Package, Swimming and Caterpillars

Quite a combination, if I do say so myself. On Monday, we received the package my parents sent a little over three weeks ago. I shared it with the kids on Tuesday, after we were done with the big kids school. There were all sorts of goodies in the package! They were all excited to get new swimsuits so I had them try them on and we took pictures. I will only share one pose with you but know that they really posed well! We all enjoyed the Jelly Belly jelly beans and we did an experiment with them that really worked! If you plug your nose while you eat them you don't get the full flavorful taste. So we would plug our noses, chew a jelly bean for a bit and then unplug our noses to smell the flavor and it truly did taste better! I knew it was true but it was really fun to smell and taste the difference! I also got a CD with pictures from my family reunion, that we missed, and I think we won't be doing that again! It was great to see pictures of all my family having so much fun together! Anyway, the package contained lot of stuff I asked for and some fun stuff for the kids that my parents just sent so it was great. (There were two books on paper airplanes with neat decorated paper. We have been in paper airplane heaven and they really are neat and fun to fly.) So, since the kids had their swim suits on and we were done with school I decided we could go to the pool right after lunch. We cleaned up, ate lunch and headed out. After a lot of swimming we got out and I took some pictures. Ben found a caterpillar that was small compared to the others of its kind we have seen. Then Marissa found a ton in the yellow flowering bushes! There were so many of them in each of the bushes, I couldn't believe it. We gathered a couple of the caterpillars and some leaves and flowers and were going to take them home to see if they would do their magic trick for us so we could see what kind of butterfly/moth it would turn in to... but we were going to a Ross hosted dinner and I decided we shouldn't traumatize the poor creatures so we put them back into the bushes. The dinner was really fun - lots of friends from Church were there and they had little servings of ice cream so that was a real treat for us! They even had a bad playing on the metal pans - or whatever they are called. It was great! I took Marissa and Kemiah so I could get a picture of them but then when they were done playing we went up to look at the drums and one of the guys talked to us about the drums so we learned new things. It was really interesting for me, and I think Marissa liked it too. So, it was a fun filled day with lots of excitement.



These flowers are usually high up in the tops of the trees but as we walked to the pool Marissa spotted them down low. I just had to take a picture of them.

Gotta have a tree picture and this is the one I like this time around.

What a bunch of cute girls I have, posing and showing off their new swimsuits!

Yes, she is laying in the puddle on the cement by the pool. "It's warm," she said.

They don't fit her at all but she really likes to try to wear them, complete with the snorkel mouth piece in her mouth.

Can you tell the size difference between the two caterpillars? Marissa's is big and fat but Ben found a little baby one.

Marissa told me today that she helped this caterpillar to get the flower so who knows if it would have eaten like this naturally.

Kemiah is trying to get the bottom of the caterpillar to climb onto her hand.

This is a comparison to show you how big it is with my finger next to it.

Here's the band. I should have gotten a video recording of them but maybe we'll see them again before we leave.

Some pictures of the stuff from the package - Kemiah loved to carry the jelly beans around. Somehow, even though she has never had one before in her life, she new they were treats and she wanted them. The flower was made at my family reunion and sent to us, one for each of the girls.

This is a tee shirt that was made at my family reunion for Ben. This was another of the activities they did while they were together. What fun they must have had!

Overexposed picture of Kemiah that I tought I'd play with to make it a bit funky.