Butterfly Garden.

Last week the kids and I made our annual trip to a local butterfly garden, which is hosted by an area middle school, complete with middle-school -aged volunteer guides who take you around and have memorized their script so well that they recite it about 10 times too fast for you to really be able to hear any of it. But they are adorable, and earnest, and the garden is fairly small, and it's a perfect kid-friendly activity. Unfortunately, I always seem to pick a day with 400% humidity to go, so we are all dripping with sweat and more than a little plant-and-butterfly-ed out by the time we leave.

It really is lovely.
The garden is filled with Monarch and Swallowtail and Painted Lady butterflies and it's super easy to have the kids put their hands out and catch one, feeling it's gentle legs tickle their fingers.

This picture is one of my favorites I've taken this summer: a shot of Michaela handing a butterfly over to Jenna. I love the way their hands are curled together and how gentle and quiet they had to be to make this a successful transfer... it reminds me that despite the bickering and pouting and she said/she said of the last six weeks of near constant summertime togetherness, the girls can be quiet and still and work together for the greater good. I also feel like I know those hands as well as I know my own and love looking at them.

You'll notice that Alec is conspicuously absent from these lovely pictures... he was occupying himself by pushing his own stroller, bumping into kids, adults, plants, butterflies, netted fencing and generally making a complete nuisance of himself. By the time we left, he was screaming and I was carrying him sideways, commando-style.

Need I mention that he will be two next month?

No, I didn't think so.

We all know how that goes.