Eclipse Monday

The eclipse was amazing.  Here we go...

We were going to try to leave at 8:30am because it was a half hour drive and the farm opened at 9am.  Packing up the car was a bit of a pain.  Joshua decided that he didn't need to help and by telling him where is sweatshirt was that was basically giving him permission to play outside.  So we were both a bit grumpy, but to his credit he did come back inside and pack up his stuff.

We left very close to 8:30am.  There were all sorts of news articles and signs saying, "leave early to get to your viewing location" so I thought we should get there at opening.  I needn't have worried.  We got to the farm at 9am and seemed to be the second group there.  The roads were not busy.  When 10am rolled around the farm was still not busy.  11am - well, there were a few more people.  It really didn't get busy until about noon.  Thank goodness we got there early.  (At the same time though, we had run of the farm for the first two hours and didn't need to wait in lines or anything like that.)  

Ok, we got there and the first thing the kids wanted to do was the zip lines.  We got distracted by the bell and getting a photo first though.

The kids finally got to the zip line and it was amazing.  There were four lines of all different speeds and heights.  I went on all of them throughout the day: one was too short and I touched the ground in the middle.  One was too fast and I didn't appreciate going parrallel to the ground and crashing back onto the seat. (This is the one most of the kids loved.)  One was a little too fast.  One was just right.  All the adults went on them at the same time.

After several runs, they moved over to the, um, running pipes.  Isaac almost pushed his off the track while getting it reset the first time.  This activity was good and they returned to it a few times, but was not as fun as the ziplines.  Ben fell out the one time he did it with Joshua.  I have a nice series of photos showing them slowly getting out of control, but I'm not going to post all of them.

Then on to the pedal carts.  This was ok for a lap or two and then everyone was done.  They weren't super easy to pedal, like most pedal cars, but it was a fun thing to do once.

Then the kids went to the jumping pillows.  They stayed on them for quite a while and thoroughly enjoyed them, but both got a little hurt after a while and were done.  They had no interest in going back later in the day.  While they were doing that, I got myself a donut.  I had missed the ones in the morning because I was loading up the car and just wanted one.  

Then we went back to the car for a break.  From there on, people would come and go.  Joshua was the mostly likely to go back in to the activities.  Ben, Nathan, and Isaac all stayed pretty close to the car; they all had good books and it showed.

Everyone was ready for lunch by the time it rolled around.  I had happened to throw in a container of Oreos that I picked up at the store a while ago.  They were Cosmic themed, which matched well with our activity of the day.  However, not everyone enjoyed the pop rocks in them.

We still had a bit of time before the eclipse started, so the kids all tried their strength.  They needed three people to lift the bag.  (I was able to do it all by myself though!)

Finally, the eclipse started.  I had an app on my phone to help us with the exact timing along with cues at other things to look at.  However, the second it started (C1) was really not all that eventful.  We all watched it, thought we maybe saw something, and then continued life.  For many people that meant reading their book and for some people it meant playing a game or hanging out.  

Periodically we'd put our glasses on, look through the pinhole box, or use a colander.  

The colander didn't work well until Ben realized we needed to hold it further away from the ground; then it was really cool.

We also looked for the parallel fuzzy/not-fuzzy lines.  We saw them, but they weren't as pronounced as I was expecting.

As the total eclipse neared, you could tell that everything was getting darker, like evening time.  There weren't many animals or animal sounds around.  Only a horse.  At one point we said, "Oh!  The horse went in the barn because it thinks it's almost night time!"  But then 5 minutes later the horse was back out so it obviously wasn't a good indicator.  There were also a few wispy clouds that came in during the eclipse.  You could see through them and they did disappear during the eclipse itself (as predicted).  A planet (or bright star) was also visible, but I'm not sure what it was.

We also looked for shadow snakes (both before and after the eclipse) and we couldn't see them.  I had a white sheet, but it wasn't pure white and it was a bit wrinkly.  I'm not sure if that had anything to do with it or not.  The temperature was cooling off.

Finally, it was total eclipse time.  IT WAS AMAZING!!  How do you know it's safe to take off your glasses?  You suddenly can't see anything through them (and the app told us).  The difference between 99% and 100% really was unreal.  Things were so much darker.  You could actually look at the sun.  Even at 99% there was a bright part that made you realize looking at it was not a good idea.  Because the moon was in front, you could see the atmosphere of the sun and so it looked a ton bigger.  Everyone's energy was sky high.  We looked at all the reds and greens around us and they didn't really look odd.  Maybe they just looked as expected in the twilight, but nothing amazing there.  Someone said it looked a bit like a black hole.  The horizon looked like a sunset, but without the sun.

How did you know it was time to put your glasses back on?  (The app told you) and there was a really bright spot peaking back out.  The temperature and lightness returned back to normal within about fifteen minutes.  People started packing up right away, but the kids wanted to go back to the ziplines.

We did stay around for the rest of the eclipse, hitting C4, but got in the car right after that.  So Ben and I estimated that travel back added about 45 minutes.  There were a few detours.  There was some construction + crash just north of Fort Wayne that added the most time.  It was definitely busy...I69 was much busier and I131 was busier than normal.  We stopped at a Culvers for dinner and I'm pretty sure that every eatery was slammed.  Once we got on M6 we thought that traffic might be back to normal, although it wasn't light either.  

All in all, an amazing time.

Weekend: stuff

It was a rather busy weekend, all things considered.  Saturday afternoon Joshua went rock climbing with a friend.  He really does enjoy social climbing the best.

Saturday evening was spent with friends that all have only sons.  The kids ran around and played well.  We had a very good dinner and fun talking with the adults.

Sunday was pretty normal.  Isaac had quite a bit of homework.  We had some questions about a graded homework and I "made" him email his teacher.  It turned out to be graded incorrectly, or at least that 2 of the 3 questions Isaac had marked wrong were acceptable.  I felt it was a good teaching moment.  We also played a math game that was part his homework.  It was...not the best game ever.  This is how the math games usually go for this class.  They're usually an easy way to get some points though, so we'll continue to do some.

Oh!  I did have a funny part.  I went upstairs to go get the boys from Sunday School.  Ben usually does it, but his back has been hurting so I just assumed I'd do it.  I put my shoes on, and opened the door and stopped.  Something looked wrong.  A car was missing!  Did someone steal it?  That seemed improbable.  Did I park it outside the garage?  Ummm...no.  So why isn't there a car?  Oh...Ben went to go get the kids and I didn't hear him leave.  It took me a disturbing amount of time to figure this out.

Friday: Fredrick Meijer Gardens

Today I went on a field trip with Joshua to Fredrick Meijer Gardens.  It was a bit cold out, and I didn't really enjoy the driving, but it was otherwise a lovely day.

There were plenty of chaperones, so all the adults only had one or two students with them.  I had Joshua, obviously, and his friend Ben.  Ben has been in my field trip group before and he's a great kid.

We got there no problem.  Besides the guided lesson we could choose what we wanted to look at so we started with the arid plants.  The butterfly area was looking a little full, so we decided to come back later.  We went outside and walked around the pond and farm areas.

Then it was time for the guided lesson.  It was on adaptations, especially of butterflies.  It was ok.  It was probably age appropriate but I was a bit bored.  Lunch was next.  Joshua and I were both hoping for an inside lunch but they had us in an outside pavilion.  When we sat in the sun it wasn't too bad, but it wasn't very warm either.

After lunch we were going to go in the butterfly room but the line was really long.  Dealing with plans changing was probably one of my favorite parts about these two kids...they decided that the line was too long so we should do something else and they were both fine with that.  Ben really wanted to get to the Japanese garden because he and his mom had been talking about the cherry blossoms.

The problem was that we didn't know what a cherry blossom looked like.  So we took several pictures of not-cherry blossoms.  I also took some of Joshua.

Eventually we actually found some cherry trees and it was a happy time.

After the Japanese garden we went to the children's area.  We went through the hedge maze, but the treehouse was declared too busy.  We decided to go look at the art exhibit in the building for the last 15 minutes.  However, the butterfly line wasn't long any more!  So we snuck in there for about 10 minutes.  The whole afternoon was great, but I really do like the butterflies.  (At the same time, 10 minutes was about right.)  No butterflies landed on us, although we tried really hard.

The traffic leaving the gardens was absolutely terrible.  But we made it without incident.

Grey Bear's bad part of the day was that Joshua didn't bring him to the gardens to recreate an old picture.

Wednesday: alarming things

Last night, around 1:20am I heard an alarm go off.  It was shrill and insistent...beep beep beep.  beep beep beep. beep beep beep.

I was out of bed so fast and to the bedroom door a second later.  As I opened the door, another second later, it stopped.  I walked into the house, and my first thought was that there was no smoke.  I checked the oven.  I checked the fridge.  Nothing.  I went downstairs and checked the freezer.  The furnace seemed fine.  What else could have made such an alarm?  Something from a device...the ipad?  A phone?  A battery backup?

