After playing scrabble and making gingerbread houses (warning they are smaller than the box leads you to believe) and a quick nap, we headed over to the Winter wonderlights at the Wildlife experience. Don’t our gingerbread houses look cute up close?

(Grandma’s house, the best one.)

Hannah helped too.

While we waited in line for ticket we saw elves playing violins and this soldier who was juggling.

All the kids were asking to see his juggling clubs and balls so when Joel asked (and said he could juggle) the guy let him have the juggling balls first. Joel did a few tricks with them and then the soldier let him try the clubs.

I don’t think the guy actually expected Joel to able to juggle the clubs. But, he did and everyone waiting in line clapped for Joel until the soldier guy decided that Joel was stealing his thunder (plus we had to move up in line.) We walked along the trail around the museum gazing at the lights.

The kids had those 3-d glasses too.

After the light trail we ended up in the museum in the discovery den and then went outside to the elf village. Lastly we watched ’How the Grinch stole Christmas’ on the extreme screen. I was a little mad that we didn’t get to go into the museum (private party), but after the movie I thought the kids had fun and it was something different to do. Plus with the snow on the ground, it felt like the start of the Christmas season.

Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about Denver!

June 1858, GOLD! Gold is discovered in the South Platte River near Cherry creek. It is said that gold nuggets line the streets and waters and are just waiting to be picked up to make a man a fortune!

November 22, 1858 Denver City Town Company is founded by the William H. Larimer party from Leavenworth, Kansas Territory. Wanting to be Grand Pooba of the New Denver City, Larimer laid out street plats. Miners beware: grub stakes and land tracts are being offered up in Poker games. Be careful or you may end up with no stake and no home! Larimer was instrumental in the formation of the Colorado territory and making Denver the Capitol of that seat. He was expected to be Gov., but President Lincoln gave the seat to William Gilpin of Missouri. Larimer’s city was across the creek from the Auraria settlement (founded earlier) and when the two rivals merged, Denver City dropped its name to just Denver.

1861 Colorado territory created.

1870 The train’s a-coming! The Denver Pacific, Kansas Pacific and Colorado Central Railroads reach Denver, ending the town’s isolation and stagnation. Before this people arrived via wagon, or in some cases walking form the last train stop outside Denver (quite a ways off.)

1871 Clang, clang, clang goes the trolley! Ding, ding, ding goes the bell! First Denver street car line built from Auraria to five points.

1876 Colorado becomes the 38th state.

State Motto - Nil Sine Numine - Nothing Without the Deity
State Name and Nickname - Colorado / Centennial State
State Animal - Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep
State Bird - Lark Bunting
State Fish - Greenback Cutthroat Trout
State Flower - White and Lavender Columbine
State Folk Dance - Square Dance
State Fossil - Stegosaurus
State Gemstone - Aquamarine
State Grass - Blue Grama Grass
State Insect - Colorado Hairstreak Butterfly
State Song - “Where the Columbines Grow” and “Rocky Mountain High”
State Tree - Colorado Blue Spruce
State Mineral - Rhodochrosite
State Rock - Yule Marble
State Reptile - Western Painted Turtle

1904-1918: Mayor Robert W. Speer transforms Denver into a “City Beautiful.”

1929 Fly to Denver! Stapleton airport opens. Although air travel wasn’t new to Denver, back in 1919 you could fly from Denver to Colorado Springs for $12.50 in an open-air cockpit.

1930’s Denver develops its mountain parks system, including Red rocks outdoor amphitheater and Winter park ski area.

1947-1955: Mayor Quigg Newton modernizes Denver, installing Dr. Florence Sabin as head of Health and Hospitals; Hank Barnes sets up one-way streets and “The Barnes Dance” (diagonal pedestrian crossings downtown, we were the first city to have those – drivers hate them!)

1995: Denver International Airport opens; Denver builds a grand, new public library, incorporating the original 1955 landmark building, and restores historic branch libraries.

