Learning To Fly

Last weekend, several pilots from Wisconsin and Minnesota volunteered their time and fuel to help local Scouts earn the Aviation Merit Badge.  Each boy went up as co-pilot, actually taking the controls, and flying their planes for portions of the 20 minute flight.  It was a thrilling day for all the boys, and the generosity of the pilots was greatly appreciated. 

Here's Will's plane. 

And Will with his plane's owner and pilot, a member of the Osceola community, Jim Kirvida.

 

Steve, Charlie and I were invited along as Will's passengers.  Charlie was absolutely enchanted by his first airplane ride!

 Each pilot asked the boys where they lived, and then flew them over their neighborhood so they could see how it looked from above.  We pinpointed our property and our pilot circled it so we could snap some photos.  Here's the aerial view of our place. 

And here's a shot of Ben doing the pre-flight safety check on his plane. 

 Ben took no passengers, so it was just him and the pilot.   He was given control of his plane for most of the flight.  He said the pilot was really friendly and told him he was a great student!  He is absolutely enchanted with flying now, and dreams of building a high-tech flight simulator.  Hmmmmm...

Such fun things these boys get to do!

Week 3 In Review-Fall Field Trips

This week, the weather went back and forth from rainy and cold, to sunny and pleasant, and it seems our moods followed suit.  Motivation was low for schoolwork, and when it was attempted, our brains seemed foggy and forgetful; not much was accomplished.  It was a good thing we had some distractions planned; it helped to just get out and be social!

Monday

What can I say, it was Monday.  We did some stuff and moved on.

Tuesday

  Everyone was crabby and in a snit.  The best thing we squeezed out of the day was listening to another chapter of The Lord of The Rings. Oh, and I picked some of our late season Prairie Spy apples.

Wednesday

We were up and out of the house early to see a play at the near-by Festival Theater with friends.  We were excited to find out that the Festival was putting on Ichabod Crane and The Headless Horseman this year, as the boys had all read Washington Irving this past spring.  

This particular production, featuring a combined cast of youth and professional guest artists, begins as a live radio play set in 1946, and is upended when its young audience intervenes, turning the tables on the broadcast and taking the commonly tragic ending into their own hands.

It was cleverly done, had great moments of both suspense and comic humor, and retained much of the original wording and language of the story. 
  
Some of our home school friends were in this one, too! And don't you just love this set? So cool and spooky.  Perfect for this time of year!

Thursday

Thursday was cancelled due to lethargy.  

Actually, William worked on a still life painting of one of our Prairie Spy apples, so not all was lost!

Friday

A perfect fall day...sunny and crisp!  While the older boys, along with some of their buddies, opted to do some raking for an elderly neighbor, Charlie and I visited an orchard with friends.  

We hiked the wooded trail,

enjoyed a warming fire,

and of course tasted many apples and enjoyed fresh-pressed cider.

He wears a bow tie now. Bow ties are cool.

Pressing a delicious blend of Honey Crisp and Haralson apples.

Today, Saturday, it is back to rain and cold.  The older boys are participating in Jamboree on the Air (JOTA) today with the Boy Scouts, and will be camping out tonight.  The low for the evening will be 31F.  Brrr.  I think they love it though!  As for me, I'll be enjoying a warm house and doing some planning for next week.  Hope your week was good!

Science Museum of Science!

We took a much-needed field trip this past Friday to the Minnesota Science Museum.  The boys spent the afternoon exploring with friends, and I had a chance to catch up with one of my old friends as well!  

Pterodactyl, how have you been?

One of our favorite bits was The Cell Lab,  a very cool part of the Human Body Exhibit at the museum right now.  Each pair of boys did a different microscope experiment geared to their age level.

Charlie and his pal Liam had a chance to stain and examine their own cheek cells.  They needed very little guidance as a computer prompted them through each step of collecting, mounting, staining and viewing their slides.

Will and his friend Kian identified "mystery microbes" in their lab.  At this activity the boys had to stain, test, and identify one of four unknown strains of bacteria that are commonly found in and on the human body. The lab used equipment and materials typically found in a clinical bacteriology lab. 

