Solar Power

We finished the solar system today, which turned out pretty great, actually.  We spotted the idea online, and sort of followed that example to an extent, but added a little bit of our own into it.  It was Madison who did all the work, of course, including finding gravel and sand today in a parking lot, which we used as the asteroid belt.  It's been an ongoing process this week, each day working on this planet or that, and even the galactic backdrop itself.  Today we were drawing out the orbits, gluing the planets in place, making the labels and putting them down as well.  As you can see, it turned out pretty good!  And yes the big yellow one is the sun!

Today we went out for a few trips, one of them being the library.  Daddy picked up a copy of the next book in the "A Series of Unfortunate Events" book, which we read tonight before bedtime.  We also picked up a copy of "A Wrinkle of Time," the latest movie version that came out in theaters last spring.  Madison didn't think it was so bad, although we all know it isn't that much like the book ultimately.

"I'm underwhelmed." -Mrs. Whatzit

Also, it was ...well... not that good.  I just read a review that called it a "waste of glitter," which was amusing, and perhaps a bit accurate.  I can imagine those people who are super fans of the book series were amazingly disappointed in this movie.

"I can't stand the sound.  It hurts.  Cover your ears." - Meg, Calvin

Anyway, yeah, it wasn't that great.  Madison said she liked the book better, and thought at least this movie was better than the other version we saw.  Boy, that was another stinker too....  ANYWAY, moving on:  another thing we did today was get a scarecrow.  Yes, this is a big moment for us.  It's September 1st,  and that means we get to start thinking FALL THOUGHTS.  Yep, we're bringing up the fall decorations and getting things ready for the season.  Here we go, on the edge of the greatest season of the year, right?  It's going to be great, for certain.

This morning, we watched the Dragon Con parade live on the computer, looking for our new friends in the 501st.  Sure enough, we saw a few, along with many other costumed characters walking down the street.  We'll see a few tomorrow at KidPak, in fact.  Seeing the parade online was probably more convenient than actually going down to Atlanta, although perhaps some day we might make the journey down there.  They say it's a lot of fun for us nerds!

We stopped for ice cream after a trip out for chores, stopping at the mini-golf course.  We sat on the rocking chairs on the porch for a while, rocking and sharing ice cream in the cool shade there.  It's been a small routine at least, stopping there not for golf, but for ice cream!

We did some reading this morning, another chapter in "The X-Cutioner's Song," and after that Madison was continuing her Minecraft story mode for a while, solving an interactive murder mystery - but then it was back to work on the solar system.  That was really the project of the day for her, a time intensive little thing, but one that turned out very nicely in the end.

It was a nice day, anyway, a slow-paced day with a few things done here and there.  We'll get a good night's rest tonight, because we have KidPak in the morning - the Spirit Awakens once more, and our Star Wars series continues!