Catepillar Infestation

They're everywhere! We find them covering our front door, on our clothes, in our clothes, and even, ...in our bed! I really hope they're the kind that turn into butterflies so that there will be some reward for what I consider a trial.

Just yesterday we were at an Army picnic with the students from Rob's school. It was at a park and everyone was on blankets and camp chairs. There were trees around and so every few minutes a catepillar would drop down on someone. Being squeamish no matter how friendly the bug, I found this to be very frustrating. When I felt a hundred tiny legs crawling up my leg as I ate my lunch, I closed my eyes and begged Rob to remove it. Another husband sitting nearby looked at me like I was crazy and said, "That catepillar is not going to hurt you." However, having dreams about catepillars climbing on you, is mentally painful. Perhaps this was more a result of the dead catepillar we found in our sheets this morning.

By the end of the picnic, we were all calmly removing them from each other as though it was completely normal to have them crawling all over us.

The kids had the best time. Perhaps God made catepillars so enticing to children to help with population control. The whole picnic, about 30 kids never left the sand volleyball court because there were so many catepillars to play with. They built sand castles to house them and collected enough of them to fill a whole sand village. What the catepillars thought of all this, I am not sure. On the one hand, they didn't seem to mind being held and petted and talked to, but several of them met an untimely demise from all the handling. Avery in particular played in that sand for two hours before even thinking about finding us. When he did finally come over, he had a fist full of catepillars, mostly of the dead squished variety, clutched in his chubby hand.

They continue to provide entertainment at our home. Everytime the kids go outside, all three of them have a catepillar pet within five minutes of being out there. They never seem to tire of letting them crawl all over their hands and arms. I can hardly watch! Does anyone know how long catepillar season lasts? A few butterflys would be a really welcome change!

Unique Question of the Day

This from Alton: "Mom, why do I think Chinese girls are so cute?"

Profile of Alton

Alton loves astronomy. Here he is with his birthday telescope. We haven't gotten to look at stars yet because it's been raining so much!

Alton is 9 now. It seems hard to believe. He's a very creative kid who loves to create. His current (and long time) aspiration is to be a comic strip writer. He's had his own comic strip titled, "Dingo" for about two years now. He writes new ones faithfully.

He's not really into sports although he has been tolerating soccer this year. He loves to play defense. We think this is because it's a pretty laid back position judging from the good time he seems to be having with the other two defensive players when the ball is at the other end of the field. We're also "forcing" him to be in a track meet in a couple of weeks.

Alton has quite the sense of humor. Yes, some of his jokes and comic strips just aren't funny, but he seems to be getting more and more laughs out of us. This does not include the prank he pulled on me this week where he said he heard a rumor there was a roly-poly crawling on my neck and he needed to check. I was in the kitchen fixing breakfast and only half paying attention to his roly-poly "check" until I felt something actually crawling on my neck. Amazingly, the roly-poly survived my reaction.

His favorite school subject is drama. No, I am not his teacher for that. He gets that at homeschool co-op. We think he likes it because he can be just as silly as he wants. I was a service parent today and observed him in class. Had I been in range, I would've gotten onto him for being so silly, but his teacher seemed to think he was just as funny as he thought he was.

He has me wondering just who he's going to be when he grows up. He certainly won't be dull.

Big Problem, Simple Solution

So my camera has been driving me crazy. It's been over exposing outdoor pictures for awhile. When it started overexposing indoor pictures, I started shopping. That proved frustrating, all those different choices, and so today in consternation, I grabbed the thing and looked to see if there was a reset button. I wasn't expecting much as I had played with all the exposure settings myself already. Low and behold, I hit reset and the camera is a good as new! All this to say, that there will be more pictures and blogs, more frequently, on the way.

Tonight however, I used the bulk of my freetime to turn out a long time in the works article on vaccinations for my natural blog. I would love any comments you have, even critical as that will help me to refine and better the post.

More soon!

So Pretty

There is one thing I can say for sure about this State we are living in, it is absolutely gorgeous in the spring! There are literally flowering everything wherever you look. It makes me wish I was a photographer. Since I am far from that, I can only leave you with a few camera phone pics of our backyard which do not do the colors going on here justice.

Home Again

After a total of 40 hours in our van during a span of nine days with three kids and a dog (who honestly all traveled well), I can certainly say, I don't feel like traveling anywhere anytime soon.

We had a wonderful time on our trip to Oklahoma and Texas to visit cousins, and aunts and grandmas and grandpas. We quickly realized that we need to carve out more time to stay when driving cross country. Four of our nine days were traveling and then after splitting 2 1/2 days between our families, time really flew.

We packed in a lot, from my Mom's retirement party to the Dallas Zoo we were constantly on the move. Towards the end of our drive we did a particularly long leg without stopping. Avery was over the whole being strapped down in his seat and started yelling "Get gas! Get gas!" Everytime he noticed we passed a gas station without stopping, he started scream crying. Now it feels good to be home!

Sorry no trip pictures today, the computer is refusing to recognize my memory card.

Compete in 10 mile race...Check!

Okay, so I did it! I actually ran the whole 10 miles, minus walking for four seconds to actually drink some of the water in those cups that they hand you. I got really good at grabbing them from outstretched hands while running, but the drinking part, well, I almost choked twice and more traveled up my nose than down my throat, thus the walking part, I was thirsty!

I would love to brag and say "It was a pleasant run" which is what naughty Rob said having finished long before me even though he can't remember ever having run ten miles before. I kept expecting to see him lying in a stretcher somewhere along the trail, but no, he ran and ran well. He had a running partner from school show up at the last minute and the two of them seemed to have a lot of fun.

About 10 of my running buddies were in the race. Five of them, I didn't expect to see once the gun went off. The other six of us ran together for the first five miles which was fun. Then two pulled ahead. At mile 8 two pulled behind my running partner Deb and I. We stuck together through the whole race which we had planned to do.

I am very relieved to have it done, and will now quit running for the remainder of this pregnancy. That should give me enough time to forget that running 10 miles in a race atmosphere, was not exactly pleasureable. By then, I should only remember my sense of accomplishment and the fact that I'd really like to do it again and run under (well under) a 10 minute mile!

More on the weekend to come!