It's that time of year again!

Oooh! Oooh! Can you guess where we went? I was surprised to receive an email from the raspberry farm today, saying that raspberries were available for picking. When I casually mentioned this to Marika, she wanted us to drop all plans and go berry picking. She actually turned down shopping for a new bikini and painting all morning for a trip to the raspberry farm! *gasp* No, it's no surprise - the girls have been asking for months when we could go. So, off we went!

Despite the website saying that only 8 minutes were needed to fill up a basket, it probably took me at least 20 minutes. I was faster than the girls, but I'm not totally sure why - but I have a hunch why... at least one girl, whenever I turned to check on her, was putting a raspberry IN her mouth - not into the basket. Tsk, tsk!

It was a lovely day (80's still in the morning) and tons of bees were out. I was delighted to be able to photograph some insects...

I'm sure we'll be going back next week for more raspberries!

It's been awhile, but we've been busy over the past week...

Despite the heat, baseball goes on! Daddy Dude's team got some new uniforms, just in time for the 100+ degrees... we fans took shelter under some shade. And look! There's Grandma! Isn't she a good mother-in-law, coming to Daddy Dude's games? This was the second game she's gone to...

And speaking of Grandma, the girls were so excited she was back in town. Grandma had spent the last several weeks up north, helping my brother out with his family (those adorable girls!). The girls kept Grandma busy and they even got a session of yoga in!

On Saturday, Daddy Dude got a personal lesson on how to change brakes on our car, from our friend B., who is "Mechanic Extraordinaire". I know Daddy Dude had a great time being a "manly man" and playing with very cool power tools and gadgets. Thanks, B.! While the guys were working, I hung out with H. - and she introduced the girls to the wonders of sand art. The girls were so excited by their creations, that they kept carrying them around the house and continually showing Daisy (the guinea pig) their work.

My sister-in-law once told me never to dress my children in matching clothes. I listened to her (since she had suffered as a child from that) and would you believe it, she has been the only person giving us matching clothes for the girls! She confessed that she just couldn't help it, which made me laugh. Oddly enough, the girls LOVE to match and often do so, of their own volition. Over the past week, here are some examples of their desire to match... they better not blame me when they get older! I swear, I didn't make them do it!

Mika misses her friends from school so yesterday, we met up with her good buddy, M. He is such a delightful little boy - with such a good heart! He once bought Marika a present with his own tooth fairy money, because he really wanted her to have it - is that unbelievably sweet, or what? Despite being at the park, with its wonderful climbing things, the kids seemed to spend most of their time making a bird nest. Gee... I wonder who would roost there...

Holy cow, it's H-O-T!!!

Typically, our mornings begin with Marika waking up in time to send Daddy Dude off to work. It's a morning ritual which is sweet in some ways, but annoying in some others - she makes a great effort to wake up for him (she cries if she misses him), but then bemoans the fact she is soooo tired still. *sigh* Here she is, in standard waiting position, for Daddy Dude to drive away - she then starts hollering, "BYE DADDY! HAVE FUN AT WORK! LOVE YOU DADDY!" You can hear her all the way down the street!

We learned on Thursday that our Pooh pool was "toast" (that $5 pool did last for 3 years!) but the girls made do with some buckets filled with water. I trust that my vegetable garden was well-watered that day! They enjoyed a leisurely picnic lunch outside and were very happy clams, indeed...

Today was arts & crafts day at the library. The lady in charge is very sweet and always very well-prepared. Each time they get at least 4 projects to work on, which usually takes about an hour. For that hour, the girls are pretty focused.

After running (what felt like tons of) errands for several hours, we stopped by Toys R Us for a new pool. Mika also got a new bikini (the girls call it a "zu-kini") which, interestingly enough, perfectly matched the pool. Doesn't she look really grown up? Almost like a tween! *gulp* She already has a tendency to favor bikinis... Daddy Dude is going to have an early heart attack when the girls become teenagers, don't you think???

Hopefully the pool will not blow away when the Santa Ana winds sweep through in the fall...

Now this is more like it!

Fridays are definitely the most leisurely day of the week for us. So, yesterday, we went to the park with our friends. For the most part, they play together really nicely (I suppose any playgroup is guaranteed its share of squabbles). It still makes my heart melt to see them playing "Ring Around the Posey". And it's nice that they accept that I'm an annoying photographer and they have to provide a few obligatory poses from time to time... :)

I'd been waiting a really long time for that tree shot, though!

