Venus Transit (or Not)

Last Monday, Lea needed to take Gillian to the pediatrician in the afternoon, so I used some of my sweet new "Family Medical Time Off" and came home a couple hours early to stay home with Colin. You may remember that last Tuesday (June 5th) was the Transit of Venus. Given that the kids are pretty space crazy at the moment (they must have watched Team Umizoomi: Door Mouse in Space about 100 times), I thought that maybe we should build a Pinhole Projector to try to watch the transit.

Colin and I set about our task with much enthusiasm. We first tried to build a relatively simple projector consisting of a piece of mat board with a foil aperture. We took this outside, and with Monday being relatively sunny, hoped for the best. It seems, however, that we couldn't really get a dark enough shadow to allow us to see the image from the projector, so we added a black fabric hood (Mark Ia, seen here being snuggled by Weasel):

Even with the fabric hood, this was kind of a bust in that the hood wasn't long enough to all you to get the front of the projector far enough away from the ground to make a decent sized image. Thus, on to Mark II.

After reading a bit more about the throw lengths needed for a given image size, and wanting to get a somewhat darker viewing area, Colin and I set about building a new projector from an old wrapping paper tube. Alas, we only had one spool of wrapping paper that was close enough to empty that we could in good conscience steal the tube, and that only got us about three feet of throw. Being resourceful gents, however, we remembered that there was a freezer pizza box waiting to be taken to the garbage so we grabbed that, and managed to add about two more feet of throw to our projector. Behold the Mark II:

This version has a relatively good length (though it still only produces an image of the sun that about half of an inch in diameter) and has an enclosed bottom so its darker for better viewing (apologies for the blurry camera phone pic):

It's not immune from problems, however. Because the tube is so narrow, it's actually very difficult to find the sun with this projector - you really have to have good aim to get the sun onto the target surface. Also the joints between the sections aren't really very strong, so you have to treat it gently.

Anyway, Colin and I managed to get this put together on Monday afternoon, and I believe that he was pretty excited that we were going to see another planet. Then came Tuesday...

Clouds - thick, heavy clouds - all day long. Not a chance of viewing the transit (there was like thirty seconds at around 6:20 when the sun poked out through the clouds - but I couldn't manage to find the sun with the projector in that amount of time). Thus we were forced to see much more impressive pictures on the iPad, though I don't think it quite lived up to Colin's expectations (though, I'm pretty sure he would have actually been more disappointed with the projector as Venus would have been like a pin prick on the half-inch face of the sun).

At any rate, it was a fun little project in building our own scientific instruments, so hopefully that made an impression... and we can always pretend that it produced images like this.

Memorial Weekend, Part 3

Ok, wrapping up! Finally! Phew.

Monday, Memorial Day itself was another hot, hazy day. We finished up breakfast with GraGra, Papa Greg, Uncle Willis, and Leah and headed over to Grammy and Papa Frank's house for our annual Memorial Day picnic. As always, the kids had a ball in the back yard playing, running, and generally being crazy.

Poor Papa, sweating and putting up the shade tent.


Vehicle fun...



On wagon ride down through the back yard the kids and I discovered some wild strawberries. I knew that Grammy and Papa's yard was full of them, but it had been years since I'd seen any and they had a late frost up that way. BUT, we spotted some, gathered them up and gave them a try!




The Keister Family joined us for lunch (sadly, minus Jessie Bean) and everyone had a nice visit, some snuggles, and some activities to tire our poor, old Joe!




And JOE! The kids LOVE him. Glad we got a picture of them together!

Memorial Weekend, Part 2: SIXTY!

Still catching up......and largely a photo dump.

So, Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, we had A LOT planned! My Grandparents Smith are celebrating their 60th Wedding Anniversary on June 14. And, that? That is pretty darn special. And amazing. And deserving of celebration! So, celebrate is what we did.

We started off the morning at church. Well, the ladies did. Gillian, Gra Gra, and I met some of our other family at church for a nice (warm) service and some time to honor some of the long married couples in the church. There were quite a handful of couples who were married 50, 55, and 60 years. An amazing bunch of people! The boys decided to stay home and run off some energy and avoid church.

