WonderLab

We used our Clay Center membership while on vacation again. We went to WonderLab in Bloomington, IN. It was really cool. For those of you that have been to the Clay Center's hands on science area, this place was two stories of the same foot print with more packed in to every square foot. There was a giant climbing area for the kids to climb up two stories in a cable caged plant. All the kids loved to climb up in that. There was a Blue Man Group pipe with the music to several songs, Isaac and I played the StarWars theme song. There was a nice little salt water aquarium with clown fish and coral. Water experiments, a strobe drum behind a guitar to see the waves in the strings, a fan table with PVC pipe to float ping pong balls, a vertical jump measuring wall where you slapped the button as high as you could, a series of clear tubes mounted to a wall with a fan blowing balls up and out through it, a fog table with foam blocks to direct were the fog went, balls mounted on a cable that rocketed up to the ceiling, on and on and on...

This is Lexy and Natasha sitting on a bench in the WonderLab garden just outside.
This one is Isaac and Travis operating crane. There where three controls. The crane move radially, you could move the cable from the center to the outer edge of the circle and then the raising and lowering of the cable. Each box in the cage had a key hole that the cable could hook on to. We stacked up a big stack of blocks and then knocked them over. Pretty fun.

Here is Lexy gathering up a 'cloud bubble'. There were about 5 stations with bubble experiments. One of the used cables and soapy water to create a bubble, like the one at the Clay Center, but this one then had a hair dryer mounted to blow the bubble out. I would create huge 18" to 24" bubbles.

This picture of Isaac is outside in the garden. The station that he is by uses solar panel that they can rotate up and down, round and round to catch the most sun. There is an energy gage that tells them how much power that they are capturing. Then there is a bell, a fan and a few LEDs. It shows them how much power each item needs to operate. Very cool...

The WonderLab was awesome...!!! Thanks Aunt Jean for telling us about it.

Corvettes

One of the places that we visited on our vacation last week was the Corvette Factory and the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, KY. We saw the museum last year when we drove to Nashville, TN to visit with the Eppley's. We decided to visit with Isaac in mind. He has been into cars off and on for the last two years. It ended up being something that everyone really enjoyed.

We started at the NCM but the tour of the factory started in about an hour. So, we watched the history of Corvettes video and drove over to the factory. They didn't even allow cell phones in the factory. So, no pictures... :( I was a super cool place. Amy keeps saying that is was like a live, in person How It's Made. We spent about 2 hours walking through the plant on a guided tour. It was very clean. We watch them start with the frames, add the body in pieces, drop in the seats, add the dash, test the electronic; then the car raised up into the ceiling. They turn around in the ceiling and drop back down to the production line where they meet up the the power train. The wheels, engine, transmission, drive line and suspension are all assembled and the 'trimed out' car lowers on top and they are attached. What a neat tingle we all got as we got close to the testing area and hear them start up the brand new Corvettes. Each one is tested at 70 MPH in a booth, then run on a 1/4 mile track and blasted with 12 gallons per minute of water. Lots of testing to make sure that they are ready.

After the factory tour and some lunch we headed back to the museum.

Unfortunately we couldn't use the premium parking.This was a sweet little statue of a '50's Vette done with camouflage and dedicated to American soldiers.
Lexy found a pink Corvette in the museum. She was having fun anyway, but this put it over the top for her. Even the premium parking was full at one point in the day...

There were a half a dozen cars in the breezeway of the museum building. They all had these little signs in from of them.

One thing that Isaac was into was that during the introduction video that talked about the history of Corvettes they mentioned that there is only one (1) 1983 Corvette. And it was in the museum. Here is a picture of Isaac with that car.

Indiana Cousins

We just got back from a vacation to Kentucky, Tennesse, and Indiania. We stayed most of the time with Joe and Brenda Burkart just outside Bloomington, IN. The have a great family 2 boys and 2 girls. Natasha is a year older than Lexy and they had a BLAST together. Isaac and Little Joe were plaing videogames every chance they got.

Here is a picture of all of us at Spring Mill State Park. Neat place most of the buildings were built in the 1820's and 1830's then restored in the 1930's. All the kids except the baby. Left to right, Natasha, Lexy, Little Joe, Isaac and Abby. Brenda was holding the baby, Toby (Sam).

This is a picture of the kids plaing in the sand box under the Burkart's deck. They said that the chicken wire is to keep the cats out of the sand, but I think it keeps the kids in too... ;)

This is a fun picture of Lexy and Natasha. They did just about everything together. Natasha was soooo upset when we left. :(

Thanks for letting us stay and showing us a great time Burkarts...!!!

