New Puppy!

I am loooong overdue for a post! It has been a busy couple weeks. Last weekend Ray-dad (aka, Ray's father and my father in law) came into town. And we took like no good pictures. I have nothing to post. But we had lots of fun. Saturday we went out to the Montgomery County fair and played games, the girlies rode ponies, they won prizes. We ate too much funnel cake and fried oreos. Fun was had by all. Then Sunday we went geocaching and, though we only found 1 of 3 caches, we all had a blast. Especially Trevor, who thought geocaching was like a treasure hunt! It was wonderful to have grandpa visit us and the kids were really upset when it came time for him to go. Hopefully he'll have business in the area again soon!

Then, this past weekend we added a new addition to our family. We've been thinking about getting a dog for about a month now. The kids are more independent, they've been asking for a dog. Ray and I miss having a dog. So we checked out a few area shelters over the next few days. We had already decided on a puppy. I didn't mind if he was older than 8 weeks, but I wanted him/her to be younger than 6 months. I figured this would lessen any baggage a shelter dog might have (that is another story). But puppies go very quickly at our area shelters. In fact, neither are shelter had puppies. Frederick county did so we drove all the way out there, only to have them both adopted by the time we got there (1.5 hours later. Argh!). So we filled out an application with our local rescue group and, on a whim and with no definite plans to adopt that day, we went to their adoption fair the the Petco. We got there WAAAAY early, they were just arriving to set up. After looking at all the dogs, we really liked this little beagle mix girl who was 5 months old. We went to put an application in on her and when we got into the Petco, there was this pen set up with this ADORABLE hound puppy! He was four months old, big paws, floppy ears. He was sooo cute. We all loved him.

Well, getting a dog from a rescue is like adopting a child or something. We were there from 11ish when they were setting up.. all the way until 4pm that day. At the Petco. In a strip mall. The kids were WONDERFUL. Got a little tired near the end there, but hung out and drew on all the Petco applications (sorry Petco!) and pet all the dogs. We had to go through an interview with a volunteer. Yes, an interview. Then, if we pass that interview, we get a second interview with a board member. It felt like a job interview. heh. We passed both interviews! Then, they did something they apparently never do. They said if they could contact our vet today then we could take him home today, prior to the home visit (yes. Home visit) as a foster to adopt. Since they did reach our vet and I guess that was good. So we loaded up our puppy with lots of puppy things and took him home!!!! Sorry, minimal kid pics!


His name is Willie, not our name, he came with it and it stuck.


On a trip to Lake Fairfax yesterday.


Ray holding him on leash. He's not huge. I think he will be a houndy size when full grown. Not huge, not small. He's big a goofy and always trips over his feet right now.


This is not our dog. This is Brett's English Mastiff puppy who went to the park with us. Yes. Puppy. She makes Willie look like a chihuahua. She will like double her weight. She was terrified of Willie at first. I think Roxy is also adorable.


Am I cute or WHAT?


Willie LOVES the kids. He bounds after them all day, trying to see what they are up to. He also loves Rachael's shoes. And he loves their stuffed toys. And their lego pieces. Oh, and their bed covers. He's a teething beast. But he really adores the kids and they adore him. They have been so wonderful, making sure they get stuff out of his way, not getting mad at him when he grabs their toys. They play in the backyard so Willie can come out and splash in the wading pool with them. I wanted a dog that would kind of be one of the gang and he really is (I sure hope there are no hitches in the foster to adopt thing!)

On a good note. He was obviously crated before we had him. He has been crated both nights now. The first night he gave one houndy cute bay and that was it for the night. Last night he wanted out at midnight and I let him out to pee and put him in his crate. He whined a couple minutes then no more noise for the rest of the night. He has only had two accidents in the house and no poop in the house. He paces when he has to go out and we let him out. If we don't catch him pacing, well, he'll pee in the house. He's only 4 months old. But I was very surprised at how little pee I have been cleaning up (knock on wood). He's really been great so far. Very sweet and good natured. He rides well in the car with us. Our routine has been walking him in the morning then he takes a midmorning nap, then he goes somewhere with us in the afternoon, we're always going to a park or hiking or something. Then in the evening he gets one more walk. He was so pooped today that he almost didn't walk the rest of the way back from his walk. He's currently sleeping on my feet as I type. He's a wonderful little monster puppy!