27 Denver landmarks:

1. Tivoli Brewery
2. Byers Branch Library
3. Speer Boulevard
4. Lincoln Hall
5. Oxford Hotel
6. Denver Gas and Electric Company
7. Baker-Plested Cottage
8. Corona School/Dora Moore School
9. Cheesman Park Memorial Pavilion
10. Baerresen-Freeman House
11. Bluebird Theater
12. Zang Mansion
13. Harman Town Hall/Greenleaf Masonic Temple
14. Douglass Undertaking Parlor
15. Clements Row House
16. Annunciation Catholic Church
17. Romeo Block
18. Queree House
19. Smith House
20. First Ave. Hotel
21. Washington Park Boathouse and Pavilion
22. Cory Elementary School
23. Four Mile House
24. Lowry-Eisenhower Memorial Chapel No. 1
25. Richthofen Castle
26. St. Thomas Episcopal Church
27. Civic Center Park

Today we headed over to the Colorado History museum to see Mayor Hickenlooper cut the ribbon to the new Denver exhibit.

It’s called Denver 150, imagine a great city. People gave a few speeches and we sang a verse of ‘Happy birthday to you’ to Denver.

In the new exhibit they have everything from the Rockies home base and dirt from the 2007 National league championship games to the money bag and gun from the Boettcher kidnapping. They have John Elways’ t-shirt, old printing press, wagon carts, historic pictures and a film about Denver stories. It was pretty neat and I’m guessing it will be a permanent exhibit even when the museum moves into their new quarters. The museum had a passport trip set up for the kids where they got a stamp at every site.

We got to pan for gold, lasso a steer, spark a fire, see an old schoolhouse, grind corn meal, see several touch carts and the mining cart exhibit was actually on (that’s the first time we’ve seen it working.) We saw a ski soldier reenactor, a square dance group, an Indian tribe dance and got a free Denver postcard at the end of it. If you haven’t been, go on Saturdays. They have cool family events and kids under 12 are free.

Next stop was the Denver Botanic gardens, also free today. They are tearing up the place for winter so most of it was closed off, but we did see what was left of the outdoor gardens. Inside the giant glass and steel structure is a rainforest cornucopia of plants, flowers and trees.

It’s very humid in there (reminds us of Houston.) Today it wasn’t so bad because it was only 60 outside. The new exhibit at the gardens was graffiti or urban garden art. We sat down and wrote our names graffiti style on paper and looked at this plywood art up close.

There were panels of graffiti art all over the gardens, and I must admit – they look like art to me. After rolling down the hill and playing tag we went to the last stop of the day.

Four mile historic park gets it name because it is 4 miles from Denver. Four Mile House once served as a stage stop, wayside inn, and tavern for travelers on the Cherokee Trail on their way to Denver City. We haven’t been here in 5 years. We’ve been back here 3 years, but we just haven’t made it by for anything. Half of what we saw I don’t remember from our last visit. We went in the visitor center, which I think is new, and headed out to the houses. We passed up the quilting bee house where some ladies sat quilting and we pounced on a cat that was lounging nearby (to pet him.) We went by the outdoor bakery where oatmeal-cranberry cookies and Christmas cookies were being cooked in an old Franklin stove. They were good! We saw the root cellar, tipi, miner’s camp, miner’s cabin and the blacksmith shop.

He was actually in there working on a piece. We went by the barn and saw the horses (the girl’s had them named in 2 seconds; Brownie, Snowflake and Rainbow.)

After petting the horses and looking at the goats we wandered back to the center and found dress up clothes to put on.

It would have been much more pioneery if there had been 5 feet of snow on the ground, but we still had fun in the sun.

That was the way we spent Denver’s Birthday.

Happy 150th!

Not the movie version. We had a very cool opportunity last night. In honor of Denver turning 150 years young next week, a bunch of museums stayed open till 10 pm last night and were free. It’s part of Denver arts week. If you know me, you know I don’t pass up an opportunity to go somewhere for free (when it’s usually a pay deal.) So, after work we ate and headed downtown.

The first stop was the Byers-Evans house. We had been there before, but James hadn’t. The city grossly underestimated how many people would turn out in 30 degree weather to see free museums. The place was packed. We had an introduction in the parlor and we got to stand on the side that’s usually closed off. The lady talked about the theater groups that use the house as their performing center. We found out it’s the only way you’ll get to see the upstairs of the house too. She read a letter from a Colorado nurse writing during the civil war. It’s one of the things they do in the summer called ‘letters from home’. They go to different areas of the house and read real letters from Coloradoans from US wars. After the reading we went into the living room, tea room and the music room. The original owner, Mr. Byers, started the Rocky Mountain newspaper, which is still publishing today. He sold it after 6 years to a business friend Mr. Evans (whose father was the Gov. of Colorado.) You’ll see a lot of things named Byers or Evans in Denver, these men came here to help build a city, so their legacy goes on. The house sits in the shadows of the 2 art museums that we now have.

