Moon & Jupiter

Tonight I dragged my parents out of the house at sunset to get a glimpse of the Full Moon and Jupiter in the twilight sky. We only had to walk a short while to get a good view. I took these photos using my iPhone.

In Which I Paint the Moon

There was one last square left to paint on my canvas, and Lex suggested that I paint the moon.

I decided that the moon was basically a desert, so I added a cactus to my moonscape.

There is a little yellow bloom on my cactus.

And now, the canvas that I have been doodling on with paint is completely full.

It's a 6-in-1 Masterpiece of sorts.

Tonight I set up my telescope and looked at some craters on the moon

And I took a telescope selfie

I wanted to look at Jupiter, too, but it kept hiding behind the trees and clouds.

Lunar Eclipse

I went out to look at the lunar eclipse at totality, which was around 4:30 this morning. It was spectacularly pretty. I took some photos with my phone, but they really don't really do it justice. 

I thought about getting out my telescope to get a better view/photos, but the best place to set it up was in the middle of the street. I decided that was a bad plan, so I abandoned that idea.

I accidentally woke Lex up, so he got to see it, too. It turns out that the moon was perfectly positioned to be visible from the tiny window inside the guest bathroom. Lex didn't even have to go outside to see it.

The moon was red, with just a tiny sliver of bright silver light on one side. Super pretty. Worth getting out of bed and putting on some boots and coat to take a gander.

Clear Skies

When I went out to check the mail tonight, I realized that it was a beautiful night. 

The sky was clear and the weather was warm.

So, I went back inside the house and got my telescope.

I'm getting faster at setting it up.

I took this picture of the Pleiades with my cell phone through the eyepiece of the telescope.

I bought a cell phone adapter so that I can hold it steady.

This is basically what we saw when we looked through the telescope tonight.

My New Telescope

 Kevin bought me a telescope and mount for Christmas.  

I'm still working on gathering all the accessories I want for a night out checking out the sky.  Unfortunately, the power cord and wifi dongle for the mount are backordered.  I hope I will have everything by the end of the month.  I think I want to buy some filters, too.

In the meantime, I bought some books to do some research.

Winter Solstice

Happy Winter Solstice!

To celebrate, we watched a live stream of the Virtual Telescope Project in Rome during the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn today at lunch.  It was lunchtime here and night time in Rome.  We saw great images of Saturn's rings and the Galilean moons. I love the internet.

Tonight, we went out to see the Christmas star for ourselves!

Mars is on the left and the Moon is on the right.

The Christmas Star is just above the center cross.

It's actually Jupiter and Saturn, but I'm sure you know that.

Poetry Assignments

We started using a new Poetry book for literature and language arts this year.  I liked this poem, so I thought I should document this first assignment out of our new book.

Behold: Poetry!

Illustration by Connor

Copywork by Connor

Copywork by Lex

Let's go to Mars!

Today's edition of Summer camp at home is brought to you by Google, 4-H, and the Old Time Candy Company.

Because when you go on a long trip, you need to buy lots of candy.  I thought a trip to space would be best with Nerds, Pop Rocks, and Air Heads.

So, I ordered all of these things:

And today we enjoyed them all.  First we played a game to see where we all landed on Mars.  I crashed more than anyone else.  Then, we built a Mars rover:

Finally, we played a game to grow food on Mars.  Our colonies were a success!

Gaming Command Central

Alternative Title:  Still Life with Trappings of Two Boys

After a week of Spring Break At Home, this is what the kitchen table looks like.  We have been playing Cards Against Humanity, Solar Draft, the Harry Pottery Trading Card Game, and Pokemon cards for a week now.  We also have the drum practice pads.  Those are used early, and often.  

Happy Spring Break!  Stay at Home!

The World of Coke

I love the way that Coke decorates for Christmas.

This Coke machine was once in space!

Olympic Torches!

The original formula for Coke is stored in this vault.

Official Family Photo

You can taste Coke drinks from all over the world in this room.

It's self-serve.

The floor in this room is so sticky...

it's an experience all on its own.

Super Bowl Live

Last night we went downtown to the Centennial Olympic Park to check out Super Bowl Live.  This is a big event at the park with lots of things to do and free concerts.

Someone noticed that the ferris wheel has 32 cars, and they decorated each one to look like a different NFL team helmet.  Someone was really thinking.  We are all impressed.

This version of the Lombardi trophy is huge!

Connor is really good at this hook and ring toss game.

This virtual reality/real reality blended game was hard.

We watched a short virtual reality version of the new movie First Man and totally went to the moon.

It was awesome.

Yeah Football!

Lunar Eclipse

We went out earlier tonight to watch a little bit of the lunar eclipse.

Selfie in the moonlight with a pooch.

You can see a bit of the Earth's shadow covering the moon.

Now that we are home and all ready for bed, I kind of want to go and see how it looks now, but I'm all snug and stuff.  Goodnight moon.