Lionden Landing

We really are focusing on the Revolutionary War but our area is covered in Civil War battle fields so there is always some Civil War history going on.   Despite the cold, we and a group of friends walked Bull Run battlefield.  They have a great Visitors Center with an interactive map that shows the progression of the battle and how the terrain was used by both sides.

Froggy had her very first Google Hangout today with a new friend in Quebec.  They both avid readers without many local Jewish friends.  We were a bit caught of guard with the technical challenges.  We were expecting a text-based chat and ended up on a video call.  Froggy was surprised and extremely shy.  She finally warmed up and I think they hit it off.  Hopefully we will have more chances to talk.

We met a friend for what I thought was a casual playdate at the park.  It turned into a fantastic nature hike.  Froggy decided early in the walk that she wanted to take pictures with my phone  We saw a blue heron not that you can tell from this picture.  And aren't the white flowers pretty.  Anyone know what it is?  And this is the fern her friend wants for her yard  pretty yellow flower  Mama and baby ducks  And the absolutely neatest tree stump ever.  Current theory is that there was a knot in the tree at this point. And a blue jay for M's bird book.

This year we went on a bluebell hike with friends who joined us on our first ever bluebell hike.  That was probably four years ago maybe more.  Two of her kids did not even exist on the initial hike. It was a very very bittersweet hike.  I was too engrossed in the hike and the company to take many pictures.      The bluebells were spectacular this year because we went early enough.  I need to remember that this needs to be right after Cherry Blossoms.  I want to know what this flower is and my google skill is failing me.  It is a wildflower and as the picture shows it is very low to the ground.  There are fields of them and they come up all around the bluebells after peak.     And this is my treasure of the day.  The two girls were inseparable the entire hike. 

We are getting close to the end of our anatomy study.  We have been examining the skin in detail.  Today we took the opportunity to play forensics and examine our fingerprints in depth. We left latent fingerprints on a couple of surfaces.  First we tried our plexiglass tabletopper but it was too large and cumbersome to "dust" well so we switched to a small piece of glass.     We "dusted" for prints using flour and my small sifter.   We lifted the prints using packing tape and kept them for prosperity by placing them on piece of dark construction paper.  This made it much easier to compare prints. 

It seems every recent visit to the zoo, we get to meet a new baby.  This time it was the baby panda, Bao Bao.     He was really cute and tons of fun to watch even if we did not get very good pictures.  He is about 4 months old here but brand new to walking.  He is actually trying to eat

As we continued our anatomy study, we moved from breathing to blood.  Froggy built this model of blood as a method of telling back but also an opportunity for Froggy to teach her friend J.(roughly the same age) in a way both of them enjoyed. Our model only had four ingredients like blood only has four main components.  The plasma is made from corn syrup.  We used about a cup.  The color is similar to plasma.  It took some convincing before J would believe that the majority of blood is really that color. We used red hots for the red blood cells.  As you can see in the picture they share their color with the entire mixture as real red blood cells do. White jelly beans represented the white blood cells and gave the children a chance to see the relative proportions.  Sprinkles were added for the platelets.  Ours were bigger than they really should have been but close enough.  Froggy even demonstrated how they work by mashing t...

We have spent the last two weeks up in the frozen North   I love being up here because everything is walking distance so I don't get cabin fever even when it snows.  Froggy turned even the most mundane outing into an adventure by tromping through the snow.  She became a variety of characters as she climbed and tumbled over the giant mounds of snow.     This is moonrise over the hill where all the kids went sledding.  It was a gorgeous afternoon.  But ended too early for me. Sunset is 3:30ish in the frozen north.  It makes for a very short afternoon.  The kids kept playing long past sunset till it was too dark to climb back up the hill.

 Our anatomy book is very very detailed provided more information than many middle school texts.  I don't know if it is Froggy's interest, the way the book presents the material or what but Froggy is thrilled with this book. Friday was supposed to be a "vacation" day with no "school work"  Froggy was thrilled and decreed "it can be free play as soon as we do Parsha and Anatomy" You know something is working right when the kid asks for a given subject on their day off.  This week in our anatomy work we looked at the respiratory system.  We discussed the structure of the respiratory system and Froggy drew her impression of what it looks like.   She calls them upside down trees. Then we built a model of the lung with a working diaphragm.   The bottle is the chest cavity and blue balloon is the diaphragm.   The red balloon is the lung itself.  It actually inflates when the diaphragm is pulled.    

Over the summer, tiger cubs were born at our zoo.  They recently made their public debut and we got to see them. So cute.   Even though our reason for going was to see these new cubs, we visited the rest of the zoo and were very glad we did.  The animals were in amazing form.  We got to watch the orangutangs climb the O-line   And we got to see the panda having what she appeared to think was a very yummy snack.  We saw Dad eating hsi snack to but he wanted to hide his snack so we only got to see his bottom. These animals came with us and I think they are the cutest of all even if we can't get them to look at us at the same time.

Our household is split in the opinion of how a birthday should be counted.  Abba thinks the family should use only the Gregorian calendar so that is when we celebrate his birthday.  I think the family should the Hebrew calendar so that is when we celebrate my birthday.  Froggy rather than suffering from her parental lack of consensus gets two birthday celebrations.  Her Hebrew birthday is Shemini Atzertz which means that her birthday dinner is in the Sukkah every year weather permitting. This year we had friends join us. It was nice to have more children around the table.  It was a squeeze to fit that many people in my little sukkah but it was fun and the temperature was just right.  Froggy surprised us all by inviting her friend to help her blow out the candles.  The choices she makes never cease to amaze me.

Thanks to a couple of really kind friends, Froggy and I had the amazing opportunity to spend a week at Pennsic experiencing Medieval history in a fun manner.   This is what our camp looked like. Froggy and I were in the tent straight back   Our kitchen was the best camping kitchen I have ever used. .    Froggy got to try her hand at several different handwork options including stick weaving. It is easier than spool weaving with more utilitarian results   Froggy working on yet another new handwork project in one of the fabulous swings in camp.  THis is embroidery and her favorite of all the ones she tried.    The girls also had the opportunity to make poppets.  Here they are just getting started.   M. is making great progess on her stick weaving.  She, of all the girls, seemed most interested in the handwork projects.  You can see two of the finished poppets on the bench in front of her.   All...