Next stop was the Colorado History museum. For those of you in Denver, it’s free again next Saturday when the Denver 150 exhibit opens (free cake too.) We wandered around for a bit and then made buttons from pictures of Denver. The girls made some with the Capitol, mountains, and the library with pretty colors on them. Joel made one that said Denver’s 150th and one of a pilot leaving his plane at Stapleton airport. We also got a black and white copy of a parade down 16th street in what looks like the early 1900’s. We did want to go to the Molly Brown house, but we missed the shuttle and it was 6 blocks up (and therefore 6 blocks back.) James had given me a limit of 3 museums, so we left and drove to the next stop.

We have never been to the Forney museum of transportation before. It was very neat. We thought (because the paper had said so) that we would be exploring the museum with headlamps and lanterns, but they just meant that the cars and trains had their headlamps and lanterns lit.

We saw cars from the 1900’s, buggies, hearses (did you know children’s hearses where painted white and had colorful scenes painted on them?) We saw the history of bicycles, antique children’s ride on toys and tractors.

We saw this contraption from the 1950’s; it’s a car-plane.

Apparently it worked, but you’d never get me in there. Yeah, the words experimental are probably a good reason to stay away (that and it was made out of plywood.) We saw trolley cars, trains, and the Herbie car from the demolition scene in the movie ‘Herbie fully loaded’.

This picture turned out horrible,

but it’s the inside of the old KIT car from Knight Rider (we’re watching the new version of that show now, it’s not great but Val Kilmer has finally found his niche – being KITs voice!) We sat in a Model T, saw Colorado’s first art car (not that old, in Houston we have an art car parade every year, and it’s been going on for awhile.)

We also saw Amelia Earhart’s car! After looking at a few more cars it was time to go and there were still some things we hadn’t seen.

All in all, not a bad trip. Of course if James hadn’t been along I’d have dragged the kids to probably 8 more museums (Joel says good thing Dad was there.)

Oh, and I am soooooo ready to get my new camera in the mail!

That was a very nice ceremony.

We had a bagpiper, placed a wreath on the memorial, had a 21 gun salute, sang songs and had a fly over (that Joel said was braking all FAA rules, but I bet they allow them to fly that close to us on Veteran’s day.) The mayor of Littleton gave a speech and the roll call from 2 posts was called. Then people could come up and remember a vet in their family that died or that was still living to honor them. One vet came up and told us about how he was dropped near the woods in WWII and he came upon a group of Germans. They were surrendering so he took the officers’ luger and still has it today. He asked the Germans why they were still fighting when they knew they were losing, the officer replied, ‘We fight for the comrades.’ The veteran said that’s what we do too; we fight for our friends, our country and our freedom. Joel thought it was very cool that this man got to keep a German luger (yes, Joel, it’s called ‘spoils of war’.)

Here are some flags for the vets in my family; sorry didn’t get one of the Army flag.

But, here is the Navy flag.

The Marine flag.

Joel with the Air force flag (which as far as I know if he goes into that branch he will be the first person in my family and James’ family to be Air force.)

While Joel was learning CPR and other first aid stuff with CAP today, the girls and I were learning about art. Joel is a card carrying member now of emergency services, he can help you if you have a heart attack, need a defibrillator, cut your arm off, drown or just need basic first aid. Hopefully he will never have to use his new found skills, but it’s nice to know he can if he needs to. He also learned the important art of directing a crowd at an emergency scene, so if he tells you to do something…do it!

At the art museum we got a backpack for the Latin American floor.

It was the only one left….We did a puzzle and then went to find the vase that looked like our puzzle.

Grace found it after searching for a few minutes. Then we played a cube game where we rolled a cube and then had to find that piece of sculpture in the room, that was kind of hard. Last was the craft, a monkey mask to color.

I think we had another piece to put on it, but I couldn’t figure it out. We went up to the 6th floor after that to see the renaissance paintings and paintings grouped by theme. In the discovery lab Grace found something that she’s been studying in history.

Here is Pissaro’s impressionist painting that could be a picture of my backyard (hint: that would mean still no snow yet.)

Here is a violin, Grace was inspired by it, she says she’s doing one like it when we get home.

Antique furniture is up here too, Bethany and I really like this chair, she’s going to paint a picture of it at home.

In the old building there are lots of skinny rectangular windows that frame the outdoors just like a painting.

