Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Summer doings and findings

So much going on around here these days. My mom came and visited for a few days and it was so nice to spend some quality time with her. School, ballet and karate classes, end of the year testing with the oldest. Planning for next years school lessons. Working in the garden. "Critter" finding. Bird watching and identifying. Tadpole raising and swimming in the neighbor's pool.

We are taking off tomorrow to go camping thru the weekend with my in-laws. I'm so excited! So today, I'll be packing, cleaning, bill paying, carting the kids to ballet and karate and grocery shopping. Lots to do!!!

Here's a few pics from this month's "critter" findings...

Bees on the sunflower
Sunflower bees

HUGE spider
spider

One of our hundreds of tadpoles we're raising...he's a big one...
Tadpole

Grey tree frog...who was VERY photogenic and enjoyed having his photo taken
grey tree frog

"i'm ready for my profile..."
grey tree frog

Just look at that grin!! Told you he was enjoying it!
Smiling at you!

This crayfish, however, looked mighty nervous and embarrassed.. (look at his eyes in Large!)
crayfish

The fact that I'm displaying his underside and missing claw might be why!
Crayfish

Oh, and check out this cutie my oldest found...
baby crayfish

A baby crayfish! Soooo tiny in my 7yr olds hand!
baby crayfish

Again with the dirty fingernails....sigh...if you knew this particular 7yr old you would understand just why it's impossible to keep him clean.
baby crayfish

3 comments:

beth said...

That is so funny. Maggie would scream if any of those creatures were in a 10 mile radius of our house.

Anonymous said...

that spider looks SO incredibly huge. jared was making fun of me b/c he thinks it's probably just a regular sized spider, but i'm thinkin' that thing is the size of my fist. how big was that thing? freaking out here.

love you...
kim

Brandy said...

LOL, Hi Kim! Actually you can laugh at Jared now because including it's legs, it was every bit as big as my fist, if not bigger. It's a wolf spider http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_spider
We have these things everywhere. Pretty creepy, especially when they're carrying all their babies on their back!