just moved around the cup and ate their food. As they entered the pupal stage, the caterpillars crawled to the top of the cup and hung upside down.



One evening they looked like this....

4/11/10

And the next morning, a couple looked like this...

4/15/10

Once they all harden into crysalids we were able to open the cup, pull out the paper liner than they clung to and move them into the butterfly habitat.


4/16/10

We're still watching and waiting for the first butterfly to break free.

San Francisco or Bust

This year, since Josh was turning the big 1-0, I asked him "if you could do anything for a birthday party what would you choose?" It wasn't that I planned on giving him a big extravagant party but I want to see what his birthday dreams were.

"Go to San Francisco" was his response. And my knee-jerk reaction was "Oh no, I'm not taking a bunch of boys to San Francisco."

After thinking about it for a day the trip seemed feasible.

So we made it happen.

After Josh, Carley, myself and Susan (my friend and the mom of Josh's friend) there would be three seats remaining in the car. He picked his three closest friends to come - in fact the same three friends that came to his party last year - and we all went to San Francisco last weekend in celebration of Josh's birthday.

To be specific, we went to the Exploratorium. And explored we did. For five hours.















The Exploratorium is located in San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts, which is one of my favorite places. We took a walk around the pond after being inside and before heading home.





While waiting for some city traffic to clear, Josh asked if we could go over the Golden Gate Bridge, which was in view. He'd never been over it before. So why not?

We stopped on the other side for a view of the bridge and city.





It was a long drive home after a long day so we stopped at Red Robin for some dinner. The serving staff sang Josh "Happy Birthday" in their quirky way and gave him a free sundae.

We got home much later than planned but still had birthday ice cream cake and presents. The friends slept over.



I hope it was a memorable birthday for Josh. I know I'll remember this one forever. We all had a great time.