Looking down at the Greek theater across the street I’m not blocked by a frame though, I know what else is out there and can imagine it. Isn’t it frustrating to be a painter and run out of canvas? To get to the frame and just end?

We had a special treat today, a group of sculptures from the artist Jean-Antoine Houdon from France.

The exhibit is on loan from the Louvre, which aroused Bethany and Grace’s curiosity (they’re taking French.) Here is Morpheus the son of the god of dreams done in marble.

Here is George Washington done in terra cotta. Houdon was invited by Ben Franklin to come to Mt. Vernon to do the cast for Washington’s sculpture.

Here is the security guard telling me not to take any more pictures (well, imagine that part.) But, he didn’t ask me to delete the ones I already took! We bumped into a friend from our HS group and her sons at the clay table, a nice treat (but we were almost ready to leave.)

We tried our hand at doing some clay sculpture, man….eyes are really hard. I guess you need to like to work with clay and be good at it in order to make something like Houdon.

Back in the other building we returned the backpack, saw the Clyfford Still and Daniel Richter exhibits and popped bubbles in the reactix bubble lab.

Here is a mobile that we were trying to make at girl scouts (it’s hard!)

Then we went around the corner where you could write a poem from a template that asked you questions about the museum. Here is someone’s poem written in algebraic equations, pretty cool.

Here is Grace’s poem:

A rectangle
Shadows in space
An alien
The moon creaking
Like I’m jumping

Bethany’s:

A puzzle
Dark
Clay
Everyone
Scariness

Mine:

A garden of origami
Reflections of water droplets
In a dream
Echoes of laughter
Flying through space

It’s kind of neat to not know what the questions were and just see the answers. I’ll give you one though; the first question was ‘What does this museum (the building) look like to you?’ After a pass though the gift shop we left to go pick up Joel. I’m still at odds with our new museum, I think the space inside is very broken up and has lots of wasted space, but at the same time it’s growing on me. Here are some parting shots for reflection.

No, we don’t.
Just because, we never have, so we don’t.
We did however, go out to eat.
Buy 6 pounds of candy.
Got a hotel room.
Watched the last 2 episodes of Lost season 3 and ate candy.
It was nice.

James thought that meant we were going to see stem cells, no. It stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. I heard that the Friday one was really packed with lots of school kids. So, I knew that Saturday would be better. The school kids wouldn’t voluntarily come on a non-school day! I was right!

We got in and answered some space questions to win star markers and a model of a satellite (which is going to take awhile to put together, lots of tabs.) Bethany had to say the planets (she asked them if they wanted Pluto as an answer or not, we’re fond of Pluto, so we haven’t dismissed it as a planet.) Joel had to say which planet has the most moons (Jupiter), Grace had to say how long it takes for the earth to go around the sun (from 1 birthday to the next.) Then we went over to the electricity booth.

There we shocked each other silly and magnetized a piece of PVC pipe by rubbing it with a cloth to move it’s electrons around. We played with magnets there too, here’s a game where you push 1 magnet and it hits 3 others and then knocks down a piece of wood.

Hannah thought it was cool.

We wandered through aerospace booths, saw robots running around and saw a working trebuchet (which gave us an idea….we’re going to make one.) Then we headed over to the DNA extraction booth. The guy there said it would take about 30 minutes to do the experiment and looked at the girls. Yeah, we can sit for 30 minutes (he had 50 school kids at a time the day before overwhelming him and not sitting still.) First we were given a vial of Gatorade to swish in our mouths and then spit in a cup (Hannah looked at me like, what? Spit it out, but it’s my favorite drink!) We did that and then put it back in the vial. We added soap to it, swished it around and then placed it under our arms for 15 minutes (this was the sit still part.) We had to heat up the solution so the soap could break down our cheek cells. Hannah just had fun using the pipette to transfer soap and Gatorade back and forth from the cup to the vial.

After 15 minutes we slowly added ethanol into the vial and then after a few minutes we could see a globby white substance start to form, this was our DNA. I tried to hook mine out, but ended up using the pipette to suck it out and transfer it to a vial we could wear around our neck. Grace’s DNA never formed (probably because she was eating mints right before), Bethany’s and mine came out good, Joel’s was not very formed, but I manage to suck out a few particles.

The guy helping us praised the kids for being so patient and Joel tried to swipe some more vials to play with at home (no dice.) We wondered if you could use alcohol to separate the DNA instead of ethanol. We also found out you could get more than human DNA (say if you ate a burger before doing this) in your sample. But still, that was pretty cool.

