mars madness

on my drive into the office today, i switched on public radio.
i felt like I'd been living under a rock the last few months.
i usually tune in at least once a week to get international news,
but i hadn't listened to anything...nada.

i've been spending my commutes listening to back to back audiobooks
for the past 2 months. listening because I'm spending evenings reading
my own books.  the book group is serious, so it's not acceptable for me to
show up to our dinners/meetings without having reading our book.

since we just met last week and i haven't started our next book,
it was time to find out what was going on in the world.
i tuned in and the first thing i heard was the discovery of water
on mars! i thought of finn immediately and was looking forward
to discussing with him over dinner tonight.

then i remembered finn checks NASA's website, along with spaceX
and another space exploration site every morning before school. 
i'm sure he already knew about water on mars, and that thought made
me smile. i don't think there's anything new c or i can tell him on the subject.
he's always a step ahead.

he's a kid with a passion for all things space and space exploration,
he's also a kid who is counting down the days to see the martian.
it comes to theaters this friday!!

it's rare all 4 of us go to the movies together
{i think the last one was the secret life of walter mitty},
but this is one movie we are making an effort to see as a family,
and one we've all been looking forward to for a long time.
i'm hoping it's even half as good as the book.

finn read the book in 2 days after he received it for christmas last year.
i read it a few months later with my book group, then c read it, finn recently re-read it,
and we've challenged scout to read our 'edited' version {bad words removed} before
we see the movie. he's got 1/4 of it left.

scout tells me he is enjoying it and can explain the overall concepts
from each chapter, but admits that alot of the technical stuff goes over
his head.  {i can relate as half of it went over my head too}.
the mechanical engineer in my book group was the only one
i think actually understood all of it. {smarty pants} *grin*

so saturday is the big day...the boys and i are off to the
movies after soccer and are all pretty excited!

today's google doodle made me smile.
it pays homage to the evidence of water on Mars.

i hope you had a wonderful day!

~ i fear i'll never catch up on my blog. there's so much i want to capture.
this past week/weekend, finn joined his school's surf team, i served as a
juror {my first time} on a criminal case, and the family participated in surfrider's
annual paddle for clean water event. scout didn't participate in it {he refused to
miss his soccer game}. soccer and his riptide team are his obsessions right now.

6th grade stress

during the boys' second week of school,
they missed 3 days because we they were camping at yosemite.

the trip had been planned with 2 other families for months,
and the particular days were chosen as we wanted to wait until after
the crowds of summer were gone. i should note the families we went
with don't have kids in school yet.

the camping trip deserves it's very own post, and will get one eventually.
in the meantime, i wanted to document how finn felt 'after' the trip.

i found a form  on the table a few nights ago that his science/math teacher,
had given this to her students while he was away camping.
he completed it after he returned to school.



i felt bad for him, but not bad enough to keep me from pulling him out again. 
when we have an opportunity to have an enriching experiences, it's worth it.
we just need to remember to get all the homework before we leave
{he forgot this time...and his parents forgot to remind him}. 

beyond learning that this trip caused him 'stress', c and i had fun reading his responses.
they represent him so well....show his confidence, his loves {reading, space, math, and science},
where he wants to improve (spelling} and what his hopes are {to learn new kinds of math}
i'm sure his teacher, mrs. joy is thrilled to be teaching a kid who loves the subjects she teachers.
{i can hardly wait to meet her}

-  the camping families are all meeting tomorrow night after work to watch a slideshow
that will contain all the photos that were taken during the trip. the schmid family was kind
to take on the project and host.