Painted Lady Butterfly

We ordered caterpillars once again this year and the fascination remains.

The Painted Ladies have emerged.

Happy Victoria Day weekend to all my Canadian friends!

sunsets

As you might have guessed by the lack of action on my wee blog these days, I've been super busy. 

Truthfully, with less time on my hands, I've chosen to spend it sewing rather than blogging. So I do have some projects to share, and I hope to very soon!

But for now I want to share a picture from our family vacation late last year.

We traveled to Barbados to celebrate Christmas. 

Each night we would walk down to the beach to watch the sun set. 
And every night it was so magical.

Barbados is breathtaking.

 

our summer vacation

As you may have noticed, I've been away for a few days. My hubby and I packed up the kids and headed to beautiful Montreal. I don't know what it is about that city but it is so easy to fall in love with, every time we go.

We spent a bit of time in Montreal and then we drove down to Parc Safari, just south of the city. For those of you not familiar, the main feature there is a 4 to 5 km park that you drive your car through and feed 'wild' animals. It's super cool and something that I'd always wanted to do myself. I may have used my kids as an excuse to do it. Just maybe.

So we drove through the park, stopping along the way to feed the animals, having wonderful 'family bonding' moments. 

And then it happened: Evan announces that he has to pee. 
And when a 4 year old says he has to pee, it means it's already just about coming out and you need to get to that bathroom 5 minutes ago.

Did I mention that at Parc Safari, you're not allowed to get out of your car?! We had only driven about a kilometer of the 5 kilometer trail so at this point, I had think fast. 

I contemplated speeding through the rest of the trail at the risk of plowing down some poor innocent hungry animal. 

My husband suggested opening the door a crack and letting him pee out the door.  
Umm. Have you seen the aim of a 4-year old boy?! 

At this point we were desperate. 
But there were other carloads of people nearby so THAT was not an option.

Then I had an idea. 

We had no other choice.

"Do we have some kind of cup that he can pee into?"

We scanned the back seat and there it was. The gloriously empty MacDonald's cup from the the day before.

I was in disbelief that this was actually happening. I sat there holding the cup while Evan stood in front of me peeing into it. 

I prayed he wouldn't pee on me.

And man that kid had to pee. He filled half the cup!

Once he was done, I put the plastic lid back on so it wouldn't spill. I looked down at it, still with the straw sticking out and then realized I should have taken it out before putting the lid back on. Now one of the kids was going to forget and drink the pee.

I put the pee cup in the cupholder in front of me so I could keep an eye on it. 

It felt so wrong to put it there but I was NOT going to hold a cup of pee for the next hour.

We continued on, feeding the animals, acting like nothing had happened.

The kids were hanging out in the front of the van so they could reach the animals and the whole time I just KNEW the cup was going to get spilled and there would be pee in my van.
 

The pee cup with a straw was stressing me out!

ONE OF MY CHILDREN WERE GOING TO EITHER DRINK OR SPILL PEE IN MY VAN!

My hubby pulled ahead a bit faster, grabbed the cup and dumped it out the window when there was no one around to see. My hero!

We still had a yucky cup to deal with but at least it wasn't going to get spilled. In my van.

We drove about another kilometer up the trail and discovered a bathroom with snack bar. 

Would have been good to know before!!

All I can say is, thank God for little boys. 

Oh, and next time I'm packing pull ups :)

in awe of mother nature

Recently, a couple of my neighbours asked me if I wanted to go in on some caterpillars with them. More specifically, a kit of caterpillars with some food. 

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I'm not that into bugs. Okay, I'm not gonna lie, they totally freak me out. But I thought this would be cool for the kids, ya know, as long as they stayed in their little containers.

Of course, I've read Eric Carle's Very Hungry Caterpillar to the kids about a thousand times but I've never seen these little critters in action. But really caterpillars aren't something I knew very much about.


So the first thing I learned is that they really do eat and eat and eat, and GROW! These little guys more than doubled in size in just a few days. 

Then one by one, they each climbed up to the top of the container and hung upside down like this:

They looked perfectly still and motionless. But then, before I knew it, the next time I'd check on them, they'd be covered up in their chrysalis. I have no idea how they do this.

I managed to get a shot of this one before he was completely covered. I would estimate it takes about a day from start to finish. Then we wait.

 Okay, I may have been more excited about these little creatures than the kids were.

These two started their chrysalises just a day or two apart.

Then, just this morning, I noticed that one of the chrysalises were empty.

And there she was... a beautiful 'painted lady' butterfly.

If you look real closely at her wings, they almost look like peacock feathers.

 

We placed some fruit and some sugar water into a bottle cap for her.

And then a little while later, we released her... not knowing if she could even fly yet.

 

And she fluttered away so beautifully. So perfectly.

Now I can hardly wait for the others to bust out of those chrysalises!

Evan's become so fascinated in caterpillars that he picked up a stray today. We'll have to wait and see what kind of butterfly she turns into!

UPDATE: New picture from our 3rd butterfly

 And yeah, I have pretty cool neighbours, don't I?!