My youngest is starting high school this fall, can you believe it? Life can feel so surreal sometimes. It isn’t just the passing of time but the way people change, the way the world has changed, and the way the world is changing. We think we know it all, but at the end of the day, we really don’t know very much. After raising my oldest, who is five years older than my youngest, you’d think I’d have a handle on parenting a teenager, but I feel like I’m back at square one. The complexities of being a teenager is way beyond any science or studies out there. It’s a storm that, as a parent, I have no idea of the outcome. We can only parent the way we know, and most of the time it’s from our own understanding of our own childhood and how we saw our parents. We either want to parent just like them or completely opposite of them, but either way, sometimes, it feels like someone else holds the rein to our children’s destiny.

As a “graduation” from 8th grade gift, my youngest wanted to go to the Butterfly Pavilion. She loves nature and butterflies and remembered her first time going there when she turned five and wanted to go there again. So, we took her. She enjoyed it a lot more than when she was five.

Photos from the Butterfly Pavilion: