Wet Wednesday

HERE AT LAST: We were happy to see the squash seedlings are finally starting to peek up through the soil in the egg carton. It's making a late appearance compared to the chives and cilantro.

READIN' DOWN THE STACK: Knowing we were heading out to Shoreline today, I wanted to round up library books to return there. We did a bit of reading so we'd have more to return. One title was a classic - "The Grouchy Ladybug" by Eric Carle. CJ, especially, liked the tough talking ladybug who really wasn't all that brave. We also read "Dragon Scales and Willow Leaves," a story about twins, one of whom has a very active imagination. For example, he sees dragon scales raining from the sky and vikings standing guard, while his sister sees falling leaves and a stand of corn stalks. The third book we read was "Casey Over There." It is the story of two brothers, one young and living in New York City, the other serving in the Army in France during World War I. They exchange letters, which take a long time to reach one another. The young brother also writes to Uncle Sam, and gets a reply from President Woodrow Wilson.

DIRECTOR'S CHAIR: At one point this morning CJ was jumping on his trampoline and flailing at the air wildly. I asked him what was up. He said he was practicing for "a movie I might make when I'm a grown up." The movie will be called "The Roundhouser." It has a subtitle - 'Starring DMAJOR.' " (Pronounced, duh-major, BTW. Interesting. ...) According to the future Producer/Director/Star, in the ads and trailers it will say, " 'Warning: Contains mild language.' " He continued, "It has half bad words and some real bad words. It also contains blood and violence," although he assures, "Don't worry we're just using fake blood."

Sounds like a blockbuster to me. :0

STILL ROCKIN': We missed science last week "thanks" to the flu, so we were glad to be back to school today. The kids continued their unit on rocks. Today they sorted them in a number of different ways and experimented to see what they'd look like wet.

HOT STUFF: Big news at our place this week has been the first ever image obtained from a spacecraft (Messenger) in orbit about Mercury. The shot was taken at 5:20 am EDT on Mar. 29, 2011. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

Apparently there are 363 additional images where this came from. We're looking forward to seeing them. I have to admit, I wasn't expecting Mercury to look like the photo above. I wasn't expecting a moon like cratered surface - I was picturing bubbling molten lava-like stuff, since Mercury is so close to the sun. Speaking of which, we talked about building a spacecraft that was going to orbit Mercury. "What would be important to consider?" I asked the kids. They both hit on the Mercury's proximity to the sun and how hot it had to be there, so the craft would have to be able to withstand soaring temps. Annabelle had the genius idea that since it would be so close to the sun, the craft should be solar powered!

SPACE YOUR FACE: Today, we also made time to make sure the kids' mugs are on board what is believed to be the last space shuttle mission ever, STS-135 in June. I uploaded their photo to NASA's Face in Space site.I sent this photo of the kids. If you don't want to upload a photo, you can still send your name via the link above.

BEDTIME STORY: Before he went to bed tonight, CJ and I read a story called "Best and Worst Handhelds" on Yahoo! The subject matter (portable video game systems) was right up his alley. And speaking of video games, today we popped into the Children's Hospital Thrift Store in Shoreline. It was our first trip there. It's not your typical Goodwill - it's mostly relative high end stuff - lots of crystal and designer women's clothes. But back in their one-shelf electronic section, I spied an X Box with a tag on it that said two things: "Works" and "$20". It came with a couple of controllers but no power cord, so we'll have to round one of those up, fingers crossed it actually DOES work. Oh, and it was 30 percent off, so it only set us back $14. It's either the best $14 we've ever spent, or a small donation to a good cause. Time will tell.