Seven Quick Takes: Great Book Combos, Cake Fails, and Shark Teeth

 1.  My friend Bill pointed out that you rarely see The Agony and the Ecstasy and Electronics for the Evil Genius on the same shelf.  I suppose he's right. 

I feel like there's something about this book shelf that encapsulates my life.

Big Enough

2 .  I am always on the look out for spots with poor drainage so that when we get a few days of rain we can have a Ducky Day.

This involves putting on rubber boots and hunting down the biggest puddle we can find... After a thorough soaking, we head home for baths, popcorn and hot chocolate!

We started this when Mxyl and Klenda were toddlers, but if you get a big enough puddle, everyone still wants to play!


3. Joy!  Rapturous delight!  This year I used my birthday money to buy a tree peony!  This is a long term investment, but, over the next 50 or so years this graceful plant will get about 6 feet high and 8 feet wide with progressively larger flowers.

This year I get three blossoms this size (8 inches of petals that look like they are cut from iridescent purple silk).

 4. Have you ever made something you were sure was going to be wonderful, and right about the time you are finishing, you suddenly realize...

That it's a terrifyingly creepy dinosaur cake that looks like it's planning to eat your head?

Yeah.  I know. We all go through that.

Fortunately the cake was for Choclo, and he declared it his favorite cake ever.

Trekking to the beach at Purse Park

 5.  It's shark tooth season!  We live in Maryland, in a spot that was covered with a shark infested sea (30 million years ago).  Yes, some people probably would try not to think about that too much.  But we find this wonderful: since each shark has thousands of teeth throughout it's life, our soil is embedded with millions of fossil teeth!

From Bayfront Beach

Fortunately, we don't have to dig for them.  They are continually washed out of the soil and found on the banks of rivers and the Chesapeake Bay.

Which means, on pleasant spring days, we spend the day at the beach,  playing in the sand and enjoying the water collecting fossils.

These are teeth, ray plates, and bone fragments (from whales and dolphins) from our latest day off scientific expedition.

If you're wondering why this is seasonal, I have two words for you: jelly and fish.

6. We finished our model rockets this week! We will meet one more time on Sunday to launch at NASA Goddard (I really do love saying that!) and we are done with our Astronomy and Rocket classes.  Hooray!  So fun!


7. If you are wondering what happened to The Big Trip, we are still traveling in Japan, although we will be leaving soon for Mongolia.  Blog posts coming soon, I promise.  We just got snowed under with birthdays, anniversaries, and end of year craziness.

If you are wondering what the heck that's about, the short answer is that we came across a truly enormous pile of imaginary money, and we have been using it to take a once in a life time trip around the world.  You're free to join us, and/or if you live someplace we will, or should be going, to have us "stay" with you!

Happy weekend!  More fun with Jen!