My Home Among The Hills

No, I am not Britney Spears and I didn’t shave off all my hair on a whim…wait…never mind.  Here’s a better example…I am not Brittney Spears and I didn’t flash my girly bits all over the tabloids to draw attention to myself.   The thing is…I don’t have girly bits so I couldn’t be like Britney, even if I tried.  But I did do it again…I licked another bell.

After licking the Bridge Road Bell , we headed to the state capitol grounds where another bell resides.  This bell is a direct replica of the famous Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.  Ours is a little better than that one in Liberty Square though as ours doesn’t have a big crack in it.  Anyhow, we proceeded across the Capitol grounds to the bell where another family was admiring our superior Liberty Bell.  We marched right up, stuck our tongues out and gave it a good lick.  I’ve never seen Ohio license plates speed away so fast in my life!

The Capitol police  also patrolled by us as we were mid-lick.  They looked at us and gave us a quick smirk.  I figure they must think we are from Ohio too (just kidding to all my Ohio friends) as they just shook their heads and went on.

This bell was aged a little more than the last…age is good on cheese and wine but not so much on a bell.  Still, we licked the WV Liberty Bell and had a good laugh!  Oops, we did it again!

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Now, I couldn’t bear to put Britney on my blog after her zaniness of last year, but I found the next best thing…The Chipmunks singing Brintney’s Oops, I did it Again!

Isaac came home from school last week with a project.  He was to build a craft that would float on oobleck and carry a payload.  ”Oobleck?”, I said.  ”Yeah Dad, it’s this great stuff….”.  Whatever…huh….oobleck…back when I was a kid we didn’t have oobleck…and we walked to school…huh.  Anyhow, we built a ship to float and carry stuff but I figured water would be good enough…if it floats on water, we are golden.

Isaac’s craft did very well in the competition and he remained excited about this oobleck stuff.  We decided to make some, just so I can see what all the fuss is about.  I consulted the old intertoobs to find the recipe. 

So…before I say more…no matter whether you have kids at home or you are a solo adult, you MUST make this stuff!  Okay, so get this…all you do is mix 1 cup of water and 2 cups of corn starch in a wide baking dish.  See that big tub of corn starch? Only $2.38 at Sam’s! You’ll have plenty left over! Anyhow, you’ll have to mix it with your hands.  Just grab a handful of it and squish it in your hands…just like walking barefoot in the cow pasture!  I mean it now…adult or kid, you have to make this stuff…go try it…go on…I’ll wait!

Isn’t that the greatest stuff in the universe?!  We had an absolute blast squeezing it in our hands so it became solid, only to release the pressure and have it go back to a liquid state.  It’s incredible to play with.  Throw it in the air, float it in water…it’s amazing stuff!  We made a first-class mess on the table playing in it! We also learned some stuff too.  Technically, oobleck is a non-Newtonian fluid which means it doesn’t react like normal fluids such as water or Mt Dew!  Instead, oobleck exhibits the dilatant effect, which means it becomes more viscous (thicker/more solid) when agitated or compressed.  

windows version if above doesn’t work

windows version if above doesn’t work

windows version if above doesn’t work

Here is a really great link explaining the age appropriate science behind oobleck if you are interested.

We also learned that there are other uses for non-Newtonian fluids including liquid armor.  Incredible!

Ok, so if you aren’t yet persuaded to make some of this stuff, check out these youtube videos of it.  We tried to make the oobleck dance on a subwoofer but we couldn’t get it to work.  In other news, I do have to replace all of my family room windows!

I was talking with my sister-in-law, L1 about my new handheld gps (which I got at Christmas).  While Emily had a migraine on Saturday, the kids and I decided to try our hands at geocaching.  L1 calls geocaching, “scavenger hunting for nerds”.  Yes, that sounds about right, thank you very much!  Anyhow, I read a few hints about the first cache because I had no idea what we were even looking for.  

We headed out and found the first cache which had a domino and a pencil sharpener in it.  With geocaching, the idea is to take something from the cache (which is any sort of weather-proof container) and leave something else in its place.  So, we took the pencil sharpener and left a jingle bell.  My gps, the Garmin Venture HC, has a feature called  ”go to the next cache” so off we went.  I had no idea where it was taking us but we set off following the trail (which isn’t a trail as much as a general direction).  

We headed into the city and found some more loot (we left the pencil sharpener and took a pencil).  Finally, we headed off on the trail of “the next cache”.  Of course, I was driving while following the gps.  The kids aren’t quite able to really guide us with the gps and the last time I let Isaac drive didn’t end well so I had to do both.

  We headed across one of the major bridges in town when the gps sounded the “close” alarm.  I debated stopping in the slow lane while we hunted but I decided against that.  Instead, we drove across to the other side and walked back to where the cache was located.  It was about 0.3 miles from the parking spot to the cache.  It was quite a thrill walking across the bridge as it is pretty high and pretty busy (we were on the sidewalk).  We hunted all over the footing of the bridge and found a dead pigeon, a snuff can and a half-full bottle of beer.  Ah, the family adventure.  We hunted all over to no avail so headed home.  

The next day, Emily was better and came with us.  This time we parked on the correct side of the bridge.  We still looked all over and had about given up.  Emily was sitting in the van waiting for us to come back when she spotted it.  Wow!  The cache was small and well hidden and proved that we need to step up our vision care program.  Prior to finding the cache, she was not too impressed with geocaching.  Finding her first changed her mind though.

