Happy Birthday Poppy!!

Today is Poppy's birthday, and she is 3 years old! Or 21 years old in dog years.

To celebrate, we took the dogs for a walk through the woods by our house.



While we were walking, we came upon a nice little meadow, where someone is keeping their bee hives.





I know what the white boxes are (the hives) but what are those silver troughs? Does anyone know?

Connor's 12th Birthday!

We began Connor's Birthday celebrations bright and early on his birthday morning.

No one actually ate that crepe.


Connor got a new bike!



Nana and Grandpa sent Connor a new LEGO set.



After presents, we packed up the car for a trip to Red Top Mountain.

Connor didn't want to have a birthday party this year. He just wanted to hang out with his friends. When we found out that his friends had picked his birthday for a camping trip, he decided that sounded like exactly what he wanted to do for his birthday.

He didn't really want a cake, either, but he did want a giant cookie.


Papa Kirk and Grandma Ella joined us at the park, too.

We spent the afternoon swimming in Lake Allatoona.



The kids floated on that giant foam island hours.
They also had awesome wrestling matches and gladiator games on it.



They piled up all these rocks on a log in the lake.




We had a lovely campfire potluck dinner.
Most of us made pita pocket pizzas on the fire.







And then it was time for s'mores and watermelon.




I'm not sure if this was about chopping the wood or about feats of strength.



Finally, we met up with some park rangers for a very special night hike.



There was a presentation about animal furs and poop, and then they passed out blacklight flashlights to everyone in the group.  We went on a hike in the dark and looked for bioluminescent plants and bugs.



These centepedes were awesome.  We saw a lot of them.  We also saw one neon green scorpion.  It was a lot smaller than I had expected it to be.


And then we all made our way back to the camp for the night.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CONNOR!

Today I Made Some Tiny New Friends

These praying mantises were about 1 cm long.

Super small.

The Red Paper Wasp

Yesterday while I was sitting in the living room, I witnessed a wasp fly down out of the fireplace and towards the giant picture window in the living room.  I was not pleased about sharing the living room with the wasp, and after considering burning down the house in order to kill it with fire, I elected to simply leave the little bastard alone.

And so, this morning, the wasp was still hanging out by the window.  And Lex had figured out how to handle it.

He put on his protective gear, and then made a plan to trap the wasp under a cup on the windowsill.  He asked me to record the wasp-trapping operation, and so now I am pleased to present that video here:

After the wasp was safely trapped under the cup, we recorded some footage of the wasp's behavior, and we did a little research to find out exactly what kind of wasp we had under the cup.

We discovered that we had a red paper wasp, and according to a pain scale we found, it has a pretty bad sting.  It's a level 4 sting, with only a level 5 sting being worse.  For comparison, bullet ants and tarantula wasps are level 5.  Also, it will cause pain that lasts for 5 to 10 minutes.  Lex got stung by one of these by the front door about a month (or two?) ago, and he ran screaming down the street for about 5 minutes before I could settle him down enough not to cause a riot and panic with all the neighbors, so I believe it is a pretty bad sting.

And so, Lex got his revenge on the red paper wasp.

Father's Day

This year for Father's Day, the boys and I decided to take Kevin to a day camp at a hunting outfitter about an hour away from our house.

So, we got up early and drove out into the middle of nowhere.  Absolutely remote.  We already live in the middle of nowhere, and then we left that little bit of civilization and drove for an hour into the wilderness of Texas.  No GPS, no address.  Just go this many miles on this road north of this small town, and you will see a sign.

I was pretty sure we were going to get lost, but we found it!

The kids spent the morning doing a 3D archery range.  While we were doing that, Lex got stung by a bee on the arm.  Then, I got stung on the ear.  Then, we took a break for lunch.

The camp provided hamburgers and hot dogs for lunch, but the line was super long and in the hot sun.  We had brought a cooler with some snacks, so we ended up eating those.

Note to self:  chocolate cookies don't do well in the heat.

We were looking forward to doing the after lunch activities, which included shooting BB guns, 22-caliber pistols, rifles and skeet, along with more archery, tomahawk throwing and I even heard something about bombs.  There was going to be brisket for dinner, and I would have stood in line in the sun for that.

BUT it was hot.  Too hot.  And Connor was starting to show signs of heat stroke, so we had to pack it up and head home.  By the time we left, it was already 101 degrees outside.  It got up to 106 that day, and the National Weather Service asked everyone to just stay inside between the hours of 3 and 7 PM.

So, I'm glad that we left, because it was way too hot to be there.  But we were all sad that we left, because it had promised so many wonderful good things.

Maybe next time...

In any case, HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to Kevin!  We love you!!

Epic Summer of Bugs Camp (At Home) Wrap Up