American Ladies everywhere!

Well, not everywhere exactly. But today I saw two different American Lady butterflies around my garden! One, the bigger of the two, I've seen off and on over the past 3 days. The other is smaller and not as brightly colored. I've tried and tried to get a good picture of one of them from the side to put on my site, but they don't seem to like to be photographed! Today I was able to get one picture, but I don't know how it will turn out. The bigger one it turns out is a female also. It was trying to lay eggs, although I didn't see any. Either I just didn't see any, it was only laying them selectively, it hasn't mated yet, or it ran out, I guess. So I just spent a half an hour out in the heat trying to get a picture! And fighting Japanese beetles at the same time. Well, time to cool off and try again later! Is the abundance of American Ladies due to the 4th of July weekend? I don't think so! But you never know!