Beach Day in February

We have been blessed with such beautiful weather recently today we decided to pack a lunch and head to Natural Bridges State Park in Santa Cruz to visit the Monarch butterflies before they leave for Mexico. This is the end of their stay there (several have already started migrating) and the park celebrated with their annual Farewell Butterflies Party. Considering the free activities and warm, sunny weather it really wasn't very crowded.

Here is the last remaining natural bridge. Since we went at low tide we were able to scoot around some rock and take pictures from the other side.

Finding teachable moments.

Picnicking under the trees.

If you look closely you can see two large black spots on the hind wings which marks this as a male.

One activity station was an art contest. Kids were to draw about their favorite thing about Natural Bridges. Both girls drew a butterfly. Scott... well, it's Scott. :) Yes, that's a hot dog. And no, there was no 30-something category for him to enter.

Counting Sheep

A couple nights ago the girls had a hard time falling asleep. I suggested they count sheep. The next morning I asked them how it worked out for them. Allie said she got to about 14 or 15 then fell asleep. Mollie told me she got to 19 Sheep and thought" Oh, who cares!"

They both fell asleep at a normal time and slept all night long. :)