After watching three different star shows, our son was ready to move on to a different exhibit.  Since we had gone to the science center several times without daddy (we took friends with us instead), our son had been talking about building rockets pretty regularly for the past several weeks.  In the physics based exhibit, there were lots of hands on activities including building rockets and launching them in competition against another rocket builder or rather launcher… I mostly see parents and nannies building rockets while the kids launch them. To date, our son has yet to build his own … Continue reading →

Once we were inside the Mars exhibit, we began to learn about the many different of what would be required to go to Mars.  We learned about space toilets that have to work without gravity.  We learned about the terrain of Mars and its many “dust storms.” We discovered that both of our children would be too light to be able to walk on Mars.  We learned about how all the things required for a civilization to flourish on Mars would get to Mars. We learned about tight living quarters and dehydrated food.  We learned more than we really wanted … Continue reading →

Family outings are few and far between in my family.  Even though we try to do things together as a family more often, it always seems like there is something more important and dire that needs to be done instead.  As our small family struggles to find the balance between job work, dissertation  work, house work, and play, we are often too exhausted to make our much needed family outings happen.  However, the opportunity for a family outing arose rather spontaneously and we jumped at the chance to get out of the house and do something fun with our children. … Continue reading →

With over twenty acres of Christmas Trees at the tree farm of our choice, we knew that we could find the perfect Christmas Tree by going early to find it and tag it. What I did not anticipate was how the dry spring and summer would affect the trees. Many of the Balsam Firs had dry, brown, and brittle needles proving that the tree was water deprived. Since our son was already running deeper into the grove that seemed to contain a good number of Balsam and Fraser Firs (the trees of my choice). With my ten month old daughter … Continue reading →

The tree farm had several different varieties of Christmas trees. I am a particular fan of the Fir varieties and not so much of the Pine varieties. Therefore, we were seeking a nice Balsam or Fraser Fir between seven and eight feet tall with a nice fullness and shape in its branches. On such a momentous occasion we brought our camera to snap photos of our children as they helped us look for the perfect tree. While dad manned the camera, I took charge of the stroller and directed our son towards some good looking Firs. Our little man was … Continue reading →

We did something very special this weekend, something that I did not think we would do this early. After receiving a flyer in the mail to remind us of the important outing that needed to take place, I knew that we needed to go as soon as possible. Without hesitation we made plans to find and tag our Christmas tree at a local Christmas Tree Farm! We went to this same tree farm last year but we went a few weeks before Thanksgiving. Most of the tree were already tagged by the time we went. While we found a decent … Continue reading →