Elser Family Blog

VBS was this week. We went to the program at a friends church. His wife was running it. They had about 150 kids there.. Pretty good turnout! The kids had a lot of fun. The last day they performed a skit, with all the kids singing in between. It was very well done. A whole lot of work went into it, I know that. (first time in three years I was just a “observer”..)
And, VBS lets me show off the “Nannyrama” feature (Thanks for reminding me Mike!) on my new camera.. It’s almost 100 degrees, and if I got a wide angle lens, I bet it could do 150. It does it by having you take three shots. The camera puts up a display that helps you line up your shot. it works perfectly. My grandmother would have loved a camera with this feature. She used to do it the old fasioned way all the time.
Here they are singing. ( I mistyped that.. it almost said “here they are sining” ha!)(click on the picture for a larger version.)

Rockwell’s 5th Birthday party was today.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROCKWELL!
5!
We had a “Bug related bowling party”.. That is, the theme was bugs, and the activity was, well, bowling!
OK, I don’t know if he has something, or he’s just lucky. But the last three times Rockwell has been bowling, he has had the high score of all the kids. He broke 100 last time, and had a 98 today. Anyway, click on the picture for a quicktime movie. (sorta large at 8 meg)

I don’t know why Melinda looks disappointed.. I think she had a spare here.

And this picture of Hannah turned out strange.. but this was right after her strike of the day.

Here is the birthday party! I’m pretty mad about not getting a picture of the cake.. Kath put a lot of work into it.

Rockwell received many bug related gifts.. one being a toy terrarium for your catches. Well, they had to find something to put into it of course.. so in no time at all, they had found a frog in the back yard.. and in it went.

And, Strangely enough, the Kath found this in Rockwell’s bedroom! Its a katydid. How it got in is a mystery.

Its hard to take picture of it for some reason.. but if your interested in doing this, its really simple… you want to use Ethyl acetate to kill them, because it keeps them pliable. You can use non acetone nail polish remover. (not methyl acetate)
Put some in a killing jar (google it), and put the bugs in.. let them die, and then pin them up. I like to put the bugs in poses.. It makes it a little interesting, and you get to see their wings. when they dry, you can pull most of the pins out.

Melinda is modeling her new skirt design. You like?

Gigi suffering some more attention from the girls.

So far, Gigi has been really well behaved.. except for her shoe and bed skirt fetish.. which we will break her of. She has also been the subject of some nail polish.

And, subject to stuffed animals. I’m sure this is only the start. The kids really love her, and so far she has been a really good fit to the family.

Beck and Steph-m, Kathi and I had never seen a Luna moth before this one either.. are they that reclusive or rare? interesting.

Mom told a story about the first time she saw one.. she was at the cottage, looking at a magazine, and saw a picture of one. Just then, she looked up, and there was one on the window screen! neat coincidence!

As far as visiting! Oh, Ya. Your always welcome… but I recommend the non summer months.. 🙂 (its a nice road trip.. I need to find that web site of “roadside attractions” that lets you map by travel route again. Greg.. do you remember the url? 🙂

Isn’t it amazing that a big green Caterpillar can turn into this?? just amazing.

Kathi called us while we were at Arthur Shealys pond.. (a post for another time!) and said “hey, you guys have to come home and see this! Rockwell’s Caterpillar has metamorphosed! its huge!

Hannah attended the award ceremony at her school. She received a reading award, an acknowledgement for being in GT, and acknowledgement for being invited to the Duke TIP program. She would have had all A-B average for the year, but she missed it in once class, by what amounted to one papers grade. grr.

She also received a special award for reading more pages than anyone else in the whole school. We are very proud of her.

OK, silly toe picture. The wax to make the little flower? came from one of those little lunch size wax covered cheeses… Hannah made the flower while she was sitting on the couch, and Mom put it on her toe when Hannah put her leg on Moms lap. 🙂

Rockwell went to a birthday party.. the people went all out and rented this huge thing for them to play on.. he had a blast of course.