We went to the beach on April 10. Lovely day. Went to the Pacific Science Center and saw the "Space: A Journey to our Future" exhibit on the 12th (Monday) and 17th (Saturday). More Lovely Days...
The beach was wonderful. One of those rare days when the breeze at sea level was almost nil, the sun was on the sand all day long so it was warm by the time we got there at noon... There weren't that many people yet, so the boys could play in the water and the sand the whole time. Tom enjoyed playing with them. I enjoyed sitting next to a small shelter we built for Buffy and reading. Just before we left, the wind picked up enough for a few trials of the new dragon kite. Everyone was well pleased with the day.
The space exhibit was a good choice, too. Monday was a great day to go just because there weren't too many people... we were actually the first in the doors! We played around with a few of the regular exhibits before we went in to the Space exhibit, then had lunch, then watched the demonstration about "combustion" (a real good idea), and had time left to attend the planetarium show before we wended our way home.
The Space exhibit was huge -- the kids loved the interactive portions, of course, and Grant enjoyed reading a 1955 comic version of War of the Worlds. He started it on Monday and finished it Saturday. There were some excellent bits, and a few things that were so preparatory... I think they were designed to give people something to look at while they waited for the crowds to disperse from what were obviously designed to be the more popular parts of the exhibit. But really, neither time did we need to wait for the parts that interested us. Rather, most people seemed to want to attend just to get through it and move on, which was a shame. A few people made the mistake of bringing young (pre-reading) children along, invariably they were bored and disruptive. The parents would have stayed longer, looking and exploring, but really nothing was designed for anyone under second or third grade level.
A disappointment the last two weeks has been a real lack of communication with the teachers for Grant's horseback riding... he has missed three of his last four lessons, all of them because people didn't communicate. The last one, Grant was only a couple minutes late -- Tom says he saw the teacher driving out as they pulled in... he was so sad.
Overall, things have been really good. We have tried new things, enjoyed our projects, and learned a lot.
It has rained every day for at least a couple hours. The cloud cover has helped more than the precipitation, I think, the rain barely gets down below the last centimeter or so of the surface. The small white fir in the back yard is definitely dead and needs to come out. I will need to find something else to put in there to keep the rest of the grove healthy.
Posted by kathleen at April 20, 2004 10:30 PM