Pirates and Treasure

It's been a pretty relaxed week. Sorry I have no pictures to post. We have backpacks and school supplies and I registered Trevor and Rachael for school. I am kind of excited! We went to Lake Fairfax last night and cooked out for dinner and et the kids run around everywhere. Then we met Ryan at his campsite and the kids all ran around with eachother. Except Ariel, who for some reason, has decided Ryan is super scary and won't wander away when he is around. But the reason I posted and what I thought was cute was Trevor's obsession with finding treasure.

We were all eating our hot dogs and chips and strawberries at the picnic table when Trevor suddenly stops eating and exclaims "I know! I will need to go to the library tomorrow. Then I will check a book out with treasure maps in it and, well, I'll need a shovel and I will dig up some treasure!"

I pointed out "Well, Trev, don't you think if treasure maps were just at the library, someone would have just checked it out and found all the treasure by now? I think treasure maps are rare and hard to find."

Trevor thought about it for a moment and said "OK. Well, then I will get a book about people who have FOUND treasure and then I will go to where they found their treasure and get their map.... no, wait. They will have already FOUND the treasure. Hmmmm."

So he thought about it like all evening. This was something he was very intensely focused on, this tough issue of finding a treasure map. So I took the girlies over to the stream to catch water skippers and watch a spider weave his web and Trevor finally comes running over...

"Mommy! OK. I've got it. Even if the treasure is in Europe, well, I'm just going there for it."
ME: "Um, ok. Are you going to save your allowance to fly there?"
Trevor: "NO! That's like 10,000 dollars!"
Me: "OK. How about daddy and I find the treasure for you when we got to Europe?"
Trevor: "Oh, it's in a cave with lots of spiders. You won't want to go in there."
Me: "OK. Well, I'll send daddy, then and I'll stand guard outside."
Trevor "OK, that would work. And then daddy could go down into the dark stairs and to a door...." suddenly Trevor just groans and rolls his eyes... "But what happens if the door is LOCKED and there is NO KEY? I hadn't thought of that."
Me (thinking this whole scenario is hypothetical) "Well, we could just learn how to pick locks. Maybe there is some lock picking kit we could buy."
Trevor: "Oh! Good! OK. So then daddy can get in the room with the treasure map." (Yes, map. No treasure is here! This is just the map!)
Trevor: "I wonder if there will be a knife or sword in the room."
Me: "Oh, it should be a sword! Maybe a ninja sword, like some big samurai sword. That would be so cool."
Trevor, exasperated: "Noooo, mom. This is a PIRATE. There are no samurai swords. This is dead pirate bones holding out a map."
Me, finally laughing because I realize he is deadly serious about all this, "Ohhhh, uh huh."
Trevor, getting irked, "Don't laugh at me, mommy! I will find a treasure map!"

It was just really funny. Trevor is just darn sure that he will not only find a treasure map, he seems to know just HOW he will come across it.

Hiking to Bear's Den

Yesterday we took a couple hours to hike up to Bear's Den, off the Appalachian trail. This was the first time doing an actual hike with the kids, although, if you notice Trevor's Crocs (Crocs have to be the world's most hideously UGLY shoe) and Ariel's sandals, we didn't realize how much of a hike it would be. It was a ton of fun, though! And the kids did awesome- lots of uphill clambering over rocks.


We put the timer on for this picture. I think Ray got shy and hid behind Trevor. heh. We're in the parking lot before heading up.


TONS of blackberries along the parking lot. We picked lots.


A beetle we saw. We kept having to tell Rachael NOT to pick up the bugs. She picked up some sort of cricket/grasshopper bug at one point and it bit/stung her. She exclaimed "It BIT me!" and not 5 minutes later tried to pick up another one she saw. Yes, this is the child who, at 18 months was so scared of bugs we spent the summer inside because everytime we went outside she FREAKED at the gnats and flies and ants.


Butterfly that landed on my shoe at one point.


The moss was absolutely thrilling.


Finally at the top. Ray is helping Rachael leap across the rock. I am taking the picture and trying not to be a nervous wreck. The drop off the rocks is almost 90 degrees and straight down the mountain (trees might have stopped them about 30 feet down).


Daddy, Trevor and Rachael. Ariel is back with me having a fit because SHE wants the opportunity to scare me over on the rock with daddy.


Ray helping Miss Ariel, who always gets her way, across. It kind of looks like he is flinging her to her death. I am probably holding my breath as I take this picture.