There are over 700 caches hidden around Charleston.  How on earth do we keep from tripping over all of them!  We have plans to find as many as we can and hide some new ones once we see some more.  Anyhow, the kids and I had more fun than we could carry in a bucket.  Each day, Abigail has asked me many times to go geocaching again.  I think we have  new hobby!  

By the way, there are some more cool pics of the Southside Bridge…much better than mine.

Edit:  cheesychick asked in a comment who hides the caches…that’s part of what makes this cool…other geocachers hide the loot and report their stash on one of the geocaching websites.  We used www.geocaching.com and it seems to be the most popular.  They review the coordinates of the cache to make sure it isn’t at a school or a power plant, etc and then publish the cache.  From their site, I can download the cache coordinates directly into my gps receiver.   The last cache we found was hidden by an airline pilot who was on break overnight in Charleston.  He comes back whenever he is in town and checks on it (to make sure it is still there, isn’t wet, etc).  They can be all different sizes and should contain a log book and possibly other loot which people trade in and out as they find it.  We’ll hide some after we get a little more experience with geocaching.

This week, two blogging friends have recognized me on their blogs.  I certainly appreciate their compliments.  I love to visit their blogs as well and encourage you to have a look also.  

Click on the images to be taken to their blogs…

from Children in the Corn

 

 

from Johnson Family Farm

 

Thanks Angie and Chris!  I am honored!

We all stayed awake until after midnight to ring in the new year! Isaac had to endure watching me smooch Emily so my evening was made! We played dominoes and Life and watched movies. It was a good time! I am a bit too tired to type any more. Happy 2009!

A while back, the kids were asking about Hanukkah.  Apparently they had some friends that had dreidels in preparation for the Jewish celebration.  I didn’t really know much about Hanukkah aside from the dime store version.  

Anyhow, I figured in the spirit of…uh…learning more about Hanukkah, I’d do a little research on the holiday.  I told the kids about the Jews’ rededication of the temple in Jerusalem and how they only had one day’s worth of oil to burn in the lamp and how the oil lasted for 8 days.  All in all, it was pretty interesting.  They knew I was building a dreidel though so they were anxious to get to the game.

I don’t know if it is proper for a non-Jew to play this game so if we were out of line, someone let me know.  In the meantime, we had a lot of fun.  The dreidel has 4 sides, each with a Hebrew letter:  nun, gimel, hei, shin which form an acronym that stands for “a great miracle happened there”.  A cool thing that I learned is that in Israel, they change the letter shin to po which changes the acronym to “A great miracle happened here”.

So for the game, the letters are given these meanings:

• Nun - nisht - “nothing” – nothing happens and the next player spins
• Gimel - gants - “all” – the player takes the entire pot
• Hey - halb - “half” – the player takes half of the pot, rounding up if there is an odd number
• Shin - shtel ayn - “put in” – the player puts one marker in the pot

The game can be played with any of a number of markers including money and chocolate.  Since the kids are thin on money, and since I might feel bad taking their money, we decided to play with mini-M&Ms.  It really is a fun game to play.  Each player spins the dreidel and does what the dreidel letter signifies.  

 I think spinning the dreidel might be the Old Testament version of Monopoly though as it appears to be a very long game to play.  We played for 20 minutes or so and were no where near declaring a clear winner.  In other news, I can confirm that M&Ms will melt in your hand.

Anyhow, we learned a little about other people and had some fun playing a new game as well. Abigail asked me if we could play again this morning. We’ll need to stock up on M&Ms I guess!

Of course, no discussion of Hanukkah would be complete without Adam Sandler singing his Hanukkah song!

My Mom sent me a link to this cool site where you can desgin your own jack-o-lantern.  We virtually carved several options and settled on our favorites.  Wait, that sounds like we actually put some real planning into our pumpkin carving.  Ha!  We did do some virtual carving but then we just went to town on the orange gourds!

We decided that we have a new appreciation for our parents.  I cut the lids out and the kids reached into the pumpkins.  Isaac very nearly threw up on the spot.  Abigail held her supper a little better, but still wanted a pair of plastic gloves.

Like our parents, we just decided to reach in and pull the seeds (which we roasted…yum!) and goop ourselves.  I have never been queasy about things but somehow, we made a couple of kids who gag at the sight or smell of anything and everything.  It was actually pretty hilarious.

Anyhow, the kids carved their own pumpkins with those amazing tools they sell for carving pumpkins.  Who knew that one could actually carve a pumpkin without danger of amputation! Anyhow, they did a heck of a job.  After carving, we set the pumpkins outside so they can draw the proper number of fruit flies before trick-or-treaters arrive.

We’re all ready for Halloween!

  Food is just smaller now!  We buy store brand cereal for Isaac and me to eat and I was surprised that the prices hadn’t really increased much lately.  I just noticed how they managed to keep the prices the same.  The older boxes we had were 14 oz, while the new ones are 12.25 oz.  I think I am a little irritated at this discovery as it is a trick.  I know prices are going up.  I expect it and I wouldn’t stop buying a product I like because the price goes up (within reason of course).  This is sneaky though…why not acknowledge the fact that stuff is getting more expensive rather than shave 1.75 oz from the product?    I am sure lots of companies are making this change so keep an eye out!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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