Well, a half hour later there was still no additional alarms and my heart rate was finally slowing down.  I got back to sleep.

In the morning, no one else had heard the alarm, although that isn't all that unexpected.  Was it a dream?  I heard it when I was out of bed, so that would be surprising.  It is still a mystery.

My other alarming thing was when I grabbed a pen and it started to write in blue ink.  Well, that is odd; I was sure that it was a black ink pen.  Black?  Blue?  What was going on?!?  It turns out that we have two pens that look exactly alike but have different inks in them.  I wasn't going crazy.

Tuesday: reading

It was a pretty normal day today.  There were some new routes at rock climbing, and both kids really enjoyed working on them.  It meant I had more time for my book.  I read a lot while we were in Fort Wayne and got pretty far through my series.  I finished the book after dinner.  There's only one more in the series, which I fully expect to enjoy, but then I'll be rather sad that the series is done.

Monday: boring

 Honestly, it was a rather boring day.  I woke up before my alarm - I couldn't quite get comfortable.  I did assorted chores even though I didn't want to.  I'm far from on top of things, but several of the mundane chores (laundry/kitchen) finally got finished.  

I picked up Joshua from school.

I picked up Isaac after band practice.

I made dinner - it was pretty yummy.

I went to karate - we worked on some basic actions and getting them perfect.

Joshua started M-step testing today. We were asked to send a letter of encouragement for our kids.  I was pretty proud of what I ended up with.

Sunday: morning math

This morning Isaac asked me, "what would the math be that if a is a positive number b is positive and if a is a negative number b is negative?"  

It ended up being a collaborative effort, but we ended up with the equation: a = abs(a)*b.  Next he went to graph it.  Then he started playing around with the equation.  After he tried a few things that didn't work out I put in a+1 = abs(a+1)*b and that altered it like he was looking for.

 (Pat, don't roll your eyes.)

Friday: racquetball

Ben was having a back procedure today, so we decided to play racquetball in the morning!  It was lovely.  Ben won both games, but I put up a good fight.  We have obviously lost some skill, but it was also surprising how well we still did.  We had some great serves and some good volleys.  ...it was good exercise and we were tired at the end.

I found our college IDs in my racket case.  How did they manage to stay in there so long?

Horizon slept with Isaac a few nights ago.

weekend: Fort Wayne

 Like normal, we went to Fort Wayne for a weekend over Spring Break.  Joshua, especially, was so excited.  He was hoping for waffles or French toast sticks for breakfast and to go to the wooden playground.  Liz delivered both delicious breakfasts and we went to the playground.

When we got there in the evening the cousins immediately started doing their thing.  They didn't have all that long though because it was already 9pm.  This time Ben also came with us!  Usually he stays home and works, but we were happy to have him along this time.

Saturday, after homemade waffles, JJ and I played Dominion.  He wanted to play and it's one of my favorite games, so I brought ALL the cards.  We ended up playing three times throughout the weekend so while it might still have been overkill to bring that many, it was reasonable.

We had a late morning trip to go get croissant-donuts.  They were delicious!  I split a donut with Isaac, so ended up with half a lemon and half a chocolate peanut butter.  I liked the chocolate peanut butter better, but they were both very good.

Then we went to a nearby farm.  It had rained a lot recently and so the trails were slightly squishy.  As normal, Joshua fell down in the mud.  It wasn't as bad as his last mud escapade though, and he just walked it off.

They had a few animals but not a ton.  The day was a beautiful one - cool but sunny so it felt warm.

We also saw activity at the blacksmith shop, so we stopped by to see what was going on.  It turns out there was a ladies blacksmithing class, but they were finishing up and the instructor was so happy to tell us about what they were doing and show us things.  Several times I thought it was about time to go, but then she'd say, "and let me show you..." and  we'd learn something else really interesting.

Sunday.

The plan was to go to the playground after lunch.  JJ and I easily roped Ben and Isaac into playing a game of dominion.  Ben and I trounced the kids, with Ben winning overall.  JJ had a bit of a hard time with the strategy with the set of cards.  (I mean, I kept giving him additional rules each time we played.  He did well with the rules.)  Isaac's plan didn't pan out at all and he never acquired more points.  I was a bit surprised about that because he usually has a plan.

The the kids continued playing with plus-pluses.  They had started on Saturday, playing with them for at least an hour, but on Sunday they played with them for several more hours.  The adults were all rather surprised, but happy that they found something that worked for them.