A rare moment of not being silly. Trevor meditating upon the wonderful view.


Rachael climbing a tree.


Kids on the rocks.... no salt.


Trevor walking through a set of rocks. There were daddy long legs EVERYWHERE. Trevor was a little nervous one would crawl on him. I was glad I wore tennis shoes and when I wasn't freaking out the kids would fall down the mountain, I was keeping an eye out for montserous daddy long legs. OMG, I am just a wreck. But, thankfully, as my anxiety can't actually keep up for that long, by the time we got up to Bear's Den, I was much calmer. On the way down, I could actually walk without being twitchy! Go me. Maybe that's how to overcome arachniphobia.

All in all, it was a great hike. We're definitely going to look for more hikes like this one. The kids got tired about halfway down. Ariel needed to be carried and Rachael just cried and walked. But otherwise everyone had a blast!

It was one of the not-too-hot summer days, with cloudy skies and a little drizzle. So we decided to go for a walk. The trails around our house are wonderful. So here's just a bit of a photo/video dump.


Trevor letting Rachael know she just walked through a cobweb.


Ariel showing off something or other she found. And looking like she has been cursed with cuteness. heh


Ariel found a piece of chalk on the trail and drew things everywhere with it.


Mushroom, Mushroom! But no snakes...


Scary poison ivy!!! It is everywhere on the trails. They chop it all down in the spring, but it's back by summer.


I am pretty sure this is Virginia Creeper. We are not nervous of this.


I am pretty sure that THIS is poison Ivy. The kids, for all their tromping through the woods, have never gotten poison ivy. Spider phobic me does not tramp through the woods, so I ahve never gotten is, either.


This was when Rachael's mood started deteriorating. She was mad we wouldn't take the short cut through the woods back to the house. Then she didn't want to carry her bag anymore and so tried to wear it on her head. But it wouldn't stay on her head while she walked. Rachael's life is full of tragedy.


Trevor gathered up all these sticks to make a house with and then was having trouble carrying them all home. He found a piece of rope laying around the trail and we tied up his sticks in a bundle. He was quite satisfied.


We were apparently not giving Rachael enough sympathy so she tried to take a shortcut home that was not close to us. But then she realized she would be walking through someone's yard and she couldn't get back up the hill. Her sis helped her up.


They were checking out a hole they saw a mouse run into. But now I think Ariel is checking out the taste of her yummy blue (hm) leaf and Rachael is checking to see if any snacks are left in her nose.


Ariel just being cute. We tend to call all sticks with legs on one side "stickbugs". We didn't find any actual, real stickbugs. That would be soo cool, though!


"I am sopped!" If Rachael is not drenched, she is getting sopped. It was spitting out- not raining, really. We didn't get rained on in the woods, but did a bit outside the woods. This was when we were about to head in.

Birthday!!!

Rachael, my teeny little middle child, is FIVE YEARS OLD! I can't believe she is 5. It seems like yesterday we were bringing her home from the hospital, only to be rushing her back because of heart problems which she, thankfully, grew out of. We celebrated her 5th birthday with an impromptu trip to NC to visit the grandparents and celebrate with them. Rachael was ecstatic to go visit, as all the kids are constantly asking when we are going to go see grandma and grandpa (on both sides).

We went to the Wet n Wild waterpark for Rachael's actual birthday on Saturday and had a blast. Rachael, who loves the ocean, is slightly afraid of water parks and is a little slow to warm up in general. So, as long as we were patient and gave her some time, she was fine and by the end of the day she was having a blast in the kiddie area going down the little slides and playing "neigh" with her sister. Trevor, who deems himself too big for the kiddie area, hung mostly with the men and went down the bigger slides and into the deeper water. Since I didn't have the water proof camera with me, I didn't take many pictures of the actual park. The pictures we have are us in the cabana we rented. Yes. We rented a cabana.


The private cabana was worth it. We had a covered area with table and chairs and 4 lounge chairs all to ourselves. Rachael and Ariel are taking a break with their favorite food.. sugar. The cabana was especially useful when it rained in the middle of the day and we had our nice little place to retreat to. Rachael, who was being miss princess, kept saying "I am getting DRENCHED!" And we would say, "uh-huh, the rain will stop soon." Finally, Rachael, just peeved we weren't leaving stated "I am getting DRENCHED! I will stay here one more minute and then I am taking the keys and driving MYSELF home!" It was hilarious and we laughed at her.