Here is a cool experiment we saw. You stick some eggs in 3 solutions: corn syrup, water and salt water. If the mixture is Hypertonic then water molecules diffuse out of the cell (egg.) If the mix is Hypotonic it’s got more water coming into the cell. And if it’s Isotonic it’s the same flowing in and out of the cell. I think I’ll get jars with a lid though! (Corn syrup is hypertonic, salt water is hypotonic.)

We wandered around some more, through the star lab, by the zoo booth and saw a prairie dog.

It’s not that we can’t see them at home, but they sure are cute up close. We went by this science supply booth where Bethany won a magnifying glass and calipers.

We got to see a lot of science equipment up close and play some games. We went by the shadow puppet booth and the make a movie booth where Bethany made a you tube video of her dance from last Christmas. We went by the math estimating booth where Grace was right on for 2 of the guesses (how many balls in a jar.) At a college booth Joel asked if he could solve the rubix cubes, the guy said yes so Joel did all 3 of them in a few minutes. The guy asked for Joel’s name so that when he was ready for college he could recruit him. Joel knows there is math involved in the formula to solve the cube, but really he just memorized the whole thing. We saw earth science booths, rocks, space stuff, engineering, chemistry and machines, awesome!

We left with lots of stuff, posters, handouts, information from colleges, DNA and of course calipers. On the way home we stopped off to buy some test tubes (we want to do the DNA extraction again) Joel didn’t find any beakers so we have to get those. We are going to do another DNA extraction, build a trebuchet and use marshmallows to model chemical reactions I’m sure I’ll finds a use for those calipers too.

We seem to be the only people that knew it was Constitution day today. It’s not like it’s national hat day or clean up your earth day, it’s a day devoted to the study of and acknowledgment of the Constitution.

So anyway, we started our day by delving into an on-line lesson that had a newspaper print out. We read about the 13 colonies declaring war against the British, the Articles of Confederation and the Constitutional convention. 55 delegates from the states met in Philadelphia to talk and debate and come up with a better governing law. We talked about what the founders wanted, they wanted something better than what they had as colonists. They wanted a self-governing law that would protect their rights. We talked about what the Constitution says about: federalism, republican government, limited government, individual rights, separating of powers, and popular sovereignty. We talked about how a bill becomes a law and walked through the steps. When we got to step 5 (Senate debating the bill) and saw filibuster; I brought up “Mr. Smith goes to Washington” as an example. We watched it a looonnng time ago; we’re going to have to see it again. I don’t like Jimmy Stewart, but as he is filibustering that bill and talking on and on until he falls over he really shows the passion someone can have when they stand up for what they believe is right. We talked about the Bill of rights and the other amendments to the Constitution. I had the kids pick out 5 that they couldn’t live without. Joel picked 1,4,5,10 and 26; Bethany picked 1,4,10,13,19; Grace picked 1 and 13 (I think it’s the only ones she heard.)

1-freedom of religion, speech, press, assembling.
4-secure in your house and person, warrants need to be issued with cause.
5-can’t be held for capital crime without grand jury, no double jeopardy, can’t be a witness against yourself.
10-powers not delegated to the US in the Constitution are reserved to the states or people.
13-abolishing slavery.
19-women’s right to vote.
26-yong people’s right to vote.

Then we did a crossword puzzle and went through a story about a girl at school who was an editor for the school newspaper. The principal didn’t like her story so he pulled all the newspapers and she was suspended from the paper. Her teacher had okayed the article, but the principal overruled. We talked about how freedom of the press does not apply in a school situation because the school is paying for that paper, so they have the right to pull anything they find offensive. We also found out that students in a public school are protected by the Constitution, while student in a private school are not. The government isn’t involved in private schools or for that matter in home schools, so technically a homeschooled student isn’t protected by the Constitution while ‘in school’, interesting.

