Thursday, December 20, 2012

Reading in the car (Madeleine L'engle, Wind in the Door)
...the biologist had the idea, unusual at the time, that plants were capable of subjective reactions to stimuli, and he decided to measure the strength of these reactions by attaching electrodes, like those used in a lie detector, to the leavesof a large, healthy philodendron...

J: This is ridiculous.  We need to start reading age appropriate books.  "Capable of subjective reactions to stimuli", you have no idea what that means, do you?

A: Yes.  No...  I know that Meg is reading an article about a scientist in a newspaper

J: What's a newspaper?

A:  (long pause)  It's... one.  A thing... I don't want to read age appropriate things.  I know what a newspaper is...  It's black and white and read all over!

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Monday, November 12, 2012

Baby soup

Just add salt, put on low heat until tender and serve with Elevated Ice Cream.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Wizard World portals are a good place for fungi to grow.
Aeneas copied down the recipe that he heard in a story:



Stone Soup!

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Halloween




Success!

Sunday, October 28, 2012

On the farm, playing for Ali's B-day!


Happy Birthday, Ali!



Wolf Rock in Catoctin National Park.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Happy Birthday, Wizard Aeneas!!!


Aeneas is 6 years old! At his party, he taught Wizard School and hunted for dragon eggs.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Are you cool, man?


Wednesday, October 17, 2012

This is a graph by Aeneas.  It demonstrates the letters and how many of them there are in his name.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Brian & Babies


Columbus Day Weekend - we visited our friends in NJ!

Tuesday, October 09, 2012

Columbus day

"I was supposed to color this pirate but I decided to take the opportunity to make him a wizard"

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

No school Yom Kippur
Stay at home and play with papa
Both wings and a cape!


Monday, September 17, 2012

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Monday, August 20, 2012

How to make a magical machine

Parts of a magical machine
Energy Source - A relic or magical item
Ray - pathway for energy to flow through
Entreatment - what the energy flows to, vessel
Programming - the directions for what the machine does
Worker - inside the entreatment, instructed by programming
Gear - the motor and all that
Heart - pumps energy throughout machine via Rays


wizard world satelite (a magical machine)

Sunday, August 19, 2012

its been a long hot
summer

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Nana knows how to have a good time

All you need is a bucket and a hose.

Making flap jacks

Ge ge (older brother) and di di (younger brother) help get out the ingredients.

Ge ge shares the blue berries.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

The Lab

[Aeneas and Mama are sitting in the car in the driveway. Aeneas is in the driver's seat.]

A: This is a lab with infinite space. We can do anything here.

M: What kind of science do you want to do today? Physics? Chemistry? Biology?

A: Which is the kind where you design and build things?

M: Engineering. There are electrical engineers, computer engineers, mechanical engineers-

A: I want to be a computer engineer.

M: What is the first hypothesis you want to test? Then we can decide how we should test your hypothesis and we can get supplies.

A: Let's use my wizard computer to get supplies from Amazon. [Hands Mama his Magna Doodle pad] Search for lasers.

M: OK, what color or wavelength do you want?

A: Gold.

M: Hmm... I'm not sure which part of the electromagnetic spectrum we perceive as gold. It is probably a mix. I'm not sure we can get one in gold.

A: Then we need one that shoots beams of electrons which are not parts of atoms.

M: That sounds pretty tricky, too. But, I'll see what I can find.

A: It also has to be rechargeable with Anshu energy. Electron lasers can either be charged with good energy or evil energy. We want the good kind.

M: OK... Got it. Phew, it was the last one in stock. Anything else?

A: Yes. We need one sheet of pure gold foil.

M: That sounds pricey. Do we have money in our budget?

A: Of course, for wizards everything on Amazon is free.

M: Excellent.  I'll just put this gold foil in our cart and check out. I guess I'll try to overnight it so that we can get the supplies as soon as possible.

A: Wizards use the instant shipping through the portal. That way we can have the supplies immediately.

M: Is that under the Super Saver Shipping options?

A: [Moves hands around as if rolling a magic ball.] The supplies have arrived.

M: That was easy.  So, what is the plan for the experiment?

A: We have to shoot the gold foil with the electron laser and see what happens.

M: Great.  Go for it.

A: [Holds invisible laser and aims it at the invisible foil.]

M: Is anything happening? It's hard for me to tell.  

A: Yes, the foil is becoming radioactive. The gold atoms are losing neutrons and protons.  They are decaying and giving off radioactive energy.

M: Really? Gamma rays? That's amazing.

A: Yes. The electrons are also escaping their orbits and shooting out.  The foil is turning into "Light-Might" - a magical substance. Scientists predicted its existence, but its never been made before.

M: Seriously?! Did you hypothesize this would happen when you designed the experiment?

A: No, my hythopesis was that the gold would disappear.  I didn't know that it would become Light-Might - the solid form of light.

M: You're telling me that this is made of photons now?

A: Yes, solid light.

M: We have to publish this.  This is incredible.

A: Of course.
Roll up dem sleeves!
Photo by plotinus99 • Instagram

Monday, July 23, 2012

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Dinosaur Land!!!!










That's right.  We went to Dinosaur Land (www.dinosaurland.com/).  Dinosaur land is a very special place about 1.5 hours west of D.C. where you can see not-to-scale sculptures of dinosaurs and a few other random animals (such as King Kong) made out of fiberglassy foam-like material.  Some of the dinosaurs are fighting eachother.


Monday, June 04, 2012

Aeneas graduated from preschool

From now on, there's only real school.

Thank you Ms. Brennan and Ms. Lureau!