Dead butterfly :-(

I spotted this little guy on our side wall last week.  It was really weird because I saw it just as I got out of the car and the boys totally missed it. The butterfly was sort of tucked underneath some of our flowers and unfortunately, the poor thing was dying :-(

Looks like there are a couple of holes in its wings.  I wonder what happened:

I was originally thinking about pinning it but that just seems cruel now:

A friend suggested laminating it into a bookmark, but it's sort of bulky and I don't want to squish its abdomen,... so maybe I might put it in resin instead.  I've already ordered some resin so let's see if I change my mind when it arrives.  I'm thinking something like a paperweight might be nice?

But hey, look! Another random Monarch caterpillar in the front yard!  

I was going to put it into our butterfly cage, but then look what else I found??! A broken chrysalis!

And this butterfly emerged not too far from the milkweed, so I think I will just leave this caterpillar to Mother Nature.  This chrysalis was tucked in nicely among all the twiggy flowers. Although now it makes me wonder if this dead butterfly was the one that emerged from this chrysalis?  Did its wings get tangled within the plant's twigs? Seems like a possibility. Or did it get into a fight with a bird?! I guess we will never know :-/

Re-kokedama-ing

I'm not sure if that's actually a real word, but I am going to use "kokedama" as a verb as that's exactly what I had to do!  I had a feeling I had overwatered my kokedama orchid, so I had to unwrap all that twine and take out all of that soil that was in there. 

I'm learning as I'm going along with these orchids.  It seems that they need to stay dry most of the time, but at the same time still needs to be watered/stay moist.  Gosh, so complicated!

Anyway, as suspected - there is root rot inside of the kokedama ball:

I've seen videos where they've actually put "peanut" packaging in between the roots but since I don't have any of that I'm using some of these bonsai soil instead.  They are sort of pebble-y, so hopefully that will drain the water nicely in the between the roots:

Fingers crossed this kokedama will work better this time.  It is at least half the size of what it was before!

I do have some orchid bark coming soon so if this doesn't work, we will just have to unwrap the whole thing again (or re-kokedama as I put it :-) and see if this orchid survives.  So far all the flowers have dropped off except for 2. Obviously a few more have dropped since this photo was taken:

I do see one new little flower twig/bud that's sprouting.  So maybe something is working??! I do need to mist it more perhaps - supposed to do it every day as the air is so dry here.  Or maybe I should just give up on orchids as they seem to be such high maintenance plants!

At least the other kokedama plants are doing well and I found a solution for those little gnats flying around too.  I found this sticky thingy in the form of a butterfly that actually looks decent while being stuck into one of the kokedamas:

In the meantime, I have also bought a new African Violet for the new plant hanger in the kitchen. The other plant looked that I had in there looked really sad.  This violet reminds me about the one that I once had in Broken Arrow (near Tulsa) when we lived there.  I had this special pot for it too and it had a massive bloom.  But unfortunately we couldn't bring it to Abu Dhabi when we moved so I had to sell it/give it away:

I'm hoping this one will grow nicely here.  At least it's something nice to look at while I'm doing dishes :-)

Science Olympiad

Graham has been listening to online lectures for Science Olympiad during most of the school term.  He finally had a chance to showcase his creations a couple of weekends ago.  He decided to do the Pasta Mobile and also the Egg drop tournament where you have to protect an egg that is being dropped from about 10 ft.

But first comes the fun part of building everything.  I did end up finally buying a glue gun:

It's amazing how well this glue works!

Graham wanted to try out his parachute for his egg drop first:

Here's the video - just glad Graham didn't fall off the roof! And no egg at this point:

A few more tries.  I like how Charlie is being helpful:

Well, come to find out that the parachute is not within the parameters of the Egg Drop rules.  So Graham has to move on to a different contraption.  And while doing so... Oops! Clean up on the dining room floor, please!

