Telescopery

After months of research and saving up money I finally broke down and bought us a new telescope. Here are some pictures with Gwen, who was kind enough to play spokes model for me.


The telescope is an Orion 120ST mounted on an Astro-Tech Voyager Alt-Az mount/tripod. I chose this scope for its portability and versatility.

Anyone who is interested in all the details can read my summary of everything I've learned about telescopes and astronomy over on my new, re-branded, hobby blog: Hawksbill's Hobbies. I've decided to use that space for all my ranting about astronomy, board games, miniature painting, etc. and reserve this blog for discussions about the family and homeschooling and whatnot.

Happy 4th Birthday, Gwen

Gwen is 4 today!! Woo hoo!!! She just opened her presents and now we are eating cake. Very exciting :)

Happy Birthday my sweet sweet girl!!!

XOXOXOXOXO Mama

Jedi Training

We went to Greenfield Village yesterday--braving the nice winter storm we had...but as soon as we found out that they would be having "Intergalactic Saturday" where you are supposed to dress up as your favorite Star Wars character, well, we just HAD to go. They had Jedi Training, lots of different types of storm troopers (don't ask me which is which--Simon knows them all--ask him.)

It was a pretty fun day hanging out with a couple of my siblings, their spouses, and our kids (except Hawksbill had to work yesterday). Simon was the only one in our group who dressed up (he's Han Solo, if you couldn't tell what his costume was). Gwen's Princess Leia costume from 2 Halloweens ago was not big enough (I couldn't find the hair anyway) so she went in her regular street clothes.

I would write more, but it was just a long day of standing in line to have the kids pictures taken with various Star Wars characters. I thought it would be more of a "geek fest" with grown ups all dressed up, but for the most part it was just younger children in Halloween costumes. We had a lot of fun, long lines and all. I would definitely do this again--but next time I will remember to have MY photo taken with Darth Vader. I can't believe I forgot to do that!!! Here is a small sampling of the photos we took yesterday...


R2D2 is THE coolest...


Simon taken prisoner...


Hanging out with the dark side...


Storm troopers just keep getting younger and younger...


Hanging out with the bad guys again...


Simon hanging out with the good guys...this is "Obi Quiett" Hey, I didn't make it up so don't groan at me!

Kids say the darnedest things!

The kids and I went up to my parents' house today, as Hawksbill was hanging out with a friend. We saw the movie, Bolt, went out to dinner, nothing out of the ordinary.

My sister and her children came over, too, so Gwen and cousin S decided to draw some pictures for Grandma to put on her fridge. Gwen proudly presented her 3 pictures to Grandma, and when she was asked what she drew, she responded, "This picture is a bunny. This picture is a kitty. Oh, and this picture is the bloody head fairy!"

Ah, yes...my darling Gwen :) I am just glad Grandma didn't bust out the holy water.

Until next time...thanks, Ren and Stimpy.

Happy New Year!!

Hi, all and Happy 2009!!

Just a quick post to wish all a Happy New Year and wish the best for everyone this year!

I also need to reset our "found money" counter. Last year we found $44.46 US, $4.20 CAD, $0.10 EUR and $0.10 KYD. A much better year than the previous when we only found $9.11 total -- but we didn't start until March of 2007 for that project. I also never separated the US dollars from Canadian. Most of our found money that we found was in coin form, however we did find 1-$5 bill and 1-$1 bill. I also found 1/2 of a $1 bill, but I didn't count it since what do you do with a dollar ripped in half??

This year I am resetting our counter, but since we found $0.11 at Denny's yesterday, we start above $0.00 already!! Woo hoo!! We shall see if we can beat last year's record. We have yet to beat Hawksbill's record of $50, but no fair since he found a $50 bill on the floor of a bar!! OK--so it counts...but this year, we will beat that record-I know we will!!

As a reminder of our "found money" rules: 1) You cannot keep money that you physically see someone drop--you have to give it back (my kids don't like that rule). 2) Money found in your own car, your own house, or in your own couch cushions does not count. 3) Money found someone else's house, car, etc. also doesn't count because you know it belongs to whoever owns that house, car, etc. Finally, 4) you are not required to pick up money that you find in gross places (public bathrooms, in puddles of gross mud or oil, money that generally looks disgusting for some reason or another.) At the end of the year, you can do whatever you want with your found money--invest it, spend it, donate it to your favorite charity...it is all up to you.

Have a wonderful New Year everyone!!!