Beautiful Butterflies!

A butterfly lights beside us, like a sunbeam...

and for a brief moment it's glory

and beauty belong to our world...

but then it flies on again, and although

we wish it could have stayed,

we are so thankful to have seen it at all.

Author Unknown

Is there anything happier than a butterfly? Yesterday I got to see them up-close-and-personal on yet another 6th grade field trip, this time to the Butterfly House at Texas Discovery Gardens. Six 6th graders, four seniors, and two faculty invaded the Butterfly House and were in AWE of the amazing butterflies and flowers in this facility. Wow! The twelve of us were alone in the room for most of our time there (with one volunteer who was very kind in answering the students' questions). It was incredible! Hot and humid (85 degrees), when outside it was right at freezing, and butterflies were flying all around us, lighting on flowers, brightening our spirits and bringing joy on such a cloudy, gloomy day. A couple of the butterflies allowed one student to touch them. One even flew up and landed on the volunteer's beard as he was talking - unfortunately I wasn't fast enough to get a pic of that!

I can't tell you how much I enjoyed hanging out with these students and experiencing the Butterfly House. I highly recommend it. Apparently they have butterfly releases at noon (which we missed), so I'm gonna have to go back to see that. Here are a few pics from the day.

My favorite - a blue morphos

This is one of the few times that orange is pretty.

The whole group