Blue Yonder

All Play and A Little Work

Hey y'all! Sorry for the disappearing act. I've been diligently working to finish up the book AND.... well... 

also playing hooky a bit. 

The boys and I got some free tickets to Six Flags (big huge thanks to my awesome, amazing sister-in-law!), so we hopped in the car and spent Tuesday actin' a fool with some friends. It was hotter than seven kinds of hell but oh so fun. I haven't done the whole theme park thing in ages!

In typical fashion, my oldest methodically tested each roller coaster (not the huge ones) exactly one time before declaring that no, he'd not ride THAT ever again. My middle son just be-bopped along happy to do anything and everything at once. My youngest, the adrenaline junky, insisted that we ride each and every ride a zillion times. He'd be white as a sheet while the ride was going. Then, just as soon as it stopped, he'd grin and yell "That was AWESOME! Let's go again!"

It cracks me up how true they each are to their personalities, to themselves. My mom and dad gave them some "walking around" money to take to the park. (What would we do without all the generous folks in our lives? - Not much, I think.) 

The oldest spent exactly what he intended to spend and then came home to research stock prices. For real.

The middle man hardly spent a thing so that he could use it for the Lego set that he's been after. After much cajoling from his brother ("Dude... don't you want to be able to buy a house and a car someday?"), he reluctantly put a (very) LITTLE of it into his piggy bank. 

The youngest blew it all on the first thing that caught his fancy - a rifle in the Wild West village. (His oldest brother had a total conniption over this, as you can imagine)

Anyhow, we had a great time. We ate our weight in funnel cakes and fries, drank 18 gallons of water and came home soaked and tired. 

Then we spent all day yesterday in our pajamas, under the ceiling fan, trying to piece ourselves back together. 

Good stuff. 

In other news, my part of the book is about done. The technical grand wizard (thank you Grandfather!)w will soon take over, and if the stars align just right, we'll have it up in the shop tomorrow!!! Thank you so much to those of you who have been eagerly asking after it. I really can't tell you how much I appreciate both your patience and your enthusiasm. I'd take you all to Six Flags if I could... or you know, buy you a gun, or some stock, or whatever it is that floats your boat :-)

Happy Thursday!

On the Road Again

It's Willie Nelson's birthday. We're celebrating by hitting the open road... cuz you know Willie would like that. 

Come on now, sing it with  us now...

Y'all have a good weekend, wherever the road may take you!

Try This At Home

If there's a more inspiring way for young creators to spend a Saturday than going to a Maker Faire, I don't know about it. 

For SEVEN hours we soaked in all the vast and varied things that human hands can do. 

It was mind boggling. I  began to think that perhaps Dr. Seuss had this very thing in mind when he wrote "Oh the Thinks You can Think". 

But then these folks don't just think, now do they? Oh no. They DO!

They glass blow and metal smith, they woodwork, weave, knit, carve, polish, build, hammer and dream. 

There were robot wars (at once the geekiest and most fun thing EVER), a life size game of mousetrap and entire cities built of Legos. 

There were bikes like nothing we'd ever seen - a rattlesnake and a butterfly bike with wings that must have been 10 feet tall,

 

Of course we'll never forget our once in a lifetime ride in a "Carmadillo!"

 

There were art cars, including our favorite, which had enumerable singing fish and lobsters performing everything from classical to Queen. 

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There were stone polishing devices and catapults, rockets and robots. Some painted, some launched ping pong balls, and still other robots that threw flame or drew intricate designs on eggs while others worked their way through mazes and obstacle courses. 

There were places to build with paper and tape, there were buckets of this and that and rows of glue guns just for your making pleasure - you could add your own touch to the giant sculpture in progress. 

There were sustainable food vendors and folks who've dreamt up new uses for solar power or built engines that run on warm water. 

And there was more, so much more. 

In the end, I think that it was the Diet Coke and Mentos guys who said it best. 

They told the crowd that if there was only one thing to take away from Maker Faire it was that everyone present should try this, try ALL this, at home!

Amen. 

And believe me, they were preaching to the choir. I know a couple of young men who left with nothing, if not hands that are just itching make and do. 

