Como Butterfly Garden, Swimming Lessons & a Rocket Launch

What a crazy busy week it has been in our house. Somehow summer always seems to have a way of doing that, though. We start out with pictures from the Como Butterfly Garden on Wednesday, July 9th. It is a new attraction this summer at the Como Zoo & Conservatory. It was fascinating for the kids, and I really enjoyed trying to get pictures of the different butterflies. We also took some time to go and see some of the animals in the zoo before hitting Como Town once again. We cannot begin to explain how much we love living within walking distance of this wonderful gem of a park.

On Thursday, July 10th I snapped some pictures of the kids during their swimming lessons at the Como Pool. This was the last day in their 1st of two sessions this summer so the teachers were doing a lot of testing to see which children should move up to the next level. Taylor passed with flying colors and Ian's teacher is going to let him try the next level to see how he does. He still has a fear of jumping off of the diving board unassisted, but if you look at the last few pictures of him on the board, the teacher doesn't actually touch him or help in into the water at all. So, we'll see how he does starting tomorrow in the next level.



Next up was the Trioli rocket launch on Saturday, July 11th. The forecast was for sunny skies, temps in the upper 70's (yay!), but winds gusting as high as 40mph. We left early in hopes of getting Panod's new, large rocket up before the winds got too bad, but it was already windy when we got there at about 9:00am. I volunteered to launch my new (first ever) rocket, since it was smaller. Panod has been so patient in helping me build it, and even the kids have taught me so much that they know - I was proud to put it on the launch pad with the other rockets, but I was a little apprehensive that I wouldn't see it again. See, the winds seemed to have a nasty habit of blowing the rockets ever closer to a corn field with plants there were about 3-4' tall. That would make it very hard to find any rocket in if it were to blow into the field - and that's exactly where mine ended up! As I was running to catch my rocket after it launched, I remember the announcer commenting on my fine-looking streamer, and then saying that it looks like my rocket might be the first one we lose today in the corn field. I wandered in that endless sea of corn for 90 minutes after it launched, but eventually I gave up. I got back to the site and announced to Panod and the kids that I had lost my rocket. Sad as it was, I knew it was a possibility when I agreed to do it - and we now knew for sure that Panod was not going to launch his new one. Nobody wanted to risk losing that one! We stayed until about 1:30pm when most everybody that had agreed to launch theirs had - and they were out looking for them in the corn field. lol Panod said he wanted to take a stab at trying to find mine before we had to go, so I started packing up the kids while he searched. Sure enough - after about 30 minutes, he called me on my cell phone to say that he had found it!!! If that's not love, I don't know what is! We were able to get out to the ball fields in Como Park last night when the winds died down to launch Panod's new rocket. It did so well that we ended up launching it twice. Enjoy the pictures.