If the afternoon we went to the wooden playground and the kids had a great time!  They played their normal game.  It was a bit warmer than previous years - it's often grey and cold, and this time it was mostly sunny and cool.

The kids were really tired at the end of the day and had a hard time figuring out where to sleep.  It was finally figured out and they fell asleep quickly.

Thursday: a conversation

 J: I thought Dad was reading tonight.

A: He is.  I'm just changing [my clothes in the bedroom].

B: Don't change!  I like you just the way you are.

I: So Mom's reading?

B: That's what you got out of the conversation?  Let me replay it for you...

Ben says the whole conversation again.

J, coming into the bedroom: What did you say?  Why are you laughing? I thought you were reading.

B: Let me tell you the whole conversation...

Ben says the whole conversation again. 

So, after the third time, I can relate the conversation word for word instead of approximating it like normal.

Wednesday: still working on it

I know I'm behind a lot of blog posts, but I won't forget them.  I've found that if I keep going and back-fill it works better for me than trying to keep everything in time-order because I don't always want to write the exciting blog posts - they're often rather long.  But I will.

I had a lot of things on my to-do list today and didn't finish a lot of them.  It is a bit of a problem, although I suppose I got all the really important ones done.  Friday is looking rather busy, so we'll see what happens over the weekend.  Otherwise I'll try again Monday.

Nothing overly exciting happened today.  We're having some issues with our taxes.  I brought in all the documentation back in February and they're just contacting us about a problem.  I know extensions can be filed and whatnot, but it's still rather annoying.

Thursday: 5 minutes

My schedule was packed today it it often felt like I was rushing from place to place with only five minutes to spare.  I made almost everything, and Dad picked up the slack the time I messed up the timing and he brought the kids back home after lunch at Hope.  I left the house at 7:30am this morning and while I was home several times, I wasn't home for good until 6:45pm.

Two things were even canceled today because of spring break.

I'm tired.

Wednesday: library

Today was not all that exciting.  We went to get some groceries and return pop cans and it was snowing.  Then we went to the library and happened to see Joshua's friend, who was there to watch a movie.  Joshua ended up staying with them while Isaac and I came home and played Dominion.

I did some chores.  Not enough to have a clean kitchen, but enough to stay on top of the important things.  Last night in bed I realized that 3 out of the 4 appointments that I (or the kids) have over the next two weeks have conflicts.  I resolved two of them today.  The groceries are put away and the laundry is all clean.

Monday: racquetball, furniture

Today's main activity was going to try racquetball with the kids.  It was actually a really good day, since Hope was still on Easter break.  We're debating about it being Joshua's main exercise during the summer.  It went a lot better than I expected...even though Joshua tweaked his wrist at the end.  They liked the echoes, could sometimes hit the ball, could serve the ball well enough, and overall had a pretty good time.

I won the actual game we played, 7-0-0.  Just to make sure they don't think they're doing too well.  We did cycle through twice, because Isaac had a really good return that I couldn't reach.

I also found a lot of instincts ingrained in me.  *Don't look backwards.  *Crouch down when you don't know what's going on behind you. *Serve to the corners.  *Move to the middle

The crouching one was the funniest, because the kids are not strong enough hitters to actually hurt me even if they did manage to hit the ball.  But otherwise my back tingled too much.

I completely enjoyed myself.  I miss racquetball.

The kids were bored on-and-off today, so they decided that we should move around the bedroom furniture today.  I wasn't about to argue, so that's what we did in the afternoon.  They were amazing helpers!  And strong.  The whole project took about an hour, and that included cleaning all the dust bunnies and putting the room mostly back to rights.  Ben was surprised when he got home.

Joshua is at a sleepover tonight.  We've tried doing this sleepover several times and it hasn't worked, but since it's now 10pm and he's been sleeping for over an hour I'm optimistic.  Last night when I reminded him it was a bit rough, but by the morning he seemed to have snapped out of it.  I also brought him over pretty late, hoping that if there wasn't too much time before bed to get wound it up would be easier.

Resurrection Sunday: He is Risen!

He is Risen indeed!  We opted for church at home today, partially so we could be with Ben, partially because churches are packed on this Sunday.  It meant we never got out of our comfy clothes, but we celebrated this wonderful day.

Joshua decided to make a bird house with some of his special Lego pieces.  Since I suggested that for him, I was put in charge of making the bird.  It isn't amazing, but it's cute.

 

We once again ended the day by all reading together on the couch and it was lovely.