After church we had a family dinner at a local restaurant. This place is usually closed on Sunday, but opened just for our large group (about 30 of us). We had the entire dining room to ourselves with great service and a TON of good food (it became a running theme of the day). Michael took the chance to get some pictures of everyone chatting and enjoying each others' company.

Introducing the kids to Angry Birds...


Becky, Ben, Isaiah, and Brian.


Sarah, Aunt Debbie, and Bernie.


Me and Great (Aunt) Lori.


The Special Couple (in the middle), Aunt Ann, and Uncle Doug.


Uncle Willis, (The Real) Leah, Aunt Sue, and Uncle Stevie.


The Classic Matt, Samantha, and Rachel.


Looking at that loving gaze!




Sarah and Becky, love this picture!


Gillian must have been funny.


We surprised Grandma and Grandpa with an iPad. They like to read email and Grandma loves games, so we hope they enjoy it.


Michael calls this "Lea Explains it All."


After lunch we made our way to Matt and Rachel's house for an Open House celebration.


Matt and Rachel did so much work and did such a nice job of making their house the perfect spot for a party. It was a warm, muggy day, but their house was cool and BIG and accommodated everyone nicely. Even after a HUGE crashing storm came through! Memorable for SURE! So many of our extended family and neighbors and church family came to say HI and CONGRATULATIONS. It was pretty heartwarming to see how much my Grandparents are loved.

Grandma, Grandpa and their three daughters: Rosanne (GraGra), Sue, and Lori. Forever missing their fourth, my Uncle Mike.


I hope that Grandma and Grandpa had a good day and know exactly how special they are how much they are loved. They are such an example of a good marriage: loving, laughing, and working side by side. For SIXTY years.

Memorial Weekend, Part 1

Finally catching up on Memorial Day weekend, only two weeks late.

We headed north on Friday and settled in with dinner and swimming with Dickiedoo and Noonie! So much fun! And that Gillian is just about a fish in water now! I wish we could get her in the pool more often because I think she would be a full fledged swimmer! And, as usual, no pictures. Bummer.

Saturday kicked off steamy and hot. Thankfully Grammy gave us a call to let us know about the NEW and FUN spray feature added to the Brockway playground! We love a good spray park. And Colin was totally begging to go to a playground that morning. He SO doesn't understand how to be a country kid. Suburban all the way. Kinda sad. Anyway, the spray and play was much enjoyed.


Later on Saturday we had Grammy and Papa Frank over for a picnic to celebrate my birthday! Delicious and fun!

Uncle Willis and Uncle Stevie (not pictured) grilled up some grub.


While the kids enjoyed wheelbarrow rides. Oh Papa Greg, so indulgent.



Colin awaiting his horse/driver maybe???


And then entertaining everyone at his dinner table.


Doesn't Papa Frank look amused?


A nice evening with fun people and delicious food. Especially my birthday strawberry shortcake! Good start to the weekend! More soon!

"A Weekend of Rainbows"

All total we saw FIVE rainbows last weekend hovering over our house! Two double rainbows and one single one. It was WILD. The kids were thrilled! The first double one Colin spotted just as we were putting him to bed. We let them gander at it for a while, then it was off to bed. Colin tried to make us promise it would stay until morning! After seeing the final double rainbow, Gillian looked at me and whispered, "It's a weekend of RAINBOWS. I wish we could look at them ALL DAY." Me too!

Princess Party on the Moon

Yesterday the kids wanted to build sandcastles in our sandbox. And then Colin decided to make water towers. So, we ended up with two princess castles and two water towers. Castles in the rear, towers in the front.

Gillian told us there were three princesses in the two castles, which sounded like trouble to me. Then Colin discovered an old nerf rocket thing and turned it into "blast off rocket to the moon." He kept telling us that the princesses were on the rockets and they were going to a party on the moon. Too funny. BUT, Gillian was not pleased. She kept telling him that the princesses DID NOT want to go to the moon. It was too scary. She probably got that idea from me since I always tell Colin that I'd rather not go to the moon with him in his rocket because I don't like space. Anyway, we settled things by them each getting their "own" set of pretend princesses. Some to rocket and some to stay in the castles. Oh boy.

Accessories Day

The girl just doesn't hold back.