Trevor, who can't have a photo taken of him without posing, eating cotton candy.


Ariel helping us set the birthday table back at home for the princess Rachael.


Our poor exhausted princess resting on the couch with her poison dart frog from the previous day's science museum trip.


Trevor, Rachael, daddy and Ariel. Rachael seemed to barely stay awake for dinner and was not really hungry. What she REALLY wanted to do was open presents!


So we did! She got Hungry Hungry Hippos from her big bro, who picked it out all by himself.


And from mommy and daddy she got an Our Generation doll she had been eyeing at the store. She was thrilled and named her doll, Rachael. heehee


But... what is in this box that makes Rachael smile so much? I love Rachael's smile in that picture.


A NEIGH! OK, A horse. She got the horse for her doll to ride. She was thrilled and played with the horse and doll for the rest of the evening.

I don't have a pic of her CD player. But grandma and grandpa gave her a CD player with Hello Kitty on it and the CDs of High School Musical 2 and Kid's Bop 80s. Rachael listened to both CDs all the way home from NC and has been quite possessive of the CD player, not allowing any one else to use it. I think it was a hit, too. heh. Her other grandpa and grandma gave her this really cute stuffed horse that you can color. So she, Ariel and Trevor decorated the whole horse. She loved that, too. Thank you grandmas and grandpas! xoxo


Rachael asked for an M&M ice cream cake. Ack! He's been attacked by crayon candles!


Blowing the candles out. Happy Birthday, Rachael!


The cake was really good, with M&M pieces in it and chocolate cakey stuff and vanilla ice cream. Yum!


Playing hungry hungry hippos.


Thanks grandma for a wonderful birthday!


Can't forget grandpa! xoxoxoxoxo

Just a busy summer

I have been meaning to update this. We've been doing a lot this summer and lots has happened. Trevor turned 7!!! His bday was June 28th and we took a day trip to Ocean City to celebrate. We spent the day on the beach, splashing in the water and catching sand fleas. We rode go Karts, tried to eat birthday cake that dry ice had frozen into a rock. Had lots of laughs over that (even Trevor thought it was funny!).

We've gone swimming in the local area pools, and basically hung out. It's been a very relaxing summer for the kids and a busy one for me. I didn't quite prepare myself for the amount of writing my english 2 class would have so I have basically spent my summer trying to keep up with two classes which require a deal of writing and one class which, while not being writing intensive, seems interpersonal communication intensive. Argh.

ANYWAY.. this is not a blog about me. This is about the kids. Rachael celebrates her 5th birthday this weekend. I can't believe she is basically 5 already! Time sure has flown. We're making an impromptu trip which I am sure will prove to be very fun and Rachael will be so excited when she finds out.

Trevor has maintained his obsession with all things lego. He checks the mail everyday for his lego magazine, he spends countless hours building lego creations. Lately, he has become obsessed with Mindstorm. He got about 5 books about robots out of the library this afternoon and spent some time looking up lego mindstorm creation videos on Youtube with us. Then he designed his lego mindstorm to build with daddy when he saves up his money and can buy one. We have agreed to put forth 75% of the purchase price if he can save 25%. We're betting on a 200+ dollar price tag. I'm thinking it will end up coming around christmas time as a gift.

But here is a picture of his robot design. What I thought was cute was his spelling of 'remote control". He hears it as "Mokin trol". We talked about what remote control means, etc. I still call windshield wipers "wincher wipers" because that's how I heard it as a kid. heh.


"mejr mint" is measurement. :) His robot is apparently a bug, which can walk and hop and has an arm to pick up things and a camera that moves and takes pictures of things. He is not sure what the fan does, but wanted one on his drawing.



Lastly, we have a Roomba. We LOVE Roomba. The cats are totally, just completely disinterested in Roomba. I finally got video of just how disinterested Chaos is in Roomba. He can't even trouble himself with getting up. heh.

Big changes and new paths

I have a lot to update and I just don't have a time my rambling, wordy self needs to update this blog!

But one thing I did want to post was a decision we have recently made.. and that is to give our local school system another try. I loved our year of homeschooling.. we all had a lot of fun, we learned tons, both academic and about eachother.