It's taken Graham quite a few days to build his pasta mobile.  And of course, Charlie wants to get into the fun of using the glue gun too, so he is building a Plastic straw Mobile:

I think it's a boat, as I found it by our bathroom sink recently:

Ta da!!!  I told Graham to fix those wheels but he still has this "good enough" mentality.  I only said that ONCE when he was doing a project a few years ago.  Urgh:

Well, his "Good enough" Pasta Mobile came in 2nd!  But then his "Good enough" contraption wasn't quite good enough for his egg drop during the day itself of Science Olympiad.  I'm just glad he didn't get upset:

Charlie and Graham also got to fiddle with the rubber-band flinging competition:

Oh, I sent the boys to the wrong school for the event.  I thought it was in our school but it wasn't.  Ha ha! I knew something was wrong when I missed Bobby's phone call that morning:

There was also the competition to build the tallest structure:

The other challenge on top of that was also to balance the tennis ball at the very top:

Good try, boys!

Looks like they both had a good time.  Charlie will get a chance to do this officially if he decides to in 4th Grade.  Hopefully they will actually get to work on all these projects in person at school, although I think that will mean early mornings before school.  Hmm... I may have to be careful what I wish for there. Ha ha! :-P

Swim lessons

We started Graham and Charlie on swim lessons since we are not doing baseball this time.  So far so good!  I got to at least buy a new pair of shoes for the poolside:

I swear I'm actually paying attention to what their swim coach is telling them... and not just hanging out and enjoying the sun.  Or enjoying looking up at the clouds :-P

Here's Charlie doing his free-style.  Still needs some work but I'm already seeing progress after the first lesson:

And here is Graham doing freestyle as well.  I love how he takes his breath after on every 3rd stroke so he alternates the sides of which his head turns:

Always something with these two monkeys:

So far, they are also learning the breast-stroke. And according to their coach, after a couple more lessons they should be able to move on to the back-stroke and also butterfly! I'll have to pay attention then as I've always wanted to learn the butterfly stroke :-)

By the way, Charlie finally learned how to dive off the diving board!

He has yet to dive off the board standing up, but this is a great start! So glad the boys have been enjoying the pool.  Sometimes I miss the beach but this is just fine for now as it's so nice and quiet here.

New slip-and-slide

The old slip-n-slide had a rip and called it quits, so I went ahead and bought another one online.  The first thing Graham said was "Did you really have to get a watermelon one??!"  Ha!

I thought the watermelon one would look cute :-)

There's a couple spots where the boys are suppose to fill it up with water, so Charlie is "disconnecting" the water hose...

... while Graham gets everything set up:

Yay for teamwork!

I think it's funny how the boys put on their goggles and swim cap for the slip-n-slide.  Ha ha!

Fun times! It has been cooler again so probably won't get this out until it starts to warm up, which should be... hmm, looks like mid to high 70s later this week but then back to  mid to high 60s again next week. Aren't we suppose to be warmer by now??? Although I shouldn't complain, I do love these temps! :-)

Swim time!

We recently joined a swim club a couple of weeks ago. I knew this place existed but didn't realize how close it was to the house.  Best thing ever!  Graham and Charlie really miss being in the pool.  We have had such a luxury of being apart of many country clubs wherever we have lived, except for here.  It is just way too expensive here!

Boys are sporting their new swim gear:

Graham is struggling to get his swim cap on. Maybe I need to get a bigger sized one since they have so much hair on their head now!

It didn't take Graham long to venture up to the diving board:

Graham is such a natural off the diving board!  If only he is as graceful with everything else he does:

Graham is giving diving lessons to Charlie:

These kids are definitely spoiled now:

Here's Charlie's attempt on his first dive.  Looks like he will need to work on it some more:

After a little while, it's time for a snack:

And a quick drink:

It's too bad the snack bar closes so early.  I could eat a lot more than just a bag of chips.  Charlie is probably thinking the same thing here:

Okay, back to the diving board! Still not quite the elegant dive yet from Charlie:

While the boys play, I'm going to hit the gym.  It's a good thing it's just nearby to the pool, so I can still keep an eye on them (and try not to fall off the treadmill while I'm at it):

I only burned 65 calories in 15 minutes??! Whaaaat?!  No wonder losing weight is so discouraging:

Okay, going to try some weights/leg presses now.  I hope I don't hurt myself!

