New Friends

A month or so ago, the girls and I found some new friends.  We were outside and I was "weeding" (I later found out the weeds were actually flowers that I didn't need to be pulling...oops!).  When I cut a 2 ft or so plant down I noticed a bunch of things squirming around!  I had happened upon a nest of tiny caterpillars.  So, we caught two in Chloe's bug catcher to observe.  I did some internet research and we made a nice little bug catcher home for them.  We left the container outside in the shade under a tree.  The next day we went to check on them.  The container was full of ants and the caterpillars had gone on to a home in some ant's tummy :(  Yes, I found out, wood ants find caterpillars to be a tasty meal.  So, the girls and I went back to the same plant and found another caterpillar.  I decided we should keep it inside this time.  Chloe misted it with her water bottle every other day or so.  We put new leaves in every 3/4 days.  However, the caterpillar only ate the leaves that were dry and old.  July 6th our caterpillar had built his cocoon!  Monday, of this week, he came out as a pretty stupendously colored moth!  We missed his exit from his cocoon, but we let him go and watched him crawl around for a bit outside before he flew off.

Last week we received a visit from the UPS man.  A friend of Adam's sent the girls a play kitchen!  Any of you that know our girls, KNOW how much our girls love to cook!  We just hadn't gotten them a kitchen because we didn't think we had room and it gives them something to do when they go play with others.  They L O V E it!  Hours of fun and any toy that can do that is stupendous.



Early this week we went to a park with some old friends.  Chloe and Autumn got to play with one of their favorite boys.  He's 11 :)  I got to walk and chat.  While we were there, we saw LOTS of fish in a creek.  We discovered some tiny, baby birds in their nest waiting to be fed.  And we saw mushrooms under a tree.  Chloe was most impressed by the mushrooms :)


As a side note...we really have made some new friends!  We met at a party in Franklin a while back only to find out we live just down the road from one another.  Their kids are 3 and 5 and Chloe and Autumn have had a wonderful time with them.  I'm really enjoying getting to know the mom.  Good friends are such a blessing!  I really haven't understood how important a friend can be until just recently.


In other news ~ last week IT RAINED!  As with most of the US, it had gotten incredibly dry here and everything was brown and it had been SO hot.  But last week, God gave us a LOT of rain!  The girls and I took the opportunity to play in the cool, wet air.  We collected water and made several outdoor soups.  Hope all of you are taking advantage of God's creation!