Eclipse Prep

It looks like we're ready for the eclipse!  This is the talk of the region right now, as a super-rare eclipse is coming to extreme North Georgia in about a month or so.  We have plans to go visit with Josh and his family, who's house will be in the totality of the eclipse for about two minutes and thirty seconds or something like that.  He's pretty close to the line there for maximum exposure.  We got our glasses in the mail today, specialized glasses for viewing the eclipse, in adult and kid sizes.  In the picture above, Madison and Daddy cannot see a single thing.  These glasses are so heavy in the front that unless you're looking at the sun, you can see nothing.  We did look at the sun for about two seconds, and sure enough, you can see the outline of it.  We'll have our glasses packed away and ready for August 21st.  The entire country will be seeing this thing, as the eclipse path goes from Oregon and travels east and south, eventually passing by our way early afternoon.  A lot of cars are going to be traveling north from Atlanta and points south of that, all in order to reach this total eclipse zone.  There will be tons of traffic in Clayton we suspect, and many places along 441.  But also on the way to Hartwell and along I-85.  We'll be off that main road a bit, but still, we'll travel earlier in the day to avoid as much last-minute congestion as we can.  Also, we're taking Madison out of school that day so she can go up to see this once-in-a-lifetime event.  Seriously, Daddy has never seen this before, and neither has Mommy.  Daddy saw an annular eclipse in the 1980's, and that was pretty amazing.  He had no idea it would be this long before anything similar would come by this way again.  So here we are, fast-forwarded to the future, and with Madison no less.  It should be amazing.

Schools are going to be staying indoors for extended hours, even outside the area of the totality zone. But again, we're not even going to try school that day.  You just can't miss something like this, and we don't plan on it.  Hopefully the weather is going to be okay, but other than that, we're ready to go.

Tonight was KidPak, a service Madison got to go to.  It was her last Wednesday night service for a while, as next week she has to get to bed early.  School is here next week.  But for now, she enjoyed our Superflix series dedicated to the movie "Megamind."  It's a movie she suddenly wants to watch again.  We do too, actually.  But Daddy did the message tonight, and it was great.  We had visitors, and visiting parents, and things went remarkably well, just like a Sunday morning service would.    It was great.

Earlier in the day, we took advantage of a coupon to the local Dairy Queen here in Gainesville, and got ourselves some Blizzards!  Yep!  Daddy got a Hawaiian Blizzard, which was just as tasty as he remembered it being.  Years ago, in the 90's, this was the signature Blizzard he always ordered.  I think it's been that long since he's last had one.  Yummy!

Daddy was working today, obviously.  Madison was at home working a bit too - she's been into LEGO building again.  She's built her own little church for her LEGO characters to go to.  She's built little top hats for them too, and a few other buildings to perch up on to of as they watch the movies that we watch too.

She did piano practice, of course.  And lately, she's been into coloring in some of the stained glass window pictures she got for Christmas.  She has plenty of angels colored in, spending a lot of time at the kitchen table, coloring in pictures, or making new ones herself.  It's almost like art camp at home lately!