In Houston

We arrived safely in Houston yesterday just after noon. The flights were uneventful. The laptop battery wasn't at 100%, so it died with about 20 minutes left to go in The Princess Bride. Oh well. The kids were happy enough to play with play-doh for the rest of the long leg from San Jose to Dallas. Duncan slept on the next leg to Houston. Sayer read a book (Monster Manners) for the first few minutes of the flight, but since I couldn't reach her backpack to had her more books because of Duncan sleeping on my lap she spent the next half hour staring out the window and reporting what shapes she saw in the clouds and in the landscape below.

We got to Houston, found Chanda and her critters (or were found by them :) ), picked up our car seats from the baggage carousel, and headed for home.

The kids played outside, dragging out the baking soda and vinegar to make a volcano. Then they turned on the hose and made mud to make mud bricks. During the late afternoon/early evening hours they spent outside Sayer was mosquito bait. She ended up with more than 10 bites. Poor girl.

Sayer wanted to show everyone that her cast glows in the dark. They all crammed themselves into the bathroom and closed the door. I could hear the ooohs and ahhhhs. When they came out Chanda drew a picture to explain to Sayer why her cast glows. Sayer knew that exposure to the light charged it up, but she didn't know how or why that worked. Chanda told her about atoms and protons and neutrons and the electrons that orbit them. Some orbits are low and some are high. Add a photon and the low-orbiting electrons get excited and jump up (you should have seen the way Chanda acted that out and jumped right out of her seat :) ), they orbit and the higher level for a while, then they get tired and sink back down to the low level orbit, releasing that photon's energy as they do so. And the released energy is the glow.

Hooray for science lessons :)

This morning Chanda's critters were most of the way done with lots of their lessons by the time Sayer and Duncan and I came down to join them. I got out Sayer's ETC book and she sat at the table with them. Her hand writing is noticibly worse because of the cast, but it's legible. So she managed her 5 pages and then jumped up to go play with the other kids.

When the kids all sat back down at the table for peanut butter and honey sandwiches there was a lengthy discussion about the digestive system.

Jaden also tried to convince Duncan that our house in Milpitas is on a fault line, but Duncan was not buying that our house is on a crack in the Earth. We ARE on top of a fault line (the Hayward fault looks like it ends in our driveway), but there's no evidence of that on the surface, so Duncan is unconvinced. He says 'there's no crack!' Maybe he'll understand/believe in a year or two ...

As of now, Sayer and Duncan and Jaden and Alex and Rayleigh have been pretending to be on a cargo/pirate ship in the living room for more than an hour. Jaden christened it the USS Delivery because one of the things it was doing was collecting 'famous French drawings' (those being the drawings the girls had done earlier this morning) and delivering them somewhere. Sayer pretended that she was on the ship and wanted to go to New York City, but as soon as she arrived in the big apple she decided that she was supposed to go to England. She even developed a bit of an accent as she directed them to turn the ship and sail to England. Duncan is captaining the vessel. Rayleigh wanted to bring blankets for the ship in case they got tired and needed to sleep. Jaden had an 'aha!' moment after that and insisted on towels for everyone because in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy everyone had to have a towel. They've now sailed past Enland and gone to Rome. In the Mediterranean Ocean they had an exciting encounter with sharks. They've fought dragons and mermaids who like to sink ships. They've built bunks for everyone using darn near every chair in the house and stacked storage bins.

The sailors have now 'sailed' to the port of Houston and are now sailing off to have an adventure going through Panama Canal en route to Hawaii.

Now there are sea monsters and dinosaurs and discussions on what sort of pet they might have to scare the monsters away. And on the Hawaiian beach they see in the distance? Hula dancers, of course! And Sayer just launched herself into the water to scuba dive and hunt for sharks for food for her shipmates.

I think they might be having just a little bit of fun. Maybe. Possibly. But I wouldn't want to jump to conclusions. :)