All These Blessin's

Well, we made it home. And as nice as it is to have all the comforts of our nest, we miss the beach a lot too. Why does vacation have to slip through your fingers so quickly? 

My men are little still, so I don't really know how much of this trip they will remember. If they are anything like their mama, they will remember bits and pieces... smells, feelings, odd little details. 

I'm hoping that they remember the salty taste of the ocean, and the feel of sand between their toes, the great gliding pelicans flying in formation overhead, the sound, the lullaby sound of the waves coming in.

 I hope they remember the booming horn of the cruise ship leaving, spotting dolphins in the bay, holding hands while we walked along the seawall, picking out shells and souvenirs at Murdochs, the cries of the laughing gulls. I hope they remember jumping and riding on waves, building sand castles and scavenging the beach for treasures and unexpected delights, like washed up jellies and clamy-things stuck to bottles and boards. I hope they remember how their aunt June taught them to dribble wet sand off their fingertips to build sand mountains, how their mama and Nana bustled around the kitchen making the first tomato pie of the season, and the charcoal smell from Daddy's grill. I hope they remember that when the table was set, and all were gathered 'round, it was Ryder who wanted to say the prayer. His sweet prayers always made us laugh and even brought a few tears... "Thank you God for this beautiful beach and all our many blessin's" 

I hope my boys remember their Grumpy, teaching them to play 31 - a game I learned to play during family gatherings too, and like them, I tried so hard to add up my cards as quickly as the adults. 

I hope they remember their awe at the aquarium, when the sharks swam overhead. 

I hope they remember the Duck Tour, the way their Daddy remembers doing the duck tour when he was a boy, vacationing in the Wisconsin Dells. I want them to remember eating calamari and fried shrimp, taking showers outside, making sand candles and plaster casts of their footprints. I want Ryder to remember the little plastic mermaid waterglobe he bought me at the Seven Seas Grocery. I want my guys to remember flying kites on the beach, the smell of Nana and Grumpy's coffee in the mornings, popsicles and bowls of cherries on the deck at sunset and all of us, the boys, Mama and Daddy, Nana and Grumpy and Aunt June together, laughing, wishing it would never end.

 I want to put it all, every last delicious bit, in a bottle and save it for always. The closest I could come though, was some sand from "our beach" and eight shells - one for each loved one that shared time together at Galveston. I'm going to put it in my kitchen window sill so that every now and again, we can look at it, and remember...

To Truly Love the Ocean

I am a firm believer that you can't teach a child to care for the earth without helping him fall in love with it's wonders. Well, let me tell you, my boys love for the ocean grew a little deeper yesterday, after a visit to the NOAA Sea Turtle Facility. Basically, it's just a big steel barn (they actually do call it the turtle barn), where they raise a whole bunch of sea turtles. It's part of a decades long effort to increase the dwindling population of sea turtles. Most specifically, the Kemp Ridley, which makes its home in the Gulf of Mexico. They raise new hatchlings until they are two years old (big enough to no longer be prey for crabs and other sea critters)

Then, they each participate in a test. 

See, one of the major killers of sea turtles is shrimping nets. The turtles get caught in them and are unable to come up for air, so they die. 

Scientists like the ones that work at NOAA are always looking for ways to help the fishermen do their job in a way that doesn't harm the turtles. 

The turtles from NOAA help them test their ideas. Each turtle participates in one test before it is released into the wild. 

So they're smart, not just good looking. :-)

We learned all about where they nest, and how they are rescued and cared for and rereleased. Mostly though, we just stared at them and wished we could stuff a few in our pockets.

As you might imagine, the boys' journal pages were FILLED yesterday with little drawings of sea turtles, brochures from NOAA and scrawled words like, "Sea Turtles ROCK!"

(oh, and as an aside, a few of you asked for more information about our journal "word bank" - click here for a better photo, and a few more details) If your little sea lovers would like to learn more about sea turtles you can visit these great sites: www.ridleyturtles.org

www.savetexasturtles.org  www.seaturtles.org

We also picked up a really sweet book that would make a great beach blanket read: Into the Sea 

Speaking of beach blanket... there's one calling my name! Happy Wednesday, folks!