I have recently decided I want to try going back to school full time. I also have a rising K child, who is dying to learn to read. I was worried about finding time to study, teaching three children, and all the driving around and finding classes for everyone's respective hobbies (dance, karate, language learning, etc etc).

The worst part about the decision was MAKING it. Weighing the pros and cons, turning over possibilities and plans in my head. I'm the kind of person who needs a backup plan, and a plan c, and a plan D. So, yea, I have all those. heh. And I am looking forward to the coming year with optimism. I have talked to my children, because they are players in this decision as well. They are willing to give it a try.. Trevor- because he has age and perspective now that he is older, and Rachael- well, she will be in the same building with her big brother and she will be learning to read, which thrills her (and makes her a little nervous). My little miss Ariel will probably go to preschool (as she has asked me about a couple times now) after the school year starts and I can research my options better.

I'm excited to see them learning and growing and being involved in their education, though in a different way. I'm looking forward to little school plays, joining them for their (noisy) lunches and celebrations. I always did like those math nights, plays and things the school hosts and we'll get to participate in those, and meet new friends. I think it will be a good year. I hope it will be.

I for this blog, well, learning happens all the time, whether it's formal 'sit at a desk and open a book' type learning, or building a lego car out of legos or cooking (Trevor's latest hobby). So I will still have plenty to update this blog with. Trevor commented that the thing he loved about homeschooling was that he could learn whatever he wanted. I pointed out that, just because he went to school, didn't mean he wasn't allowed to learn about space, and it didn't mean we couldn't take out the chemistry book and do experiments or read up on the ancient egyptians. So we'll be fine. :)

Trevor's first short story.

I had to write a short story for english 112. I wrote it while the girls were napping and then read it to Trevor. It inspired him to write his own short story. It was actually pretty good! It's a page long, it took him the entire afternoon to write and I'll retype it here. I did not edit his spelling (I might translate a word in brackets if I need to) but I did have to put in punctuation (ETA- NEVERMIND! He totally went back and punctuated it afterwards. I never said anything to him). Trevor knows how to punctuate, but only when I remind him to. heh. So here's his story in all caps, as it was printed...

ONE DAY NAYNAY WAS ETIG HIS HAY THEN A NUTHR NAY KAM UP. DOW YOU WONT TO PLAY! SED THE NAY. THE NAY WAS PLAYFL. HE PLAYD BOLL AND GAMS IT IS FUN. THE NAYNAY GOT UP HE WAS REDE TO PLAY. HE KUDINT WAYT TO PLAY. HE GOT A BOLL IT WAS A JIT (giant) RED BOLL. HE WAS A BLAK NAYNAY. HE GOT SUM SUN GLSZ. HE WAS GOWING TO THE BECH. IT IS FUN TO GO TO THE BECH. NAYNAY METID (met/meeted) THE NAY THER. THEY LAD A BLAGIT (blanket) DAWN IT WAS A SUNY DAY. IT WAS THE WEGID (weekend) AND HE WAS LAYIG ON THE BLAGIT. IT WAS SOFT AS SILK. HE WAS TOO SLEBE. HE GOT UP HE PLAYD IN THE WOTR. THEN HE WAS RETE TO GO HOM. WEN HE GOT HOM HIS CAT WAS AT HIS DORR WAY. HE WAS SOW TIRD HE FOR GOT TOO FED HIS CAT! THEN HE FEL TO SLEP THEN HIS CAT RAWD (ROWLED) OL NIT LONG. THE END. RITN BY: TREVOR RAY

Is that not so cute!?

Trevor, he finally got a haircut!!

And a bit of an update. As you have been able to tell from the pictures previously, Trevor had a bit of a shaggy do goin' on. The boy just didn't want his hair cut. He preferred it "out of his eyes, please. But that's it!" So we did that for a little while. But after a while, I was getting kind of sick of his shagginess. Now, I don't mind him growing his hair long if he wanted, but I kind of would like him to have a style or something- short or long, whatever.. just DO something with it. So Ray and I showed him all these hairstyles and he liked a couple of them. Today Ray took him to get his hair cut!!! Yay! My little man came home a new man!

Before:

This is at the Robots exhibit at Port Discovery in Baltimore. That would be another post. I'm way behind.

AFTER!!!!

Forgive the washed out pic, I took it with our old camera because our new one and the Rebel were out of commission at the moment. But doesn't he look handsome?!


I really like his cut. It makes him look older.

