Elser Family Blog

Happy Birthday Melinda!
7 years (and one day) old!
Melinda had a Hawaiian Luau party with her friend Raven. The kids had a lot of fun in a pool on a hot day in SC. Thats the best.
Here is a pic of Melinda enjoying the pool.

While, as normal, Kathi did all the real work… I got the honor of making the cake. Melinda wanted a volcano cake. I made a piston out of a water bottle, and powered it with a whip cream can (edible, and regulated the speed) and filled the water bottle with vanilla pudding (colored orange/red for lava, of course..) Hey, I think it worked OK. see for yourself. (click on picture)

Did I mention how cool it is to be married to a woman that will stop a car to pick up a bug?

Looks like this is the summer of bugs. Kathi took the kids to see a visiting entomologist at the Library. When the lady showed everyone a killing jar Rockwell yelled out “We have one of those!”. The lady asked what he did with it, and he said put bugs in it, and then she asked him what he did with the bugs, and he said “then we pin them to a board!” -that was the right answer…

Anyway, Yesterday, Melinda’s Birthday, Melinda and Kathi were coming home from a friends house. While driving, Kathi saw this bug…. You know a bug is big when you can see it while your moving in a car! Melinda “claimed” it right away.
I’m not sure if its a grasshopper of a locust.. (whats the difference?) but check out those wild little red wings.
Take a look at this whopper.

This week Hannah signed up for a “fear factor” contest at the library. There were about 13 kids participating. They started off with soy milk. (everyone liked it!) and near the end they had potted meat, anchovies heads, wasabi peas, and oil from the anchiovie containers. The last thing was everything mixed together. She made it to the final four, and came in just behind the winner in the final round!

Gigi is not allowed to be on the couch.. so she has adopted the chair. She just fits!

Rockwell has been bug crazy the last couple of days. According to Kathi, it has kept him quite busy! Here are all the things he caught between Friday and Saturday. That big dragon fly was quite a prize.. Hannah an Rockwell have been after it for two days now. Melinda is about ready for a big find I think.
This Thursday, an entomologist from the Clemson extension office is coming to the library. The kids are excited.. Kathi is going to bring them over there. We have a couple of bugs to identify!
It turns out that most things I thought were moths are actually small butterflys. The best way to tell the difference is to look at the antennae. Butterflys have antennae that look like clubs or pins, and moths have antennae that look more like combs or serrated. (as a rule, but not a law 🙂 ) We only have one moth in the collection!

Rockwell was sitting there for a minute admiring his collection of the last couple days.

We had a significant Lighting hit yesterday, I’ve been at work ever since… Hopefully I’ll get a break this weekend.

We had some friends over for a independence day celebration. We cooked out, hung out, watched the fireworks, and shot off some fireworks of our own.
Melinda made sure we displayed a flag:

And Kath made sure we ate one too!

We walked down to the bridge to watch the fireworks over the river.

Hannah caught a dragonfly. Here Hannah is checking it out in the killing jar.

And here is the whole collection! When the teacher asks them what they did this summer, they can bring this in and show them!

We went tubing on the Chattahoochee River in Helen Georgia. (Not too far from where my niece Shel is going to be living soon) It’s a town they made to look a little like Germany. We had a blast. The kids are the perfect age to enjoy this activity. But, considering I didn’t have my camera on the river, I ended up borrowing some other peoples pictures.. just so you get the idea..

We found another bug! Actually Hannah found it on the tubing trip.. it surprised her and made her jump! This thing would make anyone jump if they were caught off guard. it looks intimidating for sure, but its actually pretty friendly. Its called a “Dobsonfly“. This one with the long mandibles is a male. the mandibles are not so strong as to be able to hurt you, but watch out for the females short mandibles.. they can draw blood.
My niece Stephanie said we have weird bugs here.. She’s going to think I made this one up, its so strange looking! How does this thing fly with so much weight in front of it??