In March and April, our family was busy with Jacob helping his team for the Colorado Science Olympiad tournament. Plenty of after-school sessions, evenings at the kitchen island tuning his handiwork, and family trips to Colorado State University – Pueblo and Colorado School of Mines (known around here as just “Mines” — note the URL if you click … Read more
Earlier this week, I was hauling the boys on errand after errand all over Colorado Springs. One of the errands was a short stop at Hobby Lobby to “dry mount” one of Timmy’s Atlanta Braves posters.
While waiting for the work to be done (about 15 minutes) I took the kids to the model crafts aisle. I thought they would look at the airplane kits, but they instead wandered over to the model rockets.
The purpose of this blog post is to have a place to quickly compare the two weather stations I have in my backyard. The top “sticker” is for our Davis Instruments Vantage Pro 2, circa 2004. This weather station has performed reliably for our family at each of our last four homes. The bottom “sticker” … Read more
I could have sworn I had heard about the Pensacola MESS Hall from the Pensacola With Kids blog, but I can’t find the reference article. Oh well.
Trust me when I say that I had first heard about it through Pensacola With Kids, but I can’t find the original review now. But what I did find was this story in the Pensacola Digest that came out not long after the facility opened in June.
This facility currently is only scheduled to be open through the 3rd week of August (August 18th according to their Facebook page).
So what is the MESS Hall? Well, for starters, MESS = Math, Engineering, Science and Stuff. It’s a science center unlike anything I had ever seen. And trust me, I have been to many many science museums and explorer-type centers in my days.
The MESS Hall is in downtown Pensacola just a block off Palafox Street near the center square. After spending time here, the family can adjourn to a nice dinner nearby.
The MESS Hall has attempted to capture the feeling of a traditional mess hall, which is a military term for where servicemembers eat on the base or on their ships. The kids will walk in (after paying the $5 per person admission), and are greeted with a open space with tables and assorted areas for free play with wind tunnels, marble run parts and pendulums. The walls are covered in posters featuring optical illusions.
About a month ago, when our friends the Goldmans were visiting from North Carolina, Timmy and Johnny had apples as a snack. “Um, okay…I guess that’s exciting…” Wait, there’s more! I promise! Timmy typically makes one pass around an apple, taking off the skin and any flesh underneath that the first set of bites will … Read more
I’d been writing about the tadpoles and our pond every couple weeks, so here’s the latest: The pond has been doing very very well. The water is nice and clear, we’ve had very little issue for the past couple weeks, although the “hair algae” is starting to grow again, which means a manual scrubbing of … Read more
Last week I talked about bringing 3 tadpoles into the house as a mini-science lesson for the boys. Those tadpoles spent the weekend in a glass mixing bowl while all of our visitors were here. They swam around, eating fish food and leaving plenty of algae-green-colored droppings. You could see visible changes in their eyes … Read more
My sister Margaret and her 3 sons were in town most of last week. It’s always really wonderful when my sister’s family visits. All 5 of our boys are almost like a pack of wolves, they rarely fight, and Margaret and I can talk talk talk talk talk talk talk….. Did I mention we talk? … Read more
A couple weeks ago, Jacob and I (Timmy was in NY visiting Grammy and Grampy) headed out with our friends and neighbors, Shannon, Brandon, Connor and Dean to the Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historic Park, which is near the small town of Royal, Nebraska.
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| From 2010 07 30 Ashfall Fossil Beds |
We had learned about it from our visits to Morrill Hall State Museum in Lincoln, there’s a room dedicated to the skeletons assembled from Ashfall, along with an advertisement for the facility.
Ashfall isn’t close. About 180 miles from Bellevue, and well over 3 hours worth of driving each way. So Shannon and I aimed for a 7am departure time, and headed out.
Greetings from Norway, I mean, Nebraska! On Thursday night, after a couple days of melting ice and cold nights, and after a weak cold front moved through, saturated air near the surface brought foggy conditions to our neighborhood. On Friday morning, I saw our trees covered in heavy frost. From 2010 01 15 Rime Ice … Read more