Bye Butterfly - 201/365

Today was a sad day. 

Our little handicapped butterfly that we called "wheels" died. He came out handicapped. He had bag legs and a deformed probiscus. We did the best we could taking care of him. We gave him fresh oranges and took him out to sit on flowers. He only lived about two days so Reagan took it pretty well. She was still sad though. We buried him next to Crumbles in the back yard. She's already asking when we can get another batch of caterpillars to raise. It really is fun!

This evening, we were filling up the pool for the first time. It's amazing it's late June and this is really the first time we could do it. 

Reagan was excited beacuse Alivia was coming over to swim. We were getting pizza and some drinks. Us adults had a great time chatting and catching up, since we hadn't seen the Crawfords in awhile. 

We had a nice night!

Bye butterfly

Filling the pool!

Spring Fun & Pancakes - 87/365

Jim was up early and back at pancakes today!
He said that they've been really busy which is great! It's a huge fundraiser for Rotary, so they are proud!
While he was doing that, Reagan, Nana and I took a ride over to the Eastwood Mall. They were having a bunch of Spring activities this weekend.
They had the Leann Smith, the author of, The Winning Garden there. She was such a sweet lady. She gave Reagan a ladybug ring and signed her book! She also held a story time where she read the book. The kids loved it!
Also in that area, they had fairy garden displays and the kids were able to plant some seeds in a plastic cup to take home. Reagan loves planting, so she was thrilled!
After that, we headed over to Firebirds to have some lunch. We hadn't eaten over there for awhile, so it was a nice treat!
We ended our afternoon at the Butterfly House. It's always fun to visit a butterfly exhibit. Reagan was being a little shy this time with holding the butterflies. She didn't want them on her hand, but she let them sit on her sweater. Nana and I had fun though! LOL!
It was a nice afternoon, enjoying the indoor Spring, even if we can't do it outside yet!

Pancakes!

 Reagan and Leann

 Reagan and Rosebud

Planting her seeds

Reagan and her butterfly friend.

 

Ice Palace and a Hair Do - 204/365

Reagan and Brinkley were still at Nana's today. They were just going to spend the day, so I could mow and get a much needed hair color! They had a fun day playing "ice palace" on Nana's bed and spending some time outside. Reagan just loves helping Nana water all her flowers and feed her birds. It so adorable!

I did my mowing, then I decided to take Crumbles out for a little flower time. He loves to sit on the flowers and drink real nectar. He's such a sweet little thing.

Jim had a pretty standard day at work, although he was a little pooped from the concert last night.

This evening, we just took it easy and had little family cookout. YUM!

Reagan and Brinkley in the "ice palace"

 Watering Nana's flowers

 Crumbles enjoying the flowers

 My lovely hair. I don't know why it looks like I have no teeth though.....lol

Strawberry Picking and Two Funerals - 174/365

Today Boardman Rotary had to say goodbye to one of their members. Jim and I attended calling hours for this evening for Nik Amstutz, who passed away after a brief illness. He was a great man, who loved to give back to the community. He will be greatly missed by all that knew him.

 This afternoon, Reagan, Jim and I had to say goodbye to another good friend. Our butterfly Crumbles passed away this afternoon. We are all extremely sad to see him go. We will miss our orange eating friend. We loved keeping an eye on him and taking him outside to the Butterfly Bush. He would immediately start nectaring. He loved it! 

Reagan was sad, but did great at his funeral. We painted him a little rock with his name on it and buried him next to his favorite Butterfly Bush. She waved goodbye to him. It was so precious. I think she did better than Jim and I. She was so brave. 

We will miss you crumbles. 

This morning Reagan Nana and I, headed out to White House Fruit Farm to do our annual strawberry picking! We wait all Spring for it to finally be time! Reagan just loves picking. She splits her time filling my basket and Nana's, she's an awesome helper! 

The strawberry's were perfect as usual! They had a great crowd, too!

One more funny thing....after the calling hours, Reagan and I went to dinner with Nana at the Phoenix. When we got home, Reagan jumped out of Nana's car and ran up to Jim's and hugged the back and and screamed, "Daddy's HOME!" It was too precious! 

More Butterflies and Maleficent - 152/365

Today Jim and his mom were off to see Maleficent and have some lunch after. 

They went to the Austintown theater and LOVED the movie. Jim said it was phenomenal and the special effects were awesome! They really, really loved it. 

After the movie, they went over to Buffalo Wild Wings to have a little snack. They had a really nice afternoon. 

While he was off doing that, Nana helped me finally get the patio furniture out of the garage! It's about freaking time! It was nuts! 

After we did that, we went to have a little lunch of our own at Friday's! YUM! 

When we got back and I got Reagan down for her nap, I continued to Spring clean the garage. Thank god for shop-vacs, the amount of dirt and dead bugs was a bit disturbing! It's clean as a whistle now, though. 

I also spent a little time sitting with the butterflies in the sun. It said when they are this young to not give them too much sun, so I sat just watching them for awhile. The cats seemed pretty interested and sat and watched them with me the whole time, too! It was pretty funny! 

