Best Kept Secret

We just visited the best kept secret in our metro area: The Butterfly Garden in Saylorville! We took a little trip out to see trees, birds, flowers, and butterflies. I forget that nature is just a drive away. Hopefully, we'll be frequenting this place more often. . .

I took Paul's camera and took photos of flowers and the butterflies. These are the before pictures in the collages. I then edited them through Picnik.com and the pictures evolved into something pretty cool! (not to pat my back or anything, but I'm patting my back!). It was like extreme photo makeover. Thank goodness for photo-shops, because I cannot set up the lens to ever make pictures come out this way!


We saw Painted Ladies, Monarchs, and a butterfly I'm going to have to look up! That little house is a butterfly house, Connor had to teach me that because they have these houses in their school garden.

Edited photo of a Blue Tail Painted Lady? OR it's a different species. . .

Same butterfly, different landing pad.

My favorite, the Monarch perched on a Zinnia.

This is the species that I'm not sure of. . . it has a blue tail and it's brown! Was God good at coordinating colors when he created these critters? He has a great sense of fashion! We humans just need inspiration from nature.

A Hibiscus? It was growing wild with the poison ivy and other foliage.

And last but not least, some pics of people (1960s style!)

Evan, Connor, Pouty Marin, Pouty Olivia (on cue), & Angie

(that picture of Evan in the right hand corner looks like Connor when he was a babe, I had to look twice!)

By the way, someone in our house is having a Butterfly Birthday Party! I'm getting excited to make a Butterfly Birthday Cake!