Welcome to the Wildlife Preserve

I live in the suburbs with 600 houses in my neighborhood- when did I enter a wildlife preserve? In addition to my lovely spider friend (who now has some competition- I thought I was going to see a spider throwdown the other night when a smaller spider ventured onto his web. It was very interesting to watch the way that spider protected his space.) We now have 3 monarch butterfly caterpillars living in an apple juice container on my mantle. When we were outside Friday night David pulled a weed that was growing up the side of our house. the 3 caterpillars were on the underside of the weed- which we now know is a variety of milkweed- and I just didn't have the heart to let them die. Actually they are very beautiful. They are blue and yellow striped and about 3 inches long. We think they are very close to spinning cocoons, but I am starting to wonder. Those things eat an insane amount of milkweed, and what we have is almost gone. In about an hour Saturday night one caterpillar ate a leaf that was a little longer than he was and 3 times as wide. Eric Carle knew what he was talking about when he wrote the Very Hungry Caterpillar! Hopefully there will be updates to their progress.....

When I walked Cameron to his bus this morning there were 2 wild turkeys running around in the yard across the street from me. If I had my camera I would have taken pictures of them. I have never seen wild turkeys before. Let's just say they aren't as cute as monarch butterfly caterpillars.

Last night I went to Starlight to see Rent. It was a fun hockey moms night out. We had decided to meet up at the ice rink and after the show we went back there to get our cars. There we *9* deer in the parking lot. I am a little phobic of deer since the one plowed into the side of David's car a couple of years ago, but it still was neat to see.

Rent was wonderful! We met early and took a tour of Starlight Theater. One of the fundraising directors has a son who plays hockey so we got to go on the donor tour instead of the 15 minute one. It was amazing- not to mention they fed us! We got to see all of Starlight's new construction since 2000, plus we got to go backstage and see (although we didn't get to meet) some of the cast. I even met the BMOC- Bob Rohlf! Yeah, they hit us up for money, but that was a minor detail :). The cast was fabulous and I enjoyed it much more than when I went to see it in 2002. The only thing missing was that idiot Fred Phelps. I guess he has bigger fish to fry now.

We spent most of Saturday cleaning out Becca's room. We hung her pet net and got all her stuffed animals off the floor, and cleaned out all of the baby toys. She is no longer in diapers, and I can barely get her to drink out of a sippy cup anymore. I guess I need to face the fact that she is growing up.

I have a goal of deep cleaning the living room this morning before I head off to gymnastics, so I'd better get moving!