Kinda Cool…. December 17, 2008

I know this is old news for most but thought I would post anyway.  Last Thursday we got a call from a neighbor that there was a special visitor on base. Everyone was home and we had no pressing tasks, so we all hopped in the van and went down to the designated area.

The gates were open so we were able to get a shot without a fence in the background.

 It was neat to see…especially for a geek like me who’s big dream in middle school was to be able to attend space camp.  I was surprised to see how beat up the shuttle looked though.  I thought it would look all nice and pretty like it does when I see it on TV.  But I guess if I had just re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere, I would look pretty rough too.

Close up of the not-so-pretty nose.

Home School/10th Birthday Field Trip December 14, 2008

We had promised Jackie that we would take her to Dallas to see the King Tut exhibit at the Art Museum for her birthday. We aren’t in to the big birthday parties at hell Chuck E Cheese..we usually just let the girls pick one activity that is a big deal and that they would enjoy. How can we tell her “no” when she requests something like that as her birthday fun?  We were supposed to go in November but we had a family emergency and had to cancel the trip.

So on Wednesday we got up and out of the house by 6:30am- which is nothing short of a miracle for us.  We had a big day planned in Dallas….King Tut, The American Girl Store, Lakeshore Learning, and PF Changs for dinner. We drove 3 hours to Dallas and got to the museum just as 4 school buses pulled up. I was a little worried  about my kids getting run over but the high school kids we were surrounded by were very polite and friendly. They kept trying to take pictures of the exhibit with their cell phone cameras, but that wasn’t my problem.

The girls in front of the sign for the exhibit

We all learned many new and interesting things about the Boy King from Egypt that day. Katey was a little bored but tolerated the exhibit rather well.  Izzy came close to setting off several alarms but Jackie was fascinated….which is what this trip was all about.  It was awesome to watch my daughter ask questions and discuss what life must have been like in Egypt.  I think she even impressed a couple of the guides with her questions. “Why were the anterooms in the tomb so disorganized?  Has King Tut’s mummy ever travelled? Have they ever determined a cause of death?”  Active learning….I love it.  We didn’t see much of the rest of the museum as Daddy declared he hungry and “not that in to art”…such the engineer. (insert eye roll here) We ate lunch and then headed to the American Girl Store where Katey was MUCH happier.

After Katey took forever to decide what she wanted to spend her money on and Jackie got Mia’s ears pierced, we headed to the Lakeshore Learning store to pick up some Christmas things for the girls. How can you tell when the home school bug has bitten you? When you can find more Christmas for your kids at a school supply store than you can at Toys ‘R Us.  hee hee!

Then we moved on to PF Changs where we filled our bellies and walked around a very expensive mall before heading home.  No wonder the majority of families in the US are having  a hard time financially. I don’t know what kind of work these families are in to, but the number and size of bags leaving stores like Barneys, Saks, Versace, Louis Vuitton was almost nauseating.  I can’t help but wonder how many kids those bags of “stuff” could feed and clothe and shelter. I can be just as much of a consumer as the next gal but this place was ridiculous.

This photo was taken in a room with special lighting for an exhibit on color. My camera was on regular settings but we all looked like we were in black and white.

While Daddy ran in to get a cup of coffee, I changed the girls in to their jammies…we snuggled in to car seats with blankets and a movie and then headed home.  We didn’t get home until almost midnight but I must say we had a wonderful and fun day.

Another one bites the dust…. December 2, 2008

In the past few months, our oldest daughter has become obsessed with all things Star Wars.  She wanted to see Clone Wars when it was in the theater, hubby took her and she has been addicted since.  She checks comic books graphic novels (as I was once informed) from the library, she ensures her latest episode of Clone Wars is not deleted from the Tivo, she play fights with her light sabre against the boys outside, she was Princess Leia for Halloween, and it took everything Jason had to convince her we needed to limit the number of Star Wars ornaments on the Christmas tree.  Even though I like to tease her about it every now and then, I think it’s awesome.  I am proud to have a daughter that doesn’t just see Star Wars as “boy’s stuff” and she plunges right in.  I use this opportunity to tell her she can do everything the boys can do.  Occasionally she takes a break to play with her American Girl doll, but those breaks are brief these days.

So one out of three isn’t bad. When the girls do something that is more like one of us, we will say that we “got one”.  Katey agrees with me and thinks that Star Wars is boring and says the movies do not have enough music in them.  She prefers “Hairspray”, “Grease”, and the singing princess movies.  We thought that Izzy was oblivious to things at this point and was only interested in “DDDDDoya”.  After last night, it is painfully obvious that she is not.

We had a pretty busy day yesterday and it was not until after dark that we got the chance to walk the dog.  It was Jackie’s day to walk the dog and since it was after dark and cold, I was going to head out with her. We both bundled up, grabbed the flashlight, plastic bag and the leashed dog.  As I was walking out the door, Izzy was standing there screaming that she wanted her “yite saya”.  “I WANT MY YITE SAYA.  I WANT MY YITE SAYA”. I must admit that it took me a moment to realize that the small flashlight I had in my hand was what she was so upset about.  She has claimed it as her very own light sabre.

Sigh….