Saturday Ramblings

My life this week has been a series of unfortunate spills by the animals of the house.

It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't keep stepping in it.

I haven't figured out exactly what has set them off, but I suspect it was the week long visit by Grandma.

She pretends to like the animals. As long as they stay as far away from her as possible.

Unfortunately, as with most animals, ours know who does and who doesn't like them and it just makes them all the more friendly to those who don't.

This display of friendship sends Grandma into hysterics, waving her arms or kicking at them with her feet, all the while shouting "JEFF! HELP! Get over here" at the top of her lungs.

She is now safely back in Vegas and our life is SLOWLY returning to normal as we slip back into the school year routine. Which essentially means I will remember what day of the week it is when I wake up in the morning.

Today is Saturday so I get several hours by myself on the computer while Jeff and Alex beat each other up in Karate, Katherine is at Gabby's and Jeffrey pops in out to ask me deep philosophical questions.

Like "Are people bald because they wore a hat too much and it rubbed all the hair off?" or "If I asked my teacher for the whole years homework right now, could I do it all over the weekend and then play video games after school because my homework was all finished until Jr High?" and the last one  "If the number 2 pencil is the best one to use, why don't we call it number 1?"

I wonder if he sits around and thinks these things up just to make me stop and have to think about what he saying.

Way too early for coherent thought.....

Who put 7 AM so early in the morning?

Honestly, would it kill someone to move it closer to the afternoon?

The dog is still sleeping, why can't I?

Oh right, I had to get up and schlep the crew to their institutions of learning.

Summer is over and I am forced to get reacquainted with the wee hours of the morning.

I suppose it will facilitate my getting more work done. I'm trying to figure out if that's a good thing or not.

Overall, I think the kids are happy to be back into the swing of things.

Well perhaps not Alex. He has been dreading this year since last April.

His class schedule is as follows:

~ Math Analysis Honors (which I assume is more than sitting around and analyzing 1 + 1 = 2)
~ AP English (which required he read Grapes of Wrath over the summer. Yesterday his homework was to pick out themes of the book and he wanted to know if  he could include "boring" and "unnecessary" without getting himself into trouble. I told him probably not).
~ AP Computer Science (He's going to learn how to program in Java... I told him I could probably help him with that since I am quite familiar with several types of Java including Breakfast Blend and French Vanilla. He did not find my humor especially helpful.)
~ AP Physics (Scares me just typing the words)
~ AP US History (I told him to study the states over the summer, but did he listen... NOOOoooo... what is his first test today? Name all the states. See mom knows what she's talking about some of the time.)
~ AP Spanish 4 (Me llamo Paco...Et tu, como te llamas?  See I'm bilingual.)

Alex pretty much figures this is the end of his life as he knows it and that he will never leave his room except to go to school and occasionally use the bathroom.

I told him I would keep dinner warm and slip it under his door around 6 PM every night so not to worry.

Good to see all of you again!

Now off to eBay land!

Summer Fun at the California Science Center & Griffith Park Observatory

As I feared, I have had no time over this summer to do much on my blog. 

SOON the kids will be back in school and I will be able to get back to regularly scheduled programming!

But in the mean time I am trying to keep up with picture trip reports.

On Thursday I took the troops downtown to see the science center.

I think Alex was 3 the last time we visited.

The cast of characters included:

Me (well you knew that since I took all the pictures)

4 of my own personal kids:

Sarah (We picked her up on the way there)

Alex (He needed a break from all that tiring Black Ops he's been forced to endure these past weeks)

The Partners in Crime, Jeffrey & Katherine

and The Twins, Jacob and Olivia who are spending most of their summer with us.

So we arrived bright and early, er, wait.... I mean in time for lunch at the California Science Center which shares real estate with the Colosseum (where many of the 1984 Olympic games were held) and The Natural History Museum:

First stop.... a picture in front of a SR-71 Blackbird:

For some reason the dry ice fog didn't show up when I took the picture:

The kids were fascinated with how small the Apollo capsules were:

Jeffrey listening to the Doppler effect:

Katherine and Olivia looking at the satellite exhibit:

The crew playing virtual soccer:

Alex trying out the ping pong ball machine:

Jacob trying his hand at it:

Sarah checking out some information on the wall:

All 4 of them trying to pick up balls with different types of bird beaks:

Jeffery & Jacob take a ride on a snowmobile:

Katherine, Jacob and Olivia check out the frozen wall:

Sarah and the girls find some dessert bugs and lizards:

Waiting to get splashed by the flash flood:

Alex showing Jeffrey how one of the machines work:

Smashing their hands in the ocean depth pressure machine:

Checking out the 2 story deep salt water tanks:

The kids loved watching the divers feed the fish:

Katherine looking into the under water periscope:

Getting some close up looks at the fish:

We were first in line when they opened up the touch tank:

Jeffrey and Jacob head for the 3rd floor:

Planes from the next door Air & Space museum are on display here while the other museum is being renovated:

Because we didn't do enough already today, we stopped at the Griffith Park Observatory:

Somehow we got inside, despite the contradictory signs:

The boys checking out the "Big Picture" from the new viewing platform:

Katherine and Jacob looking at Meteorites:

Jeffrey sits with Griffith J Griffith and demonstrates how little sky is actually shown on the "Big Picture" wall.

The planets shown in correct proportion:

View of the Hollywood Sign from the lower observation deck:

The gang's all here!

All in all we had a really great day!!