The one butterfly, does have crumbled up wings, so we'll have to figure out what we're going to do about him. I don't think he can fly, so we may not be able to release him. Poor guy! 

The rest are coming along fine and look fabulous! We are really loving this.... 

The first picture is Jim and Nikki at the movie...

Next, the squeaky clean garage

Finally, the cats enjoying the butterflies...

 

Butterfly, Luncheon, and Lady A - 151/365

It was going to be a busy day today! 

Nana and I started our day with a benefit luncheon for the Canfield Community Care net. They help families with major expenses due to serious illnesses. It was set up as a purse bash and Chinese auction. We were meeting Rachel, Laura, Sharon, Helen and Karen. We had a nice afternoon checking out the auctions and the many vendors that were there. Nana did win a few items from the silent auction, a purse, bracelet and a set of Jamberry nail wraps. They had a lovely buffet of sandwiches, fruit and salad. Fun afternoon!

Speaking of Jamberry, I ended up getting a couple sheets for me from a vendor. I got a set for the 4th of July, Disney Cruise and just an everyday set. I can't wait to try them out! 

After the luncheon, we went home for a short time, before we set out for the Lady Antebellum concert. I came home to see that two of the ten butterflies had come out of their chrysalis. It was too exciting! They were beautiful! Although, the one seems to have crumbled up wings. Hopefully, they will straighten out. Even still, they are so cool! We filled up their cage with sliced oranges, flowers and cotton balls soaked in sugar water. Reagan was so excited! She just stared at them. We can't believe we actually got to witness such an amazing transformation. We can't wait to see the rest of them come out. 

Soon enough, it was time to head out to the Lady Antebellum concert. Everything leading up to this concert had been a total mess. Awhile back, we purchased Golden VIP tickets for a show in November, that show ended up getting cancelled and rescheduled for today. Jim and I actually moved our plane tickets for our November Disney trip for that show, so there was that added frustration. 

Anyway, the Golden VIP experience was supposed to carry over to this show. It kept getting closer and we hadn't heard anything about a time for the meet and greet, so a few days ago, we called the company to find out what was going on. They were going to check on it and get back to us. A few hours later, we find out that they cancelled the Golden VIP experience. We think they forgot about it due to the rescheduling of the show. The whole package was to include a tote bag, lanyard, meet and greet, private two song acoustic show, and seats in the first three rows. We really only cared about the great seats and the meet and greet. 

To say we were disappointed it was cancelled, would be an understatement. 

Through Twitter and Facebook we kept checking out Lady Antebellum's pages and saw that some people were winning meet and greets. We were like WTF!? We ended up calling back the company and Blossom. Word started trickling down from other VIP Golden ticket holders through social media that they were possibly going to let us in to the meet and greet, we just wouldn't get the other stuff. We didn't care, we just wanted the meet and greet. After numerous phone calls and emails, we heard that it was most likely going to happen.

We ended up heading to Blossom early and went to the Will Call window. The lady opened an envelope and handed us two tickets. It said nothing about a meet and greet. I asked her, "Where do we go for the meet and greet?" just playing dumb. She said "Oh, you have a meet and greet." She dug down into a bottom drawer, a totally different drawer than the first one and pulled out another envelope. Sure enough it had our name on it with two meet and greet wrist bands! It was SO EXCITING!!! 

Finally, it was time to line up for the meet and greet. Nana and I actually were second in line! We were so nervous and so excited all at the same time. All of a sudden, the three of them came around the corner and we were just star struck. Hillary is just gorgeous and her clothes and shoes were just amazing! Charles was HUGE! I didn't realize he was so tall. He towers over everyone! And Dave, was just so sweet. We said "hello" got some hugs and had to move along. It was worth every minute of trying to figure out what the heck was going on. They were super friendly and super sweet! Love them! 

The concert itself was amazing. They have so much energy and did all our favorites! We loved it! 

While we were out and about all day. Jimmy and Reagan just hung around the house and played. Jimmy did a little cleaning for me and went to the grocery store. How freaking sweet was that! Reagan was even picking out my favorite veggies at the store. She picked me out a summer squash and zucchini. Love her! They had a fun day just relaxing and waiting for butterflies!

Next, our first butterfly! 

Reagan and her veggies she wanted to get me.

Finally, her at bedtime with her Epcot map. She LOVES looking at the maps we bring home from our trips

 

Caterpillars - 135/365

Today, Reagan received her Caterpillars! She was SO EXCITED! 

We got the kit from Toys R us awhile ago, but had to wait till the weather got nice to actually grow them. You had to enter a code on the Insect Lore Website and they sent you two cups of five caterpillars. 

When we opened the box, I thought they might be dead, because they didn't move AT ALL! Reagan was stoked and didn't care that they weren't moving. She carried those two cups around the house showing the caterpillars every room of their new home. It was too cute! 

Eventually, they did start moving around. It was nice, because you really didn't have to do much for them. We just set them on a shelf and checked in on them. They had everything they needed right there in the cup! It was awesome! Can't wait to see if we actually get butterflies!