Sparking To Learn

It’s been a strange, but very interesting, week around Casa Chen. Aunt Judy came down to spend a week with us before she heads to her next job up in Maine, and this weekend honorary Uncle Ryan came to hang out for a couple of days and take Dave down to the ‘Gunks (Shawnagunk Mtns.) for some climbing.

Our regularly scheduled activites and business fell by the wayside as we made trips to Chuck E. Cheese, lots of shopping for arts and crafts and fun activities, and plenty of hanging out and eating yummy things.

On Saturday, we had our normal morning swim lessons at the YMCA. Then we did the regular Saturday shopping trip at Wegmans, except we had a much bigger than normal list since we were prepping for a grill out with Judy, Ryan, and our friend Davey.

Dave, Judy, and Em dropped me and the little kids off at the grocery while they went to the mall. Nate and Anna were excited because we had enough shopping time (usually grocery is a ‘hurry up and get done’ activity) that they got to be the corn shuckers for this trip. It was their first time husking and de-silking the corn, and they were serious and thrilled in equal parts.

Today found us heading off to 5 Guys for burgers and fries, and then Coldstone for dessert. I snapped a few pictures with Em’s camera, and Anna made sure I got a picture of her with her daddy. She’s very much Daddy’s Girl, and loves him quite loudly and enthusiastically.

Tomorrow starts another crazy week, with Em attending YMCA Camp Arrowhead and Dave and Ryan heading out for their climbing trip. Aunt Judy will head back to Rochester for a few days before coming back on Friday to hang out again on her way to her new temporary home in Maine.

I’ll try to blog more regularly again as things calm down. I’ve got great plans to post pictures of our newly reorganized school room, which I hope will happen soon.

Until then, it’s work and sleep for me.

Our friend Heather was kind enough to invite our family and the Piseco/Jedi Family out to her home in the country to enjoy some lunch, playing, and a splash in her pool.

Some of the kids had fun making their own pizzas.

And at least one of the kids just enjoyed eating it.

After pizza, the kids hit the pool. The big kids spent their time in the Howell’s awesome big pool, and the little girls were in a baby pool on the deck.

Ethan spent some time lounging like a lizard on the deck.

Em didn’t leave the pool till we practically dragged her out.

There was lots of watermelon eating, and plenty of sticky faces and fingers.

Wee baby Jillian sat for ages in her little pool, splashing happily and soaking up the sun.

All in all, it was a wonderful afternoon full of fun, friendship, and a whole lot of love.

Forty (thanks, Alexa) years ago today, Neil Armstrong climbed down from the lunar lander and captivated the world in black-and-white on their tiny televisions.

For my kids, the concept of being able to travel into space is more basic than wondrous. They know that there are researchers living in space, and that it’s quite possible that tourists will regularly fly into Earth orbit or beyond within their lifetimes.

I couldn’t convince the kids to be excited about any of the projects I had planned (a frequent occurrence), but we watched a couple of episodes of Bill Nye (Space Exploration and The Moon) and they worked with model magic while they were listening.

Emily decided she would build some Aliens watching over the “teeny-tiny Earthies”. I love her stereotypical green men and their little flying saucer, just hanging out behind our home planet.

Anna Banana wanted nothing to do with “Outside Space”. She decided she was going to build a coral reef and stick her favorite yellow cut-out fish on top. She requested frequent photographs.

Like this one, when she was telling me how she feels about the fact that her coral looks like pre-chewed gum:

And this one, of all of her hard work in progress…

Or this picture of her finished, pink and yellow project:

Oh, and my favorite picture from today. I can’t resist her puppy-dog eyes looking up at me.

But, you say, I thought you had three children. I thought you had a son. Uhh, yeah, I do. He abstained from all activity today. He has, however, agreed that it’s pretty cool men walked on the moon long ago and has requested that we let him know when it’s his turn to go to Mars.

We spent today hanging out at Chuck E. Cheese while the painters continued to work on getting the outside of the house finished. After several hours of electronic fun at the House of the Lesser Mouse (because no mouse is more mouse than Mickey, of course), Dave picked us up to head to our classes of the night!

The kids had gymnastics while Dave was at the dojo. The Jediclan (are we still using fake names?) were 3/4 present at the dojo since Jediboy studies Karate almost every weeknight, so I picked up Baby Girl to keep me company while I waited at the air conditioned gym for our class to be over.

We spent our time talking, giggling, and sharing snacks at the “Gym of More Food”. I decided to do a little work on the laptop, so she decided to watch some Strawberry Shortcake on the Ipod. I was very amused to hear her little voice pop up next to my ear and say, “Leigh, take a picture of me.”

This was the first time she’s ever asked me to take a pic, so I indulged a bit and shot several of her doing what she does best…eating and entertaining, all at the same time.

Sk8R GRRRLS

They’ve been best friends and neighbors since before they can remember. This is their first Summer of almost-freedom, riding bikes and skating up and down the street and into the park.

We got a big box of surprises in the mail today from Steve Spangler Science. The kids were eager to jump right in to playing with their new baby soda bottles and test tube racks. We decided to work with two projects today. The first, and the one that kept them occupied for the longest time, was a good old color-mixing experiment.

The kids started off with empty test tubes, a large beaker flask of water, a pipette, and three fizzy color tabs. They turned the fizzy tabs and water into three tubes of liquid- red, yellow, blue. Then they used those colors and their pipettes to experiment with secondary color combinations in the empty tubes.

After the color experiment, we used some Magic Sand to study the concepts of hydrophilia and hydrophobia.

I think we’re going to love our newly restructured screen-porch Science Lab!

We’ve already started making another order at Steve Spangler. We’re a little obsessed with their Test Tube Experiment Kits. They’re incredibly kid-friendly. Simple enough that the kids can go it alone with minimal adult supervision.

I’m a twitter addict. I used this post to keep track of my tweeting for a while, but now I’ve moved twitter updates to their permanent place in the sidebar.

Just..

Just the soundtrack for a single day in my life.

~L