And since Daddy Dude was working this weekend, I took the girls to the local park today. I thought we'd be there for no more than 1.5-2 hours, but the girls refused to leave because they were having so much fun - never mind that it was hot and they were sweating like crazy. I think we were there for about 3 hours! It WAS nice and leisurely... and for those three hours, I was cutting out Curious George paper doll outfits. Yup, that's right - paper doll stuff. Remember those from when we were little? I was so excited to get a book of them at Barnes & Noble. Imagine my surprise when I saw that I had to CUT each piece out. Didn't they use to come with perforations and you just punched them out? *sigh* So now I feel quite old - my back is killing me and I somehow tweaked my knee while sitting on a blanket. *sigh*

Is it really summer vacation???

I feel just as busy as I did during the school year! What's going on?!

As most of you know, I'm in the process of auctioning off the remainder of my Ebay store inventory. My goal was to finish by the end of the summer (which I still think is plausible), but in all honesty, I hadn't been prepared for how much STUFF I still had. I have about 90 auctions listed for next week (you can't see the Wednesday box behind all this!).

This economy really is a downer... but I know I should still consider myself lucky to have any buyers. My end goal is to earn enough money for one of our September California estimated tax payments... (we are doing our part to help California by sending them money every quarter!). But in all honesty - I will be SO GLAD when I can shut everything down. Not only will I have more time (which will be filled up with other activities, I know that!) but we can throw away ALL of the cardboard hoarded in our study and RECLAIM an upstairs closet. Whew!

So in a nutshell, we've been busy! Here are some scenes from an excellent Fourth of July gathering... with delicious food and wonderful company... (thanks!) =)

After storytime at the library this morning, the girls opted for a quick picnic lunch before we headed off to the dentist - again. Marika was told she had EIGHT (yes, eight!) cavities so we've been going once a week for the past FOUR weeks to the dentist (two treated at a time). She's been such an incredible trooper - she willingly skipped the laughing gas and brought Geoffrey the Polar Bear instead (we forgot Geoffrey last week and that was NOT a good appointment). Geoffrey made his final appearance at the dentist today and did a great job keeping the patient calm. He only got bounced on the floor once, but his companion Berk was not so lucky - and had his paw dipped into my cup of coffee! Good thing he was already brown but... ick!

And for those of you who still don't believe that my side of the family has a gene allowing for sleep anywhere in almost any position... apparently she got tired playing Clifford computer games and decided to take a rest... and yes, she is totally asleep!

And finally, here are my little (noisy) troublemakers. We have been trying to enforce the "one toy at a time" rule and this is what my little rugrats have been up to while I was working to update the blog!!! I sure hope they've cleaned it up by now... ;)

And just how tiny is tiny?

So our friend Holly called and reported that her mom ("Grammy") had some daisies in her yard. Grammy didn't answer the door, but I assumed it was safe to take one snippet from her daisies (if not, I'll return it right away, Grammy!).

It was a good time to take some photos to demonstrate how very tiny these first instars are. When the original caterpillars arrived in the mail, they were about 1 cm long. I'd estimate these caterpillars to be 2-3 cm long. If they do manage to eat these daisy leaves, it will certainly be interesting to see how quickly they grow! The blue balls you see are the butterfly eggs (yes, they are tiny!) and the brown balls... well... that's frass. What's frass, you ask? A fancy word for "insect poop". Heh heh heh... no, I didn't make that up...

No worries... I put the daisy snippet into one of those flower tubes, so I won't have to open the insect jar for a few days...

Gosh, I think I still miss doing entomology research! *gasp* But darn it - I sure wish I had known how to use a macro lens when I worked with head lice... the pictures I could have taken! *sigh*...

Release Day!

At long last, on Monday morning, it was time to let our insect friends go back to nature!

The butterflies fluttered away pretty quickly, except for one soul who apparently FINALLY noticed the sugar wick and settled in for a deep drink. Upon cleaning out the cage, I found a multitude of tiny blue eggs... which hatched a day later. I'm trying to find food for the miniscule caterpillars to eat, but we don't have any thistles or daisy plants around...

The ladybugs ran away even faster, except for two love bugs. I didn't even want to get into the whole thing of insect "mating", so I just sat quietly while the girls talked about how nice it was for one ladybug to be giving another one a ride. Mika surprised me with her sharp observational skills (usually she is not so interested in insects) and announced, "look, Marika - there's a yellow egg!" Yup, we have one lone ladybug egg to watch...

And we also had a grasshopper to release as well. He joined our little family on Saturday night, during S.'s work function dinner party. This grasshopper really liked something about Marika - he kept jumping onto her head and crawling around (2-3 times) before hopping away. Really, he was in no hurry to leave us.

We also babysat our friend's guinea pig, Flower, on Sunday for a few short hours. I thought it would be a good time for Daisy to have a playdate and maybe, start to vocalize a little more. After all, supposedly females are supposed to get along. Well... I'm sorry to report that that wasn't the case. They chuttered, they snapped... they were separated. Daisy was not a good hostess, I'm afraid...