Sunday, February 12, 2012
Save the House
Myron's film was based upon his recent work on small engine repair and his mom's connection to the fire department. The filming was challenging for the kids as they used iMovie to edit and it always cuts the tops off, so sometimes we're missing some heads!
A Bad Day Logging
Brody said his inspiration was based upon dangerous jobs featured on T. V. shows. Love the accents!
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Shocking Science
Things got a little crazy in science class last week.
It always helps to have a teacher who is a five year old trapped in a bearded man's body.
The delights of static electricity know no bounds.
Even the normally stoic characters were giggling away.
Nobody could help but smile.
The properties of our world are so magical.
Teressa's hair was so full of static it was starting to stand up.
As the kids played around with the balloons, Mr. Finn was teaching about electricity, but the kids didn't know what was in store for them. They were curious about the silver orb on the pedestal. 
The introduction to the strange machine and how it works was amusing. They were especially focused during the discussion of all the electrons being stripped then stored in the orb. They knew what that meant. When Mr. Finn plugged in the Van de Graff machine, they were so freaked out by the noise it made that they started backing up.
Then Mr. Finn wanted a volunteer to touch him. Hahahhaha! Look at their faces!
Finally a volunteer. Fist bump!
The sound of the shock was audible and all the kids gasped. Austin was unconcerned as it doesn't hurt, just sounds impressive. But even knowing that it wasn't painful didn't make any more volunteers step up quickly.
Heeeere's Johnny! He took a little cajoling to stick his hand out and kept quickly withdrawing before Mr. Finn could touch him, but contact was eventually made.
I think his sister took special pleasure in this event.
Myron volunteered next and was very cool, calm and collected as per usual.
Then it was time for them to try their hands at it. And hairs.
Saylor's was particularly responsive.
"I'm not going to touch it!"
Getting all charged up.
Zap!
It took a lot of tries to get a couple pics of the discharging static, but everyone enjoyed watching Mr. Finn get zapped a hundred times. 
The group zap did not work as our Van de Graff is too weak, but we could get the charge through a few kids. A fun day learning about electricity and atomic structure, for sure.
Hockey....Finally!!
I think these pictures speak for themselves. Why banter about? We had an AWESOME time on the ice (before it melted).
Walk in Beauty
A couple weeks ago Mr. Finn and I had an extra day off for MLK Jr.'s birthday. We had decided that we would hike the entire island trail system. We've been meaning to do this for the last four years and having a three day weekend gave us an extra day of recovery, so we woke up on Sat. and promptly forgot all about our plans. Until, like, noon. Then we rushed around getting everything ready and didn't get on the trail until after 1:00. Undeterred, and mildly delusional, we started off in high spirits. 8-9 miles? No problem! Sun setting around 4:30? Great! It was a brisk day and we were moving, though I kept stopping to take photos every five minutes. We took a detour to look at the old cellar holes on Rich's Head, marveling at all those hardcore settlers living out on that windswept peninsula a hundred years ago. Eagles were soaring overhead, the wind was picking up and we were about halfway there. No problem that the sun was already beginning its decline.
We got to Bluff Head, just a bit past the halfway mark and it was so gorgeous we just had to stop to take a bunch of pics and climb around on the rocks. 
Looking toward Southwest Point, still about 3 miles from home. Notice the darkening sky. Yes. This is the last picture I took as the light quickly faded. Did we, two outdoor enthusiasts, bring a flashlight? Naaaahhhh! We're hardcore! The temps quickly dropped and we stopped to put on more layers. Okay, so I put on more layers. We came stumbling to the salt marshes as the last of the light faded completely. We could not see each other so we were stomping along, feeling for the trail. I'm not even kidding. We discovered that the trail felt different since it was more compacted. We would tap around feeling for it, all the while keeping our hands in front of us so as not to lose an eye to the stray branches everywhere. There we were tapping and giggling at the absurdity, but loving every minute of it when I hear Doug call out from the ground, on hands and knees, "Hey! It's one of the wooden boardwalks!" That was heartening as it convinced us that we were not completely bonkers with the whole Zen of the Trail exercise. Finally, we could see some light up ahead and popped out from the trees to follow the road back to the house. The sun had set at 4:30. It was 6:30. And turned out to be the coldest night we had had all winter. We can cross circumnavigation by kayak which we did in a snowstorm in December, and now the circumnavigation by foot. As usual, a memorable time was had by all.
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