Next we did an on-line game where we went back to the 1787 convention and asked questions of delegates and listened to their answers. Then we got to choose what we would have voted to be in the Constitution. We heard arguments about too much democracy, too little democracy, term limits on presidents, how much of a vote should blacks get, how little vote should blacks get and more. After each vote it would say what was actually put in the Constitution and then we made notes of it. We did an on-line quiz with some really hard questions that we had to go into our copy of the Constitution and look up. Some of that wording is really hard to understand, so we found a site that summed up amendments 11-27 in 1 or 2 words each. We also talked about how an amendment ends up on a ballot because we know about the girl in Kiowa who started a grass roots effort to get the personhood amendment on the ballot this year. She got more signatures than needed and Nov. 4th Colorado will be able to vote on the personhood amendment to add it to the law. It basically says that (to quote Horton) ‘I have to protect them because after all, a person’s a person no matter how small.” It says that a person starts at fertilization. Check it out, it’s pretty cool. We ended our study by going to school house rock’s website and learning the Preamble to the Constitution, I’ll have that song stuck in my head for weeks to come. Here’s the full song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_TXJRZ4CFc

I decided that we’d celebrate our learning by going to a Rockies game.

What does that have to do with the Constitution? Nothing, but we had a treat when we got there. The Air Force had F-18’s do a fly over and that should have clued me in that there was something else going on besides a baseball game. I saw lots of people in uniform wandering around before the game. When the game started they said that during the 3rd inning Congressional Medal of Honor winners would be on deck signing autographs. (I have pics, but my camera is being difficult about getting them off of the card, so I’ll try to get them with James’ computer tonight.) So we went down and waited an inning and a half (and missed the only homerun/point of the game) to get autographs from men who fought in many wars, showed great heroism and came home alive and with more than this medal. They were all so humble and most of them didn’t seem comfortable sitting there signing autographs, as if they had done more than their duty. But the government said they did. We talked to men who were in wheel chairs, missing an arm, on oxygen, had no feet, missing a leg, deaf, and heard their stories. It was worth missing a home run. I’m not going to write their names, but here are some things they did.

Vietnam, Army, specialist 4th class-Ignoring heavy weapon and grenade fire, he leaped to his feet and charged a heavily fortified enemy bunker firing as he ran, silencing 4 bunkers. He fought through a hail of fire and helped evacuate wounded in a pinned down company.

WWII, Army, private-He rushed an enemy strongpoint and encouraged others to join the attack. He inspired his squad in halting a counterattack. He killed 12 enemies during this attack and his fighting spirit turned impending defeat into victory.

Korea, Marines, private 1st class-Ambushed by mortar fire he and others sought cover in a trench line. A grenade landed in the trench and he unhesitatingly threw himself on the grenade, absorbing the charge and shielding his fellow Marines as he suffered grave injuries.

Vietnam, Navy, lieutenant-He led patrols deep into heavily controlled enemy territory to rescue 2 downed pilots, saving one and continuing attempts to rescue another 2 days later. Disguised as a fisherman he found and hid the pilot and came under machine gun fire, but reached safety.

These are just a few of the stories that we heard and read about. It was very appropriate that on this day, this Constitution day, we got to honor heroes of war who helped and help us everyday to keep our rights given to us by a piece of paper.

“Any nation that does not honor its heroes will not long endure” Abraham Lincoln.

BTW, Rockies won 1-0.

Oddly enough, Bethany’s history lesson was about the Constitution and France’s and America’s revolutions. Tomorrow is Constitution day, I’ll post links for that above this post. Joel raced through science and vocabulary and had a homeroom session for 30 minutes. Then back to math and history for him. Grace did math and phonics and science. For writing she had to write a sentience about ‘I wish’. So she wrote, I wish I could be a whale scientist when I grow up. Hannah was busy with her leap pad and counting beans in a bowl, throwing beans on the floor and spilling beans on her table. But, it kept her occupied.

After lunch we worked on our Picasso type prints.

We engraved images onto styrofoam plates, then painted and pressed them onto paper. It was hard work getting the paint just right, but the results are worth it. Hannah decided to paint her hands as well as her plate.

Here is Joel’s rose and Bethany’s cup of coffee (well she doesn’t really know what it is, but that’s what it looks like.)

We kept printing pictures of trees, bunnies, smiley faces and abstract art until we had papers overflowing all over the kitchen. Engraving is hard work!

After we cleaned up we took Maisy to the creek with us. Fall is starting to peek out of the bushes here.

At the creek Maisy took off and was jumping through the water biting it like a mad dog.

She rushed after the girls and then rolled in the dirt (I was hoping the creek would be her bath, but she was filthy after rolling in the sand.) We waded and played and watched the dragonflies flit around.

The purple thistles are all gone; all that remains of their fleeting beauty is a dry brown husk.

There were some purple flowers and a few black eyed susans popping up around the creek.

