“In places where there are older, well-established trees, you could get up to 85 decibels,” Kritsky said. “To put that in perspective, when a jet is flying overhead that is usually between 60 and 70 decibels.”   Gene Kritsky, editor-in-chief of American Entomologist

AND picked them up and carried them around to show other children on the playground.

Now they cover the ground instead of trees.  They are dying off and the next generation will be burrowing down in the ground to find sap to eat.  I can hear a plane flying over as I type this.  It’s sweet music.

It really has been an educational opportunity.  We sat as a family and watched a couple youtube videos on the life cycle of the cicada.  Here’s our favorite (you’ll have to click through to watch it, but it is worth your time!):

A friend of mine from college, living in Georgia, wrote this funny little piece on the phenomenon.  It’s a pleasant little read as well.

Back in April I told you about a performance Little did at school.  Yes I did tell you; I wrote about it here.  Anyway, I was cleaning off the Flip and found this video footage of her performance and knew the family would want to see it.  So many of you have chosen to love our Little and so I thought you might just enjoy it too.

There are three 1st grade classes at MR Elementary and each class was a different bug.  We had ants, fireflies, and ladybugs.  As the children filed in our eyes were peeled to find our special bug.  KB was thrilled when she saw Little and it’s fun to watch Little’s face as she finally finds us too.

Then Little had her one line, “Do your best.”  She did.

Here are two of the songs they sang.  This might be something only a grandparent can appreciate *wink*.

(You can actually hear Little sing in this one. . . her “for meeeee” lasts a bit long”.  OOh, and listen to what an encourager our KB is!)