And speaking of older, Trevor really has been growing up lately. OK, everything is still butts and farts (and, I think it is for other ADULTS I know, too. heh) but other things he has been doing are just different than he used to. He's walking to his friend's houses to knock on the doors (he does have to play by our house, though). Then today at the library he wanted to browse in a different section than the girls and I were in. Off he went to his section to browse. I'm just not used to him being independent like that. This is the child who cried practically his entire Kindergarten year every time I dropped him off for school.. not just crying, but absolute wails of protest that made me feel just awful. This is the kid who wouldn't go into any kind of child care or babysitting situation without being completely apprehensive about the whole thing. It's amazing what a little aging can do!

He's also been growing up in other ways. School wise, we are about done his Developmental Math book 4- adding and subtracting whole two digit numbers (like 10+50) with no carrying. Then I think we will take a break and let some of it rest for a while. He and I have been struggling with math lately and I think he is just sick of doing it. It's not the concept that is difficult, it's the word problems that end up being tricky for him. Since almost the entire book is word problems, he struggle daily. So we'll find other ways of doing math for now before picking up Book 5. He's whipping through the books, anyhow. I feel like we just started book 4. We're moving along with phonics but it's a tough call there. He is reading well, so much of the phonics curriculum is stuff he knows. And many words he knows, but he has learned it through a whole language approach, I think, rather than phonics. We've mainly been taking assessments in phonics with a lesson here and there. Caterpillars and various other things have been science, but we have been doing nothing in the way of formal lessons. We've done history here and there, too, through SOTW.

The reason Trevor went to another section of the library today was to pick up his first chapter book! Trevor has been DYING to read these Star Wars series of books. I figured it would give him a good incentive to read, so I refused to (suffer myself to) read them aloud to him and assured him that if he practiced reading, he would be able to check them out soon. He figured he was a good enough reader to get one today! Now.. wow.. all those crazy Star Wars names.. he is not whipping through the book by any means. But he is sticking with this and READING A CHAPTER BOOK! Go my little man!

Also, on another unrelated "Go little man" note.. he had been saving his money for MONTHS to buy a lego set. Specifically, he wanted an Indiana Jones one that was 30 dollars. He got his allowance saved and we went to get it from Target- he gets 3 dollars a week so it has taken him a few months to get enough money. I will say Trevor rocks at saving money when he is saving up for something he wants. But they were sold out. He opted to buy a Mars Mission set (this one) and then spent the next 4 hours putting it together. He stopped long enough to eat dinner and then went back to work on it. He has some amazing perseverance when he is interested. I wish I could get that from him on his math! He was so proud of himself when he was done and I was proud of him, too. He only needed help a couple times on a couple pieces, otherwise, he did the whole thing on his own.

Just an update on Trevor stuff!

The myths!

The myths are out! Our caddies have slowly been coming out of their cocoons! Well, not exactly SLOWLY.. It started Thursday evening, I saw Shadow, our black cat, looking into the caterpillar keeper with great interest. I watched him for a moment, wondering what he could be looking at, since the keeper had nothing but sticks, dried leaves and many cocoons. I went and took a peek and, lo and behold, we had moths! OK. One moth. He was all dry and ready to fly and just chilling on the roof of his home. I left him for the night so the kids could see him in the morning. We let him go the next morning. That day, two more came out of their cocoons. But we kept missing the show! I'd find them all dry and ready to go. Determined to catch one in the act of coming out of his cocoon, I started checking their keeper every 10 minutes. I was like a crazed moth woman or something. But we were rewarded today! One we watched one as he came out of his cocoon and one right after he emerged, as he climbed his way up to dry.

I took some pictures:


Rachael displaying the moths that we found who had recently come out.


After neurotically watching the keeper for a couple hours, I was finally rewarded with a moth emerging! We found out it takes about 15 minutes for them to come out of the cocoon. They wiggle a bit, then rest, then repeat. As soon as this guy was free, he scrambled up the stick to dry.


Daniel (Trevor's friend) took this picture. I told the kids a moth was emerging, an everyone came in to check it out. It took the moth about 30 minutes to dry off. They vibrate their wings intermittently as they dry, and then again before they are ready to fly away.


Trevor took this picture of one as it was drying. When his wings are completely dry, they fold down and not up like that.

So our caterpillars are all grown up! And, regardless of the fact that they are pests that devour trees, they are darn cute and caddies and moths!