Costco parking lot

I'm betting there's an interesting story behind this.

Granola grumble

So L got an idea yesterday to make granola for the youth group's bake sale Saturday. We went to the grocery store last night and bought all the ingredients. Today, we mixed it all together. Then she read the recipe and found out that we weren't supposed to add the raisins and dried cranberries until after the granola baked. Oops. We pulled out the tongs and spent about 40 mniutes removing as many as we could before baking it. Lesson learned - read the entire recipe before starting to cook.

We packaged 21 bags of granola. L thinks it can sell for $2 a bag. She also made mini blueberry lemon pound cakes today. We ended up with 18 of those.

And then my little baker fell asleep.

Ready for Florida

I think we have enough sunscreen.

'Cats'

I won the Broadway in Chicago lottery for Saturday's evening performance of "Cats" so Andy and I went downtown. Our seats were in the Dress Circle, off to the side, so the left side of the stage was a bit obstructed. I saw online the tickets sell for $81.50 each so $25 each is a bargain. I saw "Cats" with Darla at the Muny in St. Louis when I was in high school and all I remember was the costumes. I couldn't recall the plot.

We soon figured out that's because there isn't much of a plot or storyline. It was all singing, which we've both come to realize is hard for us to follow. The dancing was incredible though. Let's just say I'm glad we didn't pay full price for the tickets.

Celebrating L's b-day

Once again, L's birthday fell during the church's mission trip. And again the hosting group made her a birthday cake. Our leaders posted these pictures on Facebook.

Girls on a mission trip from Peoria braided her hair. They called it Swedish braids. I always referred to those as French braids.

And since L got home from the trip yesterday, we went to dinner last night for her family birthday dinner celebration. She chose Outback Steakhouse ... and ordered chicken tenders lol.

Andy tried the new Boomarita - a boomerang with little glasses of four different margaritas.

Monarch in the making

We brought this caterpillar in the house on July 4. It was about a half-inch long on July 10.

It climbed to the top of its cage on Tuesday, July 16, and went into the "J" position that evening.

I noticed the green chrysalis formed on the morning of Wednesday, July 17, even though they're supposed to hang in the "J" position for 24 hours. Guess this one is a fast transformer.

The chrysalis is black - Friday, July 26. We should have a butterfly soon.

I took a walk and a shower and came downstairs to see a butterfly!

L got home from her mission trip about 11:30 so I picked her up, drove some of her friends home, and when we came back we decided it was time to let Bartholomew fly away. (L named it). L got him out of his jar and he held onto her finger for a while before he flew to some plants.

L got some really nice pictures of him. We're pretty sure it's a boy because of the two black dots on his lower wing. If not, L said, Bartholomew would have been a funny name choice. You can see how the wings are different from the girl we raised last year.

So pretty!

And then Bartholomew flew away. Mission successful!

Enjoying summer

These coneflowers behind the garage are full of blooms ... and butterflies. The ones in our yard are starting to bloom but not as much as they did last year.

This Black Swallowtail was on the coneflowers when I got back from my morning walk.

And our phlox is blooming.

Not sure what these orange flowers are. I'm guessing it's Butterfly Weed. They just appeared in our yard.

Here's L with her mission group on their last work day ... and her birthday. We'll celebrate when she gets home tomorrow.

I made some more treats for the upcoming youth group bake sale. They're the same cookies I made the other day but I put a popsicle stick in them. Maybe we can sell them for $1 each?

It was a nice night so Andy and I went downtown to Su Casa for dinner. We left B at home to fend for himself.

Patio petunia

It always amazes me how a flower will emerge on a sidewalk or our patio.

Nice view

Andy sent this picture of the view from his room in Lake Tahoe. What more could you want? A nice pool, pine trees and mountains. Wow.

These are a couple of pictures the chaperones posted from the youth group's mission trip. There's L on the right side serving dinner. She's on the "Swiss cheese" team and their job yesterday was to help prep dinner.

And here she is with her friend, R, getting an after-dinner snack with the group.

L had a great assignment on the mission trip today - playing with babies!

And with temperatures in the 80s, I figured it's a good time to get baking for the youth group's upcoming bake sale. I made these sprinkle cookies and they're really good. They do use a lot of sprinkles though.

Another project

One of my projects today was to clean up Andy's workroom. It didn't take as long as I thought and I didn't toss anything out, just organized everything. He'll need some luck finding things. I wonder how long it will be before he notices?

With Andy and L both out of town, B sent me a recipe for Chicken Parmesan to make for dinner. I had it started when he got home from work and he helped to finish it. It was surprisingly good.

Mission trip 2019

Muffles doesn't want L to leave again!

But she did. Here's a group picture taken in the chapel (it was raining a little outside) before they left for Milwaukee for a weeklong mission trip.

Chinese food

Andy's in Lake Tahoe for a conference so it's Chinese food for dinner.

Our camper is home

Andy and I drove to U of I today to pick up L from her Media Camp. She said they didn't focus on advertising as much as she would have liked, but what she did with advertising, she liked. She did like the campus - the food, not so much.

The other night the group was out walking on campus when L fell off an uneven curb. The counselor who's also trained as an EMT said he thinks it's sprained. We got the bandage at Walgreens once she got home.

Some scenes from camp:

L sent a few pictures throughout the week of what she was doing at camp. She made this scary movie poster. She might have a bit of a fascination with Dr. Phil.

On Tuesday she got a behind-the-scenes tour of the university's State Farm Arena. She said Trevor Noah sat on this couch when he was there.

Checking out the press room at the Arena.

There were lots of posters of past performances. She didn't see one from R.E.M. though. Andy and I had our first real date at the Arena (then called Assembly Hall) to see an R.E.M. concert.

Andy goes shopping

Andy went shopping last night. He bought himself a Microsoft Surface and Airpods.

Here he is trying to set it up. We had E on Facetime helping from afar. She's going to buy him a pencil and a mouse from the Microsoft store with her discount.

Beautiful butterflies

L captured this picture of a Monarch butterfly on our milkweed plant last week as I was pulling the car out of the garage. So pretty!

And I saw this Red Admiral Butterfly (one of two hanging around) on our coneflowers when I was taking out the garbage.

Today's projects

I did several loads of E's clothes yesterday and put everything in her drawers. Look how nice this T-shirt drawer looks. But that's a lot of T-shirts! We were going to take the clothes back to her storage unit in Champaign but she wants to go through everything and pare down what she takes to school this semester. Good idea.

And I moved some of L's purses from the back porch to her room and put them on these new Command hooks I bought.

My caterpillar looked so big this morning. When I saw him climbing on the foil I had over the jar I decided to switch it out with screen in case it's looking for a place to form a chrysalis.

It's not yet in the "J" position, but it's been hanging out on the screen all day.