Pumpkins!

 We are climbing our way out of the stomach bug hole - enough to get the pumpkins and costumes done today!

Here are Choclo and Leena's pumpkins.

And Zorg and Oob's.

Oob was in bad shape this morning, but recovered enough to actually go trick-or-treating tonight!  Go, Oob! (but not too far, and you are eating only three pieces of candy tonight...)

 Klenda went with a very nice bat carving, totally free hand!

And Mxyl did an etching of the Tardis in the time vortex. 

Very cool pumpkins this year!

 Here they are lit up.

What seemed unbelievable yesterday: all the Zoomlians are upright and able to trick-or-treat (or dress up and give out candy) this year!  


Costume pics tomorrow...


Happy Halloween!

Update

Well, the hurricane wasn't too bad for us: we didn't lose power, thanks be to God!

The stomach bug, however, has been a lot tougher!

So far we have: Leena fully recovered, Mxyl and I weak and shaky, Zorg, Oob, and the Emperor actively miserable, Choclo may be coming down with it, and Klenda, untouched and obsessively using hand sanitizer.

Last night we hit the dreaded Parental Illness Overlap.  There ought to be a law against having both parents down at the same time, doubly so if there are sick kids in the house.

Prayers greatly appreciated.  At least it's going through quickly!

Ready?

Are we ready for Frankenstorm?  Yep.

We have:

Canned food,
Flashlights,
Batteries,
Camp stove,
Extra blankets,
Firewood,
Water,
Kid throwing up.

Yes!  We have it all!

Because, what's more fun than a natural disaster?

A natural disaster with a stomach bug!

If we don't post for a while, you'll know why.

Leaves

  We've enjoyed a run of glorious weather here for the past week: highs in the upper 70s, blue skies and changing leaves - beautiful!

We've been spending a lot of time outside, going on hikes and leaf walks.

We like to collect leaves for our leaf tree, and make rubbings.




It's a good way to learn to identify trees, and it's a good way to bring some of that Fall beauty inside.

And it's a great way to spend these nice days outside!


They won't last forever!

Gas Laws

We're going to go into all these laws with their formulas in class, but I wanted you to see these first to get the general idea:

Boyle's Law: The more pressure you have on the gas, the less (smaller) volume you have, and the less pressure you have, the more (larger) volume.  So, less is more!


Charles' Law:  As temperature increases, volume increases (and as temperature decreases, volume decreases)


Guy-Lassac's Law: The higher the temperature, the higher the pressure, the lower the temperature, the lower the pressure






If you have extra time, here are all three laws explained by the heartless marshmallow guy:


And, if you made it this far, here are the princess hairstyles!

Happy Mole Day!

To celebrate, how about TWO cheesy videos?!

Why? Because we don't have time for 6.04 X 10 to the 23rd videos.







But what about... tor...ture?!!

How about a more educational one with music I actually like?

C & O Canal: Great Falls

 We went off the visit Great Falls to enjoy the turning of the leaves, and this time we tried the Maryland side. 

I had heard that the view was better from Virginia. 

Not true!  This is the area just above the falls.

For one thing, the Maryland side has the C & O Canal.  This canal, the brainchild of George Washington, was intended as a boat route from the Chesapeake Bay to the Ohio river (which flows into the Mississippi and down to New Orleans). 


Now, the Great Falls part is staffed by historical reenactors! 

They let you pet their mules.

And look around on their boats.

Plus they show you how they work the locks!

We would have gotten a ride on the boat through the locks, but the water level of the river (and therefore the canal) was too low.

You also can hike (or bike) the tow path where the mules who pulled the barges walked.

Things we were learned: The canal, 184 miles long, 60 feet wide and 6 feet deep, was entirely dug by hand!! It took 22 years.

Kids and families lived and worked on the boats because each trip took 7 days each way.  They took off when the canal was frozen (3 months) and went to school.

A short walk down the towpath leads to a bridge to an Olmstead Island, a rocky patch in the middle of the river, overlooking the falls.

Actually, it's sort of in the middle of the falls.

