ladybug, ladybug fly away home...

While we were gone, we asked out west coast BFFs Brandy and Anthony to water our plants for us...they live in the same complex. I think they hate us though, because when we got home our plants were covered in aphids!!!

Well, i don't really think that they planted them there, but it is fun to harass them about it.

So tony and i went out and bought some natural bug repellant. it worked to an extent but they were still there.

Unfortunatly we didn't have much time off to do anything else about it, and we had some visitors arrive the day after we got home.

Out good friends from Virginia work opposite weekends as us and could only come to see us the day after we got in.

Luckily we had time to pick them up from the airport and catch up. Double luck is that fact that our place is close to the train into san fran, so i didn't feel bad going to work most of the days that they were here.

We did however have one good day to hang. We met them at fisherman's warf where we had dinner and then tony and i were so excited to take them to the pier to see the sea lions. To our dismay, as we arrived we could hear all the sea lions barking and carrying on, however when we got within view, there was one lone dead one, a little tiny one that all four of us spent at least on hour convincing ourselves that it was just sleeping...

that was a buzz kill.. after our little mourning ceremony, we headed back to home to catch up some more, knowing that they would be gone soon.

Once we got a day off, and noticed that the bug killer wasn't working, Tony said we should get some ladybugs, since they love to eat aphids.

So we followed the directions on the canister, kept them in the fridge until we were ready to put them on the plants. This keeps them dormant and then they will stay on your plants until the aphids are gone.

So once they were sleepy enough, i dropped them all over our plants and then it seemed like they doubled...there were millions of them all over our tiny balcony!!!

they did go right to work and start eating the aphids, but they also spent a lot of time trying to get into our apartment, so tony and i spent a good part of the night picking them up and replacing them outside..

here are just a few photos to show off our collection...

the next day they were still there eating away ( did i mention that we had millions of aphids and just as many ladybugs???)

That day, tony had a class so i spent most of the day alone, cleaning, working out and laying by the pool.

then when he got home at night we drove to santa cruz to watch the sunset..

unforts...at night, it is a little dodgey...so we walked around town and then as we were heading to the beach and noticed how sketch it was getting, we got on the car and drove the coast in the moonlight.. it was beautiful... there were people all over the beach having fires, but tony and i had no firewood and we don't want to have a fire with just the two of us...so for crying out loud come and visit!!!