The butterfly project

Several weeks ago we got a shipment of live caterpillars. 

Caterpillars in the small container
with the white lid

We spent a week or so watching them grow until one day they started forming into chrysalis

Then we were able to watch them hatch out as butterflies. It was really awesome and Jack and Lily both loved watching their butterflies. Jack would help me feed them everyday

Squeezing some sugar water into bananas

Jack named our butterflies Big Daddy, Tiny, Tic Tac and Shelly

Our butterflies

Until finally it was time to release our butterflies. We decided to release them into the Butterfly Pavilion outside of Denver.

Our last morning with the butterflies

At the Butterfly Pavilion

One of the zookeepers came to help us release the butterflies.

One of the butterflies wasn't ready to say goodbye and he flew on Jack's shirt

Finally we detached him from Jack's shirt and set him by some food. Jack didn't want to say goodbye.

After finally saying goodbye to our butterflies, we spent several hours visiting with the other butterflies






There was also an indoor area where the kids could play

Jack in the spider web

Jack holding a tarantula

Lily cute as ever

It was a really fun project to watch the caterpillars turn into butterflies. Lily still looks for the butterflies every morning. We will have to do it again when she is older.

Day to day

We are settling in to a new "normal" here at our apartment. Jack has started preschool two afternoons a week and Lily and I are getting some one on one time. She is such a fun little girl. She is very happy and friendly, but yet feisty as heck! 

Jack is enjoying his baby sister much more now that she can interact with him. They play together and he loves to make her laugh.

 They also love hiding under the table:

Reading books together:

Snuggling together:

Playing outside together:

And sticking up for each other:

Jack is becoming quite the little scientist. He is always asking to do experiments and he loves making hypotheses. 

Playing with color tablets

Watching how celery drink water

Making color changing volcanos

We have made some new friends at our apartment complex and Jack has had a blast scootering around town with his new friends. 

Ice cream with our friends

Lily and Josh

At the pet store

At Bounce!

Crazy kids!

We also had a visit from our friends in the Springs. Jack's buddy Lucca and his dad came to stay with us for one night and we visited a music festival in Ft. Collins

Jack and Lucca

We met up with my parents and aunt and uncle for dinner

The boys were excited to have a camp out in the living room

We also visited a local kid museum and Jack had a blast playing a pirate!

 This awesome ball game kept them both entertained for a long time

 Crazy hair

 The mad scientist

House Update #3

We drove back down to Colorado Springs to meet with the contractor who will be repairing our home. It was my first time seeing the house since the fires and I was blown away by the magnitude of the damage done to our neighborhood. It was surreal to drive up to our house and see complete streets wiped out. There are no homes left on the path I used to walk everyday with Jack.

When we got to our house, we found this posted on our front door:

And as we walked inside this is what we saw:

The entire floor is unstable as the fire burnt up all the beams underneath. It will be a very labor intensive process as they remove the floor while still bracing the walls. 

Here is a picture of how we left our house back in 2010:

The tenants were able to remove all their property from our house, except they forgot to clean out the fridge. And there has been no power to our home ever since the fires (over 2 months now) so the fridge is in bad shape. The contractor warned us not even to open it as there are sure to be disgusting things crawling everywhere. You can see that things are leaking onto the floor. This poor fridge is beyond repair. They are going to wrap it up and throw it out.

All of the our backyard neighbors homes were destroyed by the fire. You can see below that one house is already being rebuilt:

Here is the same backyard view back in 2010 before the fire destroyed these two homes

Our next door neighbors home is gone as well. It was so odd to see all the open land surrounding our house. 

After meeting with the contractor we took a driving tour of our neighborhood. Most of the rubble has been removed and now the place is bustling with construction crews and vehicles

The Flying W Ranch was completely burnt to the ground and had to close its doors. 

 
Charred trees everywhere


It was touching to see all the flags and signs thanking the fireman in the midst of all the destruction.

 

We feel especially grateful to the firefighters since we know they were in our home fighting the fire back from our property. Our house surely would have burnt to the ground if it weren't for them. 

Recent videos

Our little baby girl started walking a couple weeks ago! We were able to get some of her first steps on camera:

Since then, she has become quite the toddler, cruising all around town. We even invested in a pair of shoes for her that she has already worn out. At the end of this video, you can even see her new dance moves. 

Lily is the underwear thief. Every time I do laundry, Lily darts in and grabs the undies out of the pile. It has turned into a game now. Also, at the end of this video you can see what a feisty little girl she is as she takes Jack on in the first instances of sibling fights.

And here is Jack playing catch with Luke. It is amazing to watch him and see what a good arm he has... he has always been a natural with sports. So far his favorite sport is swimming, but he also loves gymnastics. Even though baseball is not his favorite, he has always been really good at it: