Lady! Bugs!

We went to California this last weekend (because apparently we find it extremely difficult to stay in one state for extended periods of time...I think it has something to do with lateral gravity) and before our trip out to Disneyland for my birthday, we spent one night at Laura and Amy's new cute house in Riverside. (Please don't stalk them even though I've inadvertently included their first names and city of residence...and the fact that they live in a house.) While we were there, the girls discovered millions of ladybugs in Laura and Amy's backyard, and had so much fun running after them, catching them, and letting them crawl all over their hands. (I wonder what it is about ladybugs that makes them tolerable enough to crawl on us? And why it is that ladybugs are the only insect that Uncle Michael is not allowed to eat? Perhaps we'll never know.) Thanks to Laura and Amy, who braved the windy Southern California cold that I can no longer tolerate, the girls were offered a wonderful sensory experience fraught with ladybugs and aphids a-plenty. (Sorry, kids, no sensory experiences on my watch.) Julia even got to collect some ladybugs in a jar that she heartbreakingly released later on in the day. Here's the proof that there are indeed some bugs that my kids actually like.