Butterfly Garden

Today we visited the Dreamscapes Water Garden Butterfly House.  It was the perfect culmination to our butterfly hatching experience.  We loved sharing in the fun with Lala, Paige, and the girls:)

 We learned a lot of new cool facts about butterflies.

 It's amazing that a tiny egg can turn into a beautiful Monarch. 

 Checking out the chrysalises.

 Owen and Ella sat for a while trying to get a butterfly to sit on their hand.

 We met a cute potty bellied pig named Pork Chop.  He especially liked Ella.

Such a great hidden little gem in our own small town.

And here's a picture of the boys I took on Sunday before church.  They weren't really into getting their pictures taken.

A Birthday & Anniversary

This past Sunday Mike and I took Nana Way to the Hershey Hotel for their amazing brunch.  We go every year for her birthday.  It was really nice out, but extremely hot so we weren't able to walk around much outside.

Today, Mike and I celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary.

 

We decided to go out to eat last night since Owen has karate tonight and we are leaving for the beach tomorrow morning.  A few of the places we had in mind to eat weren't open on a Monday night so we ended up going back to the Hershey Hotel and eating at a different restaurant.  

Well, we may have actually visited three restaurants total while we were there last night:)  It wasn't too hot so we were able to sit outside and walk around.  We had such a nice time. 

I loved our wedding.  I checked the website of the photographer that took our pictures that day and she still has two pictures of us on her site.

Road Trip: Oneonta, NY

This past Wednesday we loaded up the car and drove almost 4 hours to visit friends in Oneonta, New York.

It was a beautiful drive.  Mike went to college with Todd and Jacqualin and they now have three kids, two dogs, a pond, trampoline, tree swing, chickens, and four wheelers.  Definitely enough to keep our boys busy playing outdoors! 

 I love trampolines!  After all these years I can still do a back flip:)

We spent the 4th of July doing lots of fun, All-American sort of things...

We went fishing and Owen caught his very first fish all by himself!

He's ready to cry, but still trying to smile because the fish had sharp teeth and hurt his finger

We swam in a beautiful lake

 Followed by fireworks...

 Friday night we had a pizza party with some new friends.  My boys loved swimming in the hot cool tub!

Thanks for a great time Scanlon family!

Butterflies, Lightning Bugs, and S'mores

Yesterday, all 5 of our butterflies emerged from their chrysalis.  We decided to let them go rather than keep them in the cage for a few days.

 

 Last night we had my parents and Beth & Eric over for dinner.  The boys were very excited for them to get here...

They brought paints for the boys to use.  Adam loves painting with Aunt Beth.

It was so hot that we all put our feet in the pool to cool off.

Then, Paige and the girls came over for a campfire and to catch lightning bugs.  We are loving the ages of our kids right now.  Don't get me wrong, some days I really miss the younger baby and toddler years, but this age is so much fun.  They can play for hours together and don't need us to entertain them.

 

 

Growing up, we would spend many summer nights catching lightning bugs.  Our dads made us bug houses to keep them in.  It was so much fun and now it's just as much fun watching our kids experience the same things we did.

We made S'mores over the fire and once it started to get dark out the lightning bugs came out. 

Such a fun night!