The Ice before the Sun

Yes, I know, the vacation pics are coming. But first a late breaking ice story before we head to the sun. The wind changed direction last night and blew a bunch of ice on Lake Huron up on shore. And I mean a bunch of ice. 

Here's what we saw at the first beach we came to. Interesting but not impressive.

Then we went to a beach a little farther south.   Now these are some impressive ice piles!

Though I don't think these homeowners liked what they saw out their window this morning!

The chunks were big and the children had a fun time clambering up on the hills of ice.

There were many of these 'hills' of ice.   It reminded me of that Shackleton movie that I saw. And yes, the ice chunks did have a tinge of blue to them.

As you can see it was a very very gray day up here today.   A ping pong day, says my dh.   (it looks like you are in the inside of ping pong ball).

I'm back!

We got back on Tuesday from a week's vacation to Tucson.   We had a great time and I'm going to post my trip pics next week.   But first some catch-up pics.

We picked out the seeds for our garden before we left.  As usual, we let the children pick something unusual to grow for themselves.    This year we will be growing white corn, purple green beans, edible yellow pea pods, and white pie pumpkins called Cotton Candy pumpkins.

Tomorrow is my dh's birthday so I made his traditional German Chocolate Cake.  And this year, I let the frosting cool down (as per instructions) and it frosted so much better that way.   

We're zeroing in on the 9000th egg.   But we've also been getting a lot of the double yolked eggs.   As you can see, they are bigger than the regular eggs.  The regular egg is in the front of the picture.   I feel sorry for those hens.

Atomic Cookies

Today we made Atomic Cookies or Element Cookies as Deborah told my dh tonight at the supper table.   We're studying chemistry this year and I thought that making atom diagrams out of cookies might be more fun and stick with the younger kids more than just coloring in drawings of atoms.   

So I made these giant cookies and let them choose among the first 6 elements in the periodic table.   I wasn't about to let them make mercury or gold since we were using M&Ms for the protons, electrons, and neutrons.

Here are Deborah's.   The top one is Lithium and the bottom one is Carbon.   Notice the nice shell configurations.   The blues are electrons, the reds are protons, and the browns are neutrons.

And yes, they did taste delicious!

Squirrel Flag Day

Betcha didn't know that January 30th was Squirrel Flag Day.   What pray tell is Squirrel Flag Day?    My dh has been trying for a year to convince the children that the very first flag of the colonists was a Squirrel Flag.   The squirrel helped save the colonists from hunger.  One such colonist not only was saved from hunger, but I believe the squirrel alerted them to a fire in their house or led the husband back to his cabin in the woods.     She was so pleased that she designed the first Squirrel Flag.   You would have to ask my husband for the whole story.  

Anyway, my sister and brother-in-law put together a great family calendar every year for Christmas and I asked her to put something on the calendar about squirrel flags.   So she did.

To celebrate Squirrel Flag Day, we made my dh a cake and decorated it with the image of the Squirrel Flag.