Dragonflies

So we've been on a mission. Yesterday we went to a pond to catch bugs for M's bug collection and flowers for E's dried flower collection. They are very excited to show their collections to their grandparents next week so they've been working hard before we leave. However the pond did not work out yesterday. There weren't any flowers and the only exciting bugs were damselflies and dragonflies.

The damsel flies were easy to catch and there were so many it was boring after awhile. The dragonflies were impossible to catch. A friend caught one that was dying (therefore easy to catch) and E hit down a dragonfly and another girl got her net over it but they cut it's tail off. However M and the other friend did not catch a dragonfly. M spent a good 2 hours running around like crazy trying to catch one. She found this particular species that was beautiful and she worked so hard to get one but no luck. Well we decided to go back there this morning with our friends and try again. The adults got involved but no luck. They are SO fast and change direction so quickly.

We decided our dollar store nets just weren't big enough so we ate our picnic lunch and went to the hardware store :) We found a nice long dowel for the handle and some good sturdy copper for the net and some flowers for E. Then we went home for quiet time. I called Daddy to tell him of our plans and he suggested some O rings to attach the copper to the dowel (instead of wrapping a thinner copper wire around and around!). Thankfully there were some in Daddy's toolbox so when Daddy was done at school we loaded up the kids and supplies and Daddy's toolbox, picked Daddy up and had a picnic dinner at the pond. I quickly sewed up some tulle fabric and Daddy skillfully put the net together and they were off on the hunt! E had lots of fun catching damsel flies and then holding them in her hands and watching them. M tried and tried but still no dragonflies. Mg took Daddy's hand and kept pointing out the dragonflies to him. And sure enough...Daddy caught 4!!!!! He couldn't catch the "beauty" that M wanted (there weren't very many out that time of day) but he caught 2 different kinds of brown ones and two blue ones (E's favorite one).

We called our friends and they met us at the park and we gave them one of our dragonflies and let them borrow our net until they got theirs finished. Of course we got home later than I thought and the kids will probably be dragging tomorrow but we have dragonflies for the collection and had a nice time together as a family. I told Daddy that he was wonderful and amazing - not only did he figure out a much better and simpler way of making the butterfly net he took his girls in hand and went out chasing dragonflies. Looking at them from across the lake was fun watching all these girls with their nets following Daddy as they tried to sneak up on dragonflies - they were on the hunt!!! Daddy said he said he felt very manly hunting dragonflies with a pink net :) We love our Daddy!!!