Nature, nature everywhere

We had the most beautiful red & purple sunset on Wednesday night. I had to sneak upstairs and snap a few pictures from the balcony while Reese & Jeff were in bed sleeping. These pictures do the sunset no justice...it was just brilliant!

QUESTION: What happens when you leave a fresh pear in a backpack for 5 weeks?

ANSWER: The pear turns into stinky soup in the bottom of said backpack, and you have yourself a nice colony of fruit flies in your house.

We've been finding fruit flies in the house for a few weeks, and it's been such a mystery where they came from. I just assumed they came in from outside. WRONG! On our way home from Disney World the first week of MAY, I had tucked a pear in my backpack to eat on the plane. Fast forward five weeks, & I was cleaning things up in the laundry room, & I moved my backpack and WOAH! A swarm of fruit flies came out. I knew instantly that I had forgotten that darn pear in the bag. Ugh. So, I've been spending lots of time the past two days catching the fruit flies mid-air with some glue traps I have. Works pretty well, but there's just SO many of them.

It reminds me of my Sophmore year in high school, in AP Biology, and we did a gene project with fruit flies...mating particular characteristics (red eyes, white eyes) to see what would happen after multiple generations. It was actually lots of fun, and all the fruit flies in our lovely colony here have red eyes :) Gross. Check out the fruit fly stuck on my glue trap paper:

I must have the most tolerant husband in the world. First, it's the Invasion of the Fruit Flies. Next, a maniac bird has decided to build a nest in the pot that sits RIGHT next to the pool. Jeff works very, very hard to keep the pool clean at all times. Then here comes this bird, dismantles some faux topiaries I have on the patio, uses the moss to build it's nest, & drops about two handfuls of moss into the pool in the process.

Jeff's initial request was to just take the nest out of the pot. Of course, I protested, & was so happy to see that he didn't pull out the nest, he just moved the pot. Boy, I love this man! He puts up with all my nature-loving ways :)