Great Niece Kyrianna turned 1

While Karen was in Iowa she was able to help Kraig & Danielle and Kyrianna celebrate with family Kyrianna's first birthday. Karen says she loves Elmo (Kyrianna does, not Karen so much), so the cupcakes were perfect for the party. She's holding the candle shaped like a 1. Start doing the music for Elmo's World and she will immediately start dancing (again, Kyrianna more so than Karen).

Mantis

Saw this guy on the wall by our outside light last night. Obviously taking advantage of the bugs attracted to the light. One thing about some good summer rain is that they bring out a bunch of insects.

Here's looking at you, kid!

This one is a couple years old. When we put vines up by the pool this praying mantis decided to make it home sweet home. The boys thought it was ultra-cool

AZ Science Center

Even with background noises these had cool sounds.

Digital beaded rain. How fun. Nearly as much fun to watch as it is to play in.

Erik

Jake (how we often see him)

And after digital distortions, we did digital manipulations:

Erik - I don't know why he was picking on the French.

Erik again

Yours truly

Karen flew back to Iowa to visit her mom & brother & sister in-law and family. Hopefully, she'll bring back pictures to post this time. We men took the afternoon to visit the Arizona Science Center. They had a new exhibit of digital fun. The boys didn't want to leave it.

Carpenter Bee

OK, kids - don't try this at home! Actually, this one was dead and I wanted to show how big a beak it has. That's it pointing toward the bottom of Jonathon's fingernail.

Got Milk?

This is Snowflake, our cat, who patiently waits to see if we leave anything edible on the table.

Sun Spider

Not a true spider nor a scorpion, though it is also called a wind scorpion, but an arachnid (8 legs) called a solpugid. This guy was above the door at the ranger office tonite. I didn't think much of it at first, although even with a flashlight on it it didn't run off. Later I saw it was still there and thought that was odd. It wasn't until I saw the pictures that I realized - and now wish I had stopped again and taken more - that it was molting or shedding its skin. And this guy's already a good sized one!

The very large 'legs' in front are really mouth parts that help catch insects and bring them to the crushing mouth parts. The mouth itself is really interesting. It looks like four claws. I kept one for a while back in my early days as a ranger and they are so fascinating to watch when they eat (I fed it crickets).

If you think this is creepy, don't Google the 'giant egyptian solpugid' or you might have nightmares!

Labor Day

While most families go camping or have a picnic or just spend the day relaxing, Jake decided it was time to get his Christmas tree out of the attic and put it up in his room. He's beaten the retail stores by at least a month (let's hope at least two). If it were up to him it would have been up in July already. We tried to put it off as long as possible, but really, what is it going to hurt having it up now? Hopefully, he will think more about the birth of Christ than the idea of presents throughout the holiday season - which in our house starts now.