What we've been UP to...

Mariah is moving "up" in the world, literally. She has pulled up to standing several times with the laundry basket being a prop of choice. Though she has actually gotten both feet under her, this is the closest I've gotten to a picture of her standing efforts.

Lily and Daddy went swimming on Saturday. It was Ben's first time in the pool with her since we've been here. He is working alot, it gets dark early (by the way, Lily has just realized what "dark" is and notices it now), and we've been doing other stuff on Saturdays.

Lily is standing next to an orchid. When we moved in, I noticed that there was a pot shoved into the flower bed outside with an orchid planted in it that had finished blooming. I just left it there and did nothing, and a few weeks later, I saw this pretty yellow flower in that bed! So it's pulled out of the bed now and on a table outside where we can see it from the family room. Lily really likes the rocks that compose the "soil" in the pot.

For the biology nuts: Ok, getting orchids to bloom a second time in Indiana is something on par with a miracle from what I hear, so I was pumped to see that it happened here without any care. I guess the tropics are just the right environment, and maybe that explains why it's so hard to care for them in IN! If you look closely at the picture, you can see where the spent stem (blooms round 1) were. Below that are the original leaves, above that is the new growth. I've never seen an orchid with so many leaves. If you look closely as well, you can see the incredible root structure, much of which is above the "soil" line. I think that some of the root growth is from the old leaves section and some from the new leaves. In fact, when I pulled the pot out of the flower bed, some of the new root growth had started to root into the mulch of the flower bed outside of the pot. These are the healthiest, whitest, fat roots. This has been so fun to watch. I think if I had a orchid in IN, I would just put it outside during the hottest month or 2 of summer, water it a ton, and see if I couldn't get it to bloom again. There is just no physical way to create this kind of hot, wet, humid enviro. indoors. It's not the most beautiful orchid I've ever seen, but this has been a really cool "experiment" to observe.