The Ruoss Family

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

January 2018

What we've been up to these past few weeks:

Enjoying beautiful sunrises,

There is music in the house again!

The girls have been attending ukulele lessons and practicing regularly.

We sometimes practice for the tween fun that's around the corner.

But are still zoomy and fun-loving most of the time!

(( Glimpses of past zoominess here and here. ))

A little afternoon trip to the North Shore

(hoping to see a resting seal like Ethan did!)

We experienced that memorable missile scare,

and then celebrated being Still Alive! with our neighbors, on the water and on the lanai.

Emily and Bella got out hiking with friends.

So Good!

Camila's birthday

Camila's fun birthday party at the park on Sunday afternoon,was a great day with friends, snacks, pinata, and LOTS of play!

Camila did a very good job planning her party (I managed to pull off her plan pretty well.) She mentioned to me a few days later that planning the party was more work than she expected. :) But really, it was a great day, with nice people. The pinata was beautiful and fun; and a whole new experience for a couple of the kids - how cool. That Jeff made it for that part was really just so great. You could probably guess that he was wearing his work clothes. He's been spending ridiculous hours at the plant these days.

And then Tuesday, on her actual birthday, she got *another* birthday dress that she wore with her school t-shirt over. And we had another ice-cream cake and fruit salad for dinner, after ukulele lessons. I thought it was pretty special that there was a big beautiful full moon on her birthday, again.

Sunday, February 4, 2018

Monarch Butterflies in O'ahu

When the girls first started at Ewa Beach Elementary in February 216, I would drive around our newly adopted neighborhood after dropping them off. One morning, I saw a cloud of butterflies swirling around this big flowering bush, the leaves of which had been decimated. And now every January and February we make a point to include a regular visits to this bush.

In early January on one of our visits Olivia asked if she could bring one of the caterpillars home. Um, sure.
Super cute side note:
She named it "Deva" after our dear friend and our most memorable Monarch Adventure

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

After about 5 days in captivity, it started acting weird. haha

Jan 11 - 4:45 pm

OK. this next part was really weird. I'll share the science journal entry: 6:30a "hanging cat started moving + during about 5 minutes the black cat skin split and x emerged bright green - no legs?"

ew.

Jan 12 9:30 am

After another day or so it solidified into this astoundingly beautiful jewel-like chrysalis.

Jan 13

And then Saturday morning January 20 - an emergence!

The previous days we had started seeing wing and body details through the thinning chrysalis

As soon as I noticed it flapping: pumping & drying its wings. I told Olivia and we rushed it back to the bush we took it from, before it damaged its gorgeous wings in the fish tank.