The things we've been doing.

1. Edie's birthday presents from Baba Yaga. She claimed the boxes, John claimed the presents. Naturally.

 2. Rainstorm on the weekend. The boys went outside to check it out and immediately stripped, chanting "we love rain! we love rain!". Then we found an amazing funnel-web spider with dongles on its face. So swift!

 3. The next day Oscar found, and Eric caught, an elusive blue-tailed skink! It dropped its tail right away, which kept wriggling for a long time after. Then we let it go to regrow a tail in peace. Amazing colors! It belongs in Biophilia for sure.

4. Edie hates the pool, until she's in it. John is a shark. I am the mommo.

5. Oscar and I got our life jackets! We went kayaking last Wednesday together. Oscar liked it okay for a tiny bit. Then he wanted to paddle. Then he thought we should get a motorboat instead and go fast. And then he thought he should be allowed to dive off the side of the kayak. Oh well - we'll try again soon!

John was furious he didn't have one, then after we took these pictures he wore mine around the house for a while and was content.

This one captures family life so well.

6. Friday night Eric returned from his seemingly successful interview at Michigan State University, and on Saturday he took the boys to the South Carolina Botanical Gardens, on the Clemson campus. The Geology Museum is also housed there, which has glow-in-the-dark rocks! Oscar played in that room for a long time, learning about fluorite.

7. LOTUS.

Edie retrospective

Rather than working hard, I found my hard drive! Enjoy!

Happy birthday yesterday Edie Jean!

We did it! Another child has survived another year! And what a year it was...

I can't find my hard drive with all the pictures on it right now - I know it's here, just not where - so a retrospective will have to wait. But here she is in her wriggly birthday glory!

Bugs!

Also, happy birthday to me! Best birthday yet- lots of snoozing and beach time and chillin with my dudes.

We found this lovely guy on the porch this weekend. The boys were very curious, and I was suspicious and said "no touching!", which turned out to be wise because I think it was a banded tussock moth caterpillar and they are venomous! Oscar made it a nice habitat on the chair, and it spurned all his offerings. Then Oscar grew tired of it and flung it off the porch -using a stick- to return it to its home.

We found this guy in the hellebore forest yesterday, pretending to be a leaf. It was on the wrong kind of plant, though, because it was very pale compared to the hellebore leaves.

Eric got himself glow in the dark tape for his drum room, and while he was at it also got some egg rings for making perfect fried eggs. But they also are good hats for communicating with cats from Mars, John and Edie report.