We dug out this hole in the side of the creek to sit in the shade.

Bethany imagined she was ‘playing by the banks of Plum creek’….After some more digging and wading we dried off and headed back to the car. I think we wore the dog out!

Last night we went over to the Wing’s museum to hear Richard Rutan speak and also the authors of the book “Capt. Jepp and his little black book”. First up was Mr. Rutan.

He told us that when he was a little boy his mother took him to air shows and he was very excited about the planes. Then one day he saw an F-100 pilot next to his plane and thought I could never do that. His mom sensed that he was thinking about the awesome job of piloting that plane and asked him, ‘Dickie, do you want to fly a plane like that?’ He said yes and she said, ‘Then set that as your goal. If you can dream it you can do it and remember only the only way to fail is to quit.’ So, he set the goal of becoming a jet pilot and he did. He flew missions in Vietnam and when he retired from the Air force he came back home where his little brother was concocting a scheme of flying non-stop around the world. Richard thought it was an impossible goal, but then so was his becoming a pilot, so he told his brother, Burt, that he’d do it. Mr. Rutan said that if he had known how much time and effort was going to go into the building of the plane he would have quit, but then like his mom said that would be the only way to fail.

After 5 years the plane was ready to fly, they loaded up the plane (which originally weighed only 939 pounds) with 2 pilots, fuel and supplies and suddenly the weight was 9,694.5. The fuel made the wings so heavy that they bowed out and dragged the ground. Richard insisted on 300 more pounds of fuel to be put it the plane, his brother said it would never fly, he was wrong.

They started down the runway at Edwards Air force base (the longest runway in the US) and it took 95% of the runway, but they made it in the air. We were watching a video of the take off and as the Voyager went down the runway the wing tips were scraping on the ground. Once they got airborne and ascended to 1,000 feet both of the wingtips were wrenched off the plane’s wings. Suddenly they had lost 3 feet of wingspan and the wings were flopping up and down as they flew. I don’t know how they made it, but 9 days later they touched down at Edwards Air force base having traveled 26,358 statue miles. To this day no one has gone on a longer non-refueled around the world flight. Neat! He also said that no one in his youth could imagine that he and his brother would grow up to be famous or do amazing things like go around the world non-stop. He told us that as we teach we should remember that those in our tutelage have the opportunity and the ability to grow up and do great things. We should never underestimate the will of youth and the power of encouragement.

Next up were the Authors of the book, “Capt. Jepp and his little black book”. If you fly then you know about Jeppesen, even if you don’t that name may sound familiar. You may have seen the terminal name at DIA or his statue or the company in Englewood. All of them are in honor of the man who made flying safe for the masses. If it weren’t for Jeppesen and his navigational charts, many people may have died in airplane accidents and wars may not have been won. What’s so important about navigation? Well, go get in a Cessna, get up to 12,000 feet and ask me then! Elrey Jeppesen was an adventuresome spirit; he loved planes and hated school. I’ll bet he would have loved HS’ing. Anyway he quit formal school and became a wing walker and acrobatic pilot. His pilot’s license was signed by Orville Wright!! He did barnstorming, aerial photography, stunt shows and flew for United Airlines (back when it was Boeing.)

All the time he flew he kept a little book with notes in it about his trip. His altitude, where good landing sites were, perimeters of fields, height of silos, length of runways. More and more pilots began asking for a copy of his book, so at night he would mimeograph a small book and sell it for $10. Eventually he gave up his passion for flying and devoted his time solely to making navigational charts. WWI and II made his business boom as the Army and Navy came to him asking for charts. Eventually his business was sold to Sanderson and changed hands a few more times before finally becoming known as Jeppesen. Mr. Jeppesen left for awhile, but was asked to come back as a consultant. He was there at the ribbon cutting of the opening of the Jeppesen terminal at DIA and he was inducted into every pilot hall of fame there is. Mr. Barnhart who co-wrote the book was actually able to sit down with Mr. Jeppesen at lunches and talk about the book, but it wasn’t until after Mr. Jeppesen died that the book started to come about. Mr. Barnhart hired Mr. Whitlock to help him finish the book and it came out last year on what would have been Jeppesen’s 100th b-day. Joel went to a program at the library when the book came out and had the authors sign it.

So that was our night, very cool to have met a real live pilot personality and hear tidbits from the life of a pilot’s favorite person (because without Jeppesen, Joel would end up in Sterling when he meant to be in Pueblo!)