Ok – Someone may seriously have a future career in law enforcement someday! Sophie came banging on the bathroom door just this morning while I was in the shower to tell me that someone had left the toilet seat up in the downstairs bathroom! She has been doing it for a few weeks now – but it is amazing how seriously she takes this new role of hers!
Sometimes when I get home from work – she is there just waiting by the door for me to tell me that there has been another offense committed. Really cute and something that I will want to remember – but might not if it weren’t for me documenting such things in this “virtual scrapbook” of ours!
Pinewood Derby
We are still struggling with keeping track of everything that everyone is involved in. Sometimes I feel like we are living day to day – and just trying to get as much done everyday as possible – with no advanced notice of what needs to be done – or who needs to get where until that particular day is upon us.
On Saturday Dominick and I were scrambling to get his pinewood derby built. Due to our poor calendaring skills – we were erroneously under the impression that the pinewood derby was the following day. Unfortumately we did not discover our error until late Saturday night!
Sad but true – we were actually proud of ourselves on Saturday – because we didn’t technically leave building the car until the last minute – like we have done in years past. We were working on it way in advance this year – the day before the race!
After spending many hours cutting and whittling away this beautiful block of pinewood to a mere shell – and fighting to shed every gram – (since we really wanted to use our stock ballast – which weighs 95 grams of the 141 maximum grams) – we finally got to the target 141 grams. Dominick & Melani then painted it. I weighed it again after it dried a little – and found that we were a fraction of a gram over. So we knew that we would have to shave a little more out from the under body – but figured we would leave it until the morning.
Well, laying in bed that night I finally took the opportunity to catch up on some old emails – and discovered that the pinewood derby was not the next day – but the following week! Argh!
Even sadder than the fact that we were proud of ourselves earlier in the day for starting pinewood derby car a whole 28 hours before we believed the race was scheduled for is that come next Sunday we will probably still be scrambling to get the thing done in time – despite having this extra week to prepare! This whole being done early thing just feels sooOooo unnatural!
I’ll include pictures of the car next week – but technically it is a truck – a TESLA CYBER TRUCK!
Archimedes Screw
Gracie and her best friend at school decided to enter the science fair this year. They decided they wanted to build an Archimedes Screw – to demonstrate how water can be moved uphill with a little manual effort.
We discussed their idea and how they were going to build it. I may have also encouraged her a little to go BIGGER in her thinking – and now we are building a 6 1/2 foot Archimedes Screw!
Both Gracie and her friend have been great at using the tools (saw, drill & ruler) while I oversee and assist them. I’ve been very impressed with both of them and I am amazed at how quickly they learn! There are still going to be some challenges ahead in building this thing – but they definitely have their problem solving hats on and are thinking creatively!
I like to push the kids to think a little bigger sometimes. I believe kids, in general, need to be shown where the bar is sometimes, rather then just leaving it to them to set it and their goals. I find that many, many times both kids, and we as adults, underestimate just what they are capable of!
So a lot of building has been going on this last week as well as a lot of toilet seat policing!
Sincerely,
P.S. – I am very proud of Melani for contributing to the blog this week! Take a peak at her post – a comparison chart of the three indoor waterparks in the Poconos! Waterpark Comparison Chart: Kalahari, Aquatopia & Great Wolf Lodge