Surprisingly I wasn't too sore the next day.  Although, what does that tell me then... that I didn't work hard enough??! Hmmm...

In the meantime, Graham and Charlie are still jumping off the diving board:

Canonballs!!!  I think it's funny how Charlie has to wait for Graham to do it first.  He did the same thing when we were on the driving range.  I wonder why that it?  Perhaps he needs to see how Graham did so he can out-do him, as his competitiveness kicks in.  That's so typical of Charlie!

Okay, one last try off the diving board before we go home.  Maybe Charlie will get it this time???

Nope!  But we'll be back in a few more days, so maybe he will get it then.  Awesome first day at the pool.  I don't think there will be any complaints from the boys.  Plus, no complaints from me either. It was especially nice when we had the whole place to ourselves :-)

Fixing minivan's turn-signal light bulb

I'm not sure how this came about - trying to fix our turn signal lightbulb that went out.  Probably just one of those conversations in the car with Bobby, saying "I can fix that!"

Well, I wasn't too sure how difficult it would be but after viewing an online video, yup - I can fix that! Ha ha!  The boys and I walked over to our local autoshop and of course, the light bulb cost more than it was because I ended up buying 2 more Hotwheels cars.  I don't even know why I let them buy these... Graham and Charlie hardly even play with them!

Anyway, following along with the video: Did you know that there are actually bolts on the inside when you open the trunk? That's how you pull that plastic cover off!

And the tough part was actually trying to pull the plastic cover off.  I wasn't sure if I was going to break anything when attempting that.

Found the spot to unscrew to get to the light bulb:

Easy peasy!!!

So not too difficult at all.  When I was trying to put the plastic cover back on, I did notice that I had pulled something off that was I wasn't suppose to.  So hopefully it went back into its spot when I pushed the plastic cover back on.  What could possibly go wrong? Plastic cover coming off when I hit a speed bump??!  Okay, I guess I better not joke too much about that.  One more task off the check list! Yay!!!

Magnetic white board

I had picked up a used white board back in August last year.  This was just as the Graham and Charlie were confirmed with doing Distance Learning at home for the school year.  We never really did do much with the board though.  I used it a few times for some art lessons and Graham used it once for his presentation.  It's just been sitting outside under the back patio.  Charlie did make use of it a couple times to create his "masterpiece":

I wasn't actually allowed to erase this but I told Charlie I would take a photo of it and we can put it in our memory bank (a.k.a. the computer).  So now that I can have this side of the board nice and clean, it's time to prep for some magnetic paint!

Have I ever mentioned how I do not like prepping:

Here's the magnetic paint.  Whoever came up with this is a genius!

Although it did take me a good 5 minutes just stirring it to un-clump whatever that was at the bottom of the can.  I'm guessing that's the "magnetic" part of the paint:

And I also read in the reviews of this magnetic paint that you need to apply multiple layers so the magnetic part actually works well:

I only did 3 coats at first and that still wasn't enough to hold up the simple magnetic tiles.  So I ended up using the entire can!

I was hoping the boys would be able to use the magnetic side of it to create some sort of marble run, but the marbles were too heavy and the magnetic tiles would just fall over:

But in the meantime, we are just happy to create some random art :-)

And I've moved the board inside the house.  It's taking quite a bit of room in the house - almost in-your-face when you walked through the front door!  But oh well, it is what it is right now (until we can afford a bigger house, which will probably be never in SoCal!). 

"Hi" to you too, Charlie!

The main reason for moving the board indoor is that we are now using it for Graham and Charlie's new daily schedule:

How is it that Charlie has already finished up all of his tasks and it's not even 8:30am yet! Hmmm....

I recently just purchased a whole bunch of magnetic letters.  I'll have the boys writing poems pretty soon now.  Well, no harm in some wishful thinking.  Ha ha!