Summer Kick-off: Trip to Macon

Last weekend, I went to a homeschool convention here in Nashville.  My mom was going to come up and watch the kids during that time, but then we all realized that it would be even better for the kids to go to her house.  After all, we couldn’t think of a better kickoff to our summer break than all the fun of Gaga and Granddad’s house!  Thus, while I enjoyed the homeschool convention (and got a couple of answers to my prayers), the kids had a blast at my parents’ house.

They laughed over the fact that I forgot Anna’s pajamas:

They had friends over everyday from my parents’ church:

They played with new toys (this bubble machine is just the tip of the iceberg:)):

They fished:

And of course, they fed the ducks (er, I mean, themselves?):

And went to the beach (Sandy Beach, on the lake):

And relaxed:

And did LOTS of swimming, even though the water was cold!

I joined them on Tuesday, and spend a fun couple of days in Macon, myself.  It was so nice to swim with the kids and go out on the boat and do all of those “routine” activities that we do at Gaga and Granddad’s.  I’m so grateful to have a ready-made vacation destination whenever we need a few days to relax.  Thanks, mom and dad, for such a wonderful time!

Wordless Wednesday

REMEMBER: Treasure

I think I’m going to start a new series where I randomly write down the little things about my kids that I want to remember.  I used to occasionally write collections of facts and quirks about each child in a given stage of development…but honestly, that takes a lot of mental energy and usually a month or so of note-taking to craft a thorough, true-to-life picture.  So let’s see how it works this way:  I’ll just write down the little things one at a time, in short posts…

I bet you didn’t realize that there are sequins all around us.  I know that I certainly didn’t.  But Anna does.  These last couple of weeks, she has been a constant observer of the ground, and it is amazing how many sequins and small beads she finds.  These are her “treasure,” and she zealously hoards them and plays with them and occasionally puts them down for naps and feeds them lunch.  She has also been known to cry when she loses them.  This picture is of the sequins she found during our trip to the Space and Rocket Center.

In contrast, Luke does not think much at all of this “treasure.”  Regarding his notion of treasure, an anecdote comes to mind:  a few weeks ago, we were headed to do our nature scavenger hunt, and Luke was reading over the list of things to find.  One was, “Something that you think is treasure.”  Luke read that and observed, “That is going to be hard for me because I know what treasure is.”  Ha!  So literal.  In contrast, Anna had no problem finding lots of treasure at the scavenger hunt!

U.S. Space and Rocket Center

Today, our family took a day trip to Huntsville, AL, to visit the U.S. Space and Rocket Center.  Our last subject in Science was Space, so I thought it would be a great way to end the school year.  After all, Huntsville is less than two hours away from us, so we might as well take advantage of what it has to offer!

Our friends, the Steeds, were supposed to come, and they were even bringing their grandmother…but unfortunately, one of the boys vomited all over everything just as they hit the road.  Serious bummer.  That, obviously, nixed their plans (although it turned out that Tyler was probably suffering from carsickness after a big breakfast and being on the iPad while driving to pick up their grandmom).  Of course, this made everyone sad.  Luke was temporarily devastated but thankfully, had fully recovered himself before we got there.  He was super happy during almost all of the visit, which was a big relief.

The Space and Rocket Center is a pretty cool place.  Now, I don’t know if it is worth the price of admission:  tickets are $25 for adults and $20 for kids!  Thankfully, they participate in a reciprocal program with the Adventure Science Center here in Nashville, so as members of the ASC, we got into the Space Center for free!  That was pretty sweet. 

After visiting, I think that the perfect age of the Space and Rocket Center is about 5th grade, so my kids were a little young.  Don’t get me wrong—they had a blast, and we had a wonderful family day.  I just think they could have learned a lot more if they were a little older.  Also, a lot of the exhibits needed upkeep, and several were out of commission, which would have been annoying if I had paid that much for admission.  But since we got in for free, I didn’t care!:) 

After a couple of short exhibits, we ventured into an interactive area where the kids could learn about black holes.

In this exhibit, the kids each got an identity card, which they could plug into various interactive stations and gather information.  Luke and I spent some time on a mission to rescue information from an old spaceship that was about to be pulled into a black hole.

No word on whether there were any passengers, but don’t worry:  we got the data!

Here are Anna and Greg at another station. 

From the black hole exhibit, we explored a replica of the International Space Station:

And did…something involving a moon buggy:

Then we posed as astronauts:

And tried out the thingamajig that the astronauts use in space:

(Note:  Spell check did not correct thingamajig:))

Next, we ventured outside for a picnic lunch, with Dippin’ Dots for dessert:

And then we explored “Rocket Park”:

There were a lot of Big Things in Rocket Park.  There were also lots of rides (like the Gravitron and one of those freefalling rides) in which my kids had NOOOOO interest.

From there, we ventured into the other main hangar.  Here’s a sampling of pictures from there:

This last picture is of the kids favorite part of the whole museum:  the kiddie play area.  They could have stayed in there the whole time, I think!

All told, we were at the Space Center for four hours.  I honestly don’t think that we learned a ton of facts about space or anything, but it was really cool to see all the rockets and space craft and get to walk in them and sit in the command modules and all that.  It was good “hands-on” learning, I guess you could say.

And for free admission, $6 for two Dippin’ Dots, and one souvenir per kid on the way out, I think it was a good deal!