 And the island itself is riven with fantastic rocky gorges which must be waterfalls when the water level is higher.

Through a geologic anomaly, the Great Falls part of the river has a water level that fluctuates by 100 feet or more.

The island is covered by a rocky forest, carefully protected by a fenced path.  Many signs warned us that it was a fragile and rare ecosystem and that we must  stay on the path.

Well, I didn't want to be the one to step on the butterfly, so we stayed on the path!

The view of Great Falls is fantastic!

And the viewing platform has a giant boulder coming up through the middle, perfect for climbing.



Interestingly, the boulder has many circular hollows, obviously carved by water - interesting because we are some 70 feet above the current water level!

Some of the hollows were large enough to fit a couple of kids, making it ideal for hide and seek.

It was a great outing, and we'll try again when the water levels are higher.  I really want to try the boat ride!

Learning Curve

I was so pleased I had figured out how to create documents to post to the blog, I didn't realize that I needed to change the privacy setting so you could download them.  Oops!

I fixed it, and you can get the Creed Templates now! PDF Word

Speaking of which, so far, so good!

The different kids "get" the Creed at different levels, and, of course, they have different skill levels to express what they are seeing in their phrase.

But one of the beautiful things about this ancient prayer is that all ages can understand it on some level!

Almost Fall at the Arboretum

 We took a trip to the Arboetum with friends last week.

I had been hoping to catch some turning leaves, but the leaves are only just starting to color up.

We did see a few of Gray's Treefrogs.

These top two photos were from Leena!





And we saw this wonderfully large praying mantis. Can you spot him?

Really, the Arboretum is beautiful any time of year!

We were pretty inspired, so we went out and got some bulbs and mums.

These are Choclo and Oob's gardens, but all the Zoomlians picked out plants.  I planted the mums, but I think they are probably too late to establish roots before winter.

 When we got home, I found that my "Fall blooming" camellia had started to bloom, so I guess the leaf change isn't too far off!

Seven Quick Takes: Loving October!

 

1. Big cream cheese sugar cookies with pumpkin flavor added, rolled and cut out into pumpkin shapes, frosted with orange pumpkin flavored icing, and given faces.

What's not to like?





2. The Year of Faith!  I am really excited about this Holy Year, and I am hoping it will be a year of real spiritual growth for the whole family.  We are working on an illustrated Creed project, and I've made our templates available as PDF and Word Documents.   More info in my Creed post.

3. 7:08:09 10/11/12  Did you notice it?

4. Walks in the woods with the leaves all turning, finding box turtles!

Yes, the poor thing is upside down, and completely clammed up.  Choclo and Oob were very interested to see that he could withdraw so completely into his shell and guessed that it was so that other animals couldn't eat him.

No turtles were harmed in the making of this blog post!


5. Speaking of walks, on a recent foray, we inspected the building of a new path through our woods.  To our delight, they left an excavator lying about.

From the outside, it looked like this. (can you see the little feet?)


From the inside, it looked like this!

We were very careful not to disturb anything.

Interestingly, when we got home, they couldn't wait to tell Daddy...they'd seen mushrooms!








6.Starting new knitting projects with half an eye on Christmas.  Nothing like sitting by a fire on a cold rainy October night, knitting a scarf. 

I love ruffly scarves, so I was quite taken with this yarn.

It definitely looks like I've done something clever, but the actual "yarn" is a crocheted (or tatted) strip about three inches wide.  You just knit the outer edge and it automatically creates billowy, lacy ruffles!

Long time blog followers know I am not an expert knitter (although I am very good at knitting beards) and, while I had to go through the directions several times (never having actually followed knitting directions before), it's pretty easy and will make a nice gift (for someone who doesn't read my blog, so Bill, don't tell her!).

 7.  The beginning of the school year craziness starts to ebb, and we find things like forgotten pictures from our summer vacation (on Mxyl's iPod, thanks, Mxyl!).

This is the Assateague lighthouse (which we climbed).

And this is Misty of Chincoteague's stuffed body (which we did not climb because they have rules about that sort of thing).


More Quick Takes with Jen!