We finally get to try out our umbrellas!

When we woke up Tuesday morning, it was RAINING!  There had been a huge thunderstorm with rain last Wednesday night while the girls and I were eating dinner, but otherwise there had been no real rain since May.  We also had a thunderstorm this morning, and the grass is starting to look a little green again.  I hope it was enough to save the corn crop!  Anyway, on Tuesday morning, there was a little thunder, but that passed quickly, so we put on all our raingear and headed outside.   The girls were giddy with excitement!  (It is nearly impossible to get a photo of Megan looking giddy; she prefers an understated look, I guess.)

Amelia's froggy raincoat and rainboots are the same ones she's been wearing the last two years, and they're really getting too small.  I'll have to find her some new rainboots soon.  Megan was so excited to get to wear her new raincoat and rainboots from Grandma and Grandpa Dueber:

The girls were both thrilled to have their own umbrellas!

 We went looking for puddles to splash in, and found one over on our walking path by the river.  Amelia loves to jump and splash in puddles, but Megan was content to just slosh through them.

Where's Amelia?  There she is!

I tried to get a photo of the two girls together, but it's so hard to get them both smiling and looking at the camera.  And the last shot is Megan continuing down the path - isn't her raincoat so cute from the back?

After we finished our walk, Amelia had to change her dress because it was completely soaked from splashing and rain.  Then we went to Olbrich Botanic Gardens to see the free-flying butterfly exhibit.  Unfortunately, when it is a gray and rainy day, the butterflies like to hide, so it was a big disappointment to me.  We only saw one butterfly flying around, but we did spot a few hanging underneath leaves and a few more sitting on the windows.  Amelia had a good eye for spotting the butterflies; I think she was happier to see them sitting still rather than flying around near her.  She also really liked identifying them.   This one is a spicebush swallowtail, I believe:

And the next one is a zebra sitting on the flower.  Even Megan could identify the zebra butterflies, she would say "zeebee" when she saw one.

We walked around the garden a little to answer questions about butterflies and earn our free Michael's custard coupon.  But it was pretty wet and a little drizzly, so we didn't stay too long.  I really want to go back, though, because the flowers were beautiful.  Then we went to Michael's with our friend Amelia and her family and the girls both got a plain vanilla custard.  I had a spoonful, it was really good custard, the best vanilla custard I've ever had.