All kinds of fun and excitement this week!  We started by finding this nasty looking creature all over our orange tree.  This is the larvae of the Giant Swallowtail Butterfly and they are decimating our tree.  Aren't they hideous??  Mom did a little research to make sure they weren't endangered or anything and then she donned her biohazard suit and started plucking these guys,  leaves and all off the tree.  Into a zip- lock bag and into the trash they go.  We did leave 3 or 4 because they turn into something pretty and we took two into school for my science class.  And we didn't use pesticides.  So we weren't complete savages...

You may have heard of a little hurricane called Odile.  We did.  For about 5 weeks.  Our weather people were giving all kinds of dire predictions about epic flooding in Tucson.  GET YOUR SANDBAGS READY!!  The weather channel was here, the Today show was here, my school was let out early, dat-dat's work booted them all out early and guess what happened?  Nothing.  That's what.  The rain hit Nogales, Mexico pretty hard but completely missed all of the populated areas in Arizona.  This once again proved mom's theory of inverse proportions.  The bigger deal the media makes about the weather, the less impact it will have. Since no one is talking about Hurricane Polo, she figures this will be the one that drowns us all.

We had a nice weekend.  I had my second softball game of the season on Saturday morning.  We played against a very well coached, very good team.  We lost of course and our coaches were kind of not paying a whole lot of attention but they were trying.  I didn't have an especially spectacular game- my pitching was off and I struck out twice.  I can't be perfect every game so this was my off game for the season.  I shook it off pretty quick when the Oreo snack game out though.
Saturday night, my great Uncle Richard had his 70th birthday party.  The whole Goedel clan was there and it was great fun!

I danced with Uncle Richard and he had some good moves...

but I had some good ones too.

Big Richard and Little Richard

You know when the conga line breaks out, its a party!

Then I even danced with dat-dat.  We danced to the same song that mom and Mr. Walker danced to at mom and dat-dat's wedding.  Mom got a little sappy at that one..

And then, I danced some more!  This time with my cousins Ashley and Maggie.  We had a fabulous time and can't wait until Uncle Richard turns 70 again.

Sunday has been nice and quiet.  Mom has started training for another 1/2 marathon so she dragged me out on my bike and Ginger out on her leash to do her short run this morning and then we took Ginger out for a play date with her friend Phoebe, the Boxer.  Everyone is tired and that should make a for a good night sleep.

As promised last week- here are a couple of pictures from dat-dat's mountain biking trip with Mr. Walker last  weekend.  It looks just gorgeous.  We will be there in two weeks and it should be a good time for changing leaves.

Have a good weekend!