Ben had the chance to do a more involved lab, intended for high school age kids. It involved staining DNA from fruit fly salivary glands and examining it in tightly packed chromosomes under a microscope. The specimens were actually live fruit fly larvae that he had to dissect under the microscope. He had to remove the head, find the salivary glands and then stain and process the slide.  He did really well though, and the resulting slide of the chromosomes had the volunteers all excitedly talking about using it as a sample slide for future visitors to the lab.  This was such a cool opportunity, as it wouldn't necessarily be a biology lab that I would be able to tackle at home!

 It was a perfect day of science until Ben stumbled into a nest of dinosaurs and had to run for his life.  This is the third time that this has happened.  You'd think he'd learn...

Meanwhile, Will and Charlie ran off to Egypt to build their own block pyramid...

...and take a spin on an ornery-looking camel.

There is so much to do at the museum that we never quite get to do it all in one go, but we're always satisfied and worn out ( in a good way) by the end of the day. And as long as one of us gets chased by a dinosaur, we know it has been a successful trip! ; )

What are your favorite must-see things at your local science museum?

Friday Fieldtrip-Crystal Cave

When planning out our school year, I always try to keep Fridays in September and October open for field trips and hanging out with friends.  This time of year is gorgeous in our area and we really would be foolish not to take advantage of beautiful fall days when winter looms so near.  

Today was certainly one of those great fall days not to miss, so we grabbed some friends and headed to Crystal Cave, an attraction about an hour's drive from us.  It was certainly a gorgeous drive, with fall colors in abundance!  

 Crystal Cave was discovered in 1881 by local farm boys, William and George Vanasse.  It was commercialized in 1942.  Here's a shot of some of the ramps and stairs that lead you through the cave.  At the lowest point we were 72 feet underground.

While the whole cave tour was quite interesting, we all loved seeing the numerous slumbering Little Brown Bats!  So completely cute and sleepy!

 

 OK. I am really crazed-looking here, but look at that tiny cuuute bat!!!

Charlie looks a little unsure...but the bat is so darn cute!

The Stalagtites and Stalagmites looked so cool, but we were instructed not to touch.  (I really wanted to, but didn't. Unlike those ancient Greek Urns a few years back at the Science Museum. Shhhh.)

 Cave photography is not my forte, so I don't have a whole lot to share, but rest assured, it was all very cool and cave-like.  I did get some action shots of the boys...

The most elusive of cave creatures, this wild Ben darts away just as our cameras snap a shot.

A Little Brown Charlie hanging from the cave ceiling.  Oops! Looks like we woke him up!

Always dapper, Spelunker Will gives us his best catalog pose.

 So, we didn't spend all of this gorgeous day inside a cave.  After our hour-long tour, some of the kids did a gem-panning activity, before we headed off on a hike through the woods.   Will thought the gem-panning was very cool, and he had fun identifying all his stones afterward.

Great, great day out together.  Memories to keep us warm for the winter!

Sunflower House

The Merry Wives of Windsor

As a part of our summer Shakespeare studies, I wanted to take the boys to see a live performance, because, of course, Shakepeare's plays were originally written to be watched, not read!  Doing a quick search on the internet, I was able to come up with a few choices of venue locally for some Shakespeare in the park. It was especially exciting to find out that a favorite locale of ours, the Franconia Sculpture Park, was presenting The Merry Wives of Windsor, as a part of their weekend concert series this past Saturday.

 The weather was gorgeous, so we packed a picnic dinner and spent a great evening with friends and the Cromulent Shakespeare Company.  Having prepared the boys with the plot beforehand, they were able to follow the storyline easily and even picked up on much of the humorous word play.  I'm so glad we went!

John Falstaff-A favorite character of Queen Elizabeth!

Sir Hugh and Doctor Caius

Mistress Ford and Mistress Page-The Merry Wives

Mistress Quickly

Falstaff, you Banbury Cheese!

Full cast, final bow.

Our hillside seating

Sunset over Sculpture.  Time to go home after an excellent evening!