Hello, Summer!

HERE COMES THE SUN: What a rare delight. Summer started today and the sun was actually out and shining brightly for most of it!

I thought a diamante poem was in order to mark the occasion, so we hopped on the Read, Write, Think Web site and decided to write a synonym style poem (where the first and last word are or mean the same thing). That decided, it was simply a matter of using their fill-in blank approach to write each line. (Subject, two adjectives, three -ing words, a phrase or short list of nouns linking the topic, three more -ing words, two more adjectives and then the subject again.) It works every time. :) 

Let's start with Annabelle's take:

Summer

Nice,sunny

Walking, playing, sliding

in summer there is lots of sun

Shining, reflecting, lighting

Big hot 

Sun

Here's CJ's spin:

Summer

Hot sweat

Playing, sweating, swimming

Beach, sand, shells, swimsuit

Tanning, blinding, soothing

light, warm

Sunshine

And I decided to write one, too:

Summertime

Easy breezy

Playing laughing lounging

Baseball, beach, and barbecue beckon

Relaxing, living, loving

Short, sweet

Summer

Late morning we headed out to the Shoreline campus where they took LEGOs and science classes this year. Today was the annual field day/barbecue. Kennedy was kind enough to tag along with us.

We didn't stay too terribly long, but the kids (all three!) did manage to get some play time in on the playground.  

And CJ and Annabelle enjoyed a sno-cone. I think it's the first sno-cone either one of them has ever had. There were lots of flavor choices.

 Annabelle went with a mix of pink lemonade and cherry. CJ wasn't too sure about the whole thing, but went with strawberry, as he likes real live strawberries. They both ate the whole thing.

I also sent CJ and Bee off to run a lap around the track. They did pretty well, never stopping or slowing measurable. CJ ran all the way carrying a couple of Pringles chips. Wonder if he managed to work those calories off during the lap. 

Amazing how tiny those two look next to the towering evergreens!

We came home for awhile, but then it was right back out this afternoon to Discovery Park, where we hit (and missed) a few dozen tennis balls. Naturally, the zipline and swings got some action, as well. 

MEANWHILE, FAR BEYOND PLUTO: Today we were reading up on Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, thanks to a friend of mine who recently went to an open house at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California - where the Voyagers were built.  She sent us a neat poster about the spacecraft, with a large graphic on the front and the back is filled with Voyager facts and related suggested learning activities.

Twins launched in 1977, they have been heading away from Earth and to the far-reaches of our solar system ever since. They're now three times further from the Earth than is Pluto. Wrap your noodle 'round that! 

The artist's concept below shows NASA's two Voyager spacecraft exploring a turbulent region of space known as the heliosheath, the outer shell of the bubble of charged particles around our sun. After more than 33 years of travel, the two Voyager spacecraft will soon reach interstellar space, which is the space between stars.

This artist's rendition of Voyager's voyage at the present shows our sun giving off a stream of charged particles that form a bubble around our solar system. That bubble is our heliosphere. The part of our solar system that's shown in dark blue is where solar winds travel at supersonic speeds until the wind crosses a shockwave known as the termination shock. 

Voyager 1 crossed the shock line in December of 2004, with Voyager 2 coming along in August of 2007. Past that blue line is an area (shown in gray) called the heliosheath. There, the solar wind drops off dramatically and heats up. Beyond the heliosphere and heliosheath awaits an area dominated by interstellar wind. As the interstellar wind blows toward the heliosphere, NASA says a boy shock forms (the bright yellow arc in the illustration). 

In a story posted on NASA's Web site last week, Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said the latest data from Voyager 1 indicates, "We are clearly in a new region where things are changing more quickly. It is very exciting. We are approaching the solar system's frontier."

It's not the "final frontier," per Star Trek fame, but I can't help but think of Star Trek in conjunction with Voyager, as (the fictitious) Voyager 6 probe played a major role in that movie.

To date, Voyager 1 has traveled over 11.1 billion miles (17.8 billion kilometers). An amazing feat for which NASA deserves major props.