Lawrence County Derby

We went the Demolition Derby last night in Lawrence County Ohio. Ted and his family saved us some seats, perfect seats. GREAT DERBY...!!! Much better that the Washington County ones that we have been going to the last few years.

Here are a few clips... I need to add for info about them later tonight or tomorrow....

Patton's Pool and Slide

We got a sweet invite to the Patton's for a BBQ and swimming...

Here is a quick video of the great time that Isaac, Lexy and Trisha had on the slide...

Computer Repair

So, I am not sure that I have posted about this little issue that I have had for the last 2 months. My computer screen on my laptop cracked. It was a painful and trying time in my life. I have been either using the half of the screen that works, or plugging it into my TV, in order to use the computer at home. Sucks for me.

I called the week that it broke and Dell told me that my computer was still under warranty, however, this was not covered. So, I gave them my card number, paid the nearly $200, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited. Then I got an email from them, "Your order has been delayed, please respond if you still want your parts." Well, yeah!! I still want my parts...!! This was about a two week cycle that when on for two months. If I called, I got India, I even got hung up on when I asked them to speak clearer because I couldn't understand him. Bad service.

Somehow late last week Amy had a break through with them. She got a FedEx tracking number, but I still wasn't convinced. Sure enough, one day late. The new screen showed up on our door step yesterday.

So, now to install it. I have put new RAM in a laptop, or changed the video card in a desktop. But this is major laptop surgery, at least in my book. No, there were not instructions with the parts. Off to search in internet I went. Found a great service to the world. On YouTube there are a bunch of videos made by On Call 25/8. They had posted a video on how to switch out the whole lid of the exact laptop that I have. Close enough. I took it from there.

Here is my computer all busted apart...

More apart...

Some how I got it back together, it powered up and I was able to upload these pictures via my repaired, self repaired, computer.

Isaac will be sooo excited when I show him (it was 12:30am when I got done)... It broke while he was using the computer to video chat with Amy while she was in Hazard, KY.

Hillbilly Hot Dogs

We made the short trek down Route 2 to Hillbilly Hot Dogs. We had a great time. We have heard that they were on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on the Food Network. We watch that show, but we haven't see this one.

I have driven by a couple of times and finally decided to stop and try it. Good enough to bring the family back. Amy was quite concerned when we pulled up.
Their flagship is the 'Home Wrecker'. It's a 3 1/2 lbs monster. If you can eat it in 12min or less they'll give you the tee shirt. This bad boy is 15 inches long, the dog it's self is a full 1 lb. They must have made 5 of the while we were in there, most of them were for folks that were splitting them.

This is the store front. Plenty of items, just in case they need them later.

We ate in one of the two school buses that have been converted to dinning rooms. If you notice all the writing on the walls of roof of the bus, they have makers around for you to write your name, etc. The kids wrote theirs near the front door.

The hot dog business has served them well. The personalized license plate says, "WEENIE1"

We will be going back... Come on over and we'll take you there.

Waiting for the Fireworks to Start

The kids, Trisha, and I went downtown for the fireworks on the 4th of July. Amy had to go back to Hazard, Ky to work on the morning of the 5th... :(

We were not quite sure where they launched the fireworks from, other that on the road across from the downtown area. We fought the traffic for quite awhile and then found a spot in a 'towed and owners expense' parking lot. We were a half a block from the river. We walked down to the river and decided to go down to the sidewalk halfway down the river bank. We spread out our blankets (that Isaac packed for us, thanks buddy) and sat down to wait. The bridge looked pretty cool. Check out all the boats on the river. We waited quite a while... The kids were getting board so we started snapping pictures. Lexy didn't get the idea of funny faces... yet.

This is the face of boredom.

And the funny faces continue.

It seemed to be sooo long waiting for the fireworks... I guess you'll have to wait too...

(to be continued)

Tawny Daylily

These flowers are all over in West Virginia. They are all along the roads and railroads. I am not positive yet but I and thinking that they are called 'Tawny Daylilies'. The only hang up I have with calling them that is everything that I have read about them says that the flowers fall off at the end of each day. I don't think that these do.

These flowers close up at night and open in the day...

This bunch is just across the road from the gate to our subdivision. They are quite pretty.

Cool Old Cellar

I found another cool place. We were walking a new waterline in the Branchland, WV area and there was this cool old cellar that was built under a low overhang. There were shelves in the door where it looked like they had made racks to keep food and what not. It wasn't big enough to be used as a place to live.


I always like to see this kind of old stuff.