Baby, it's cold outside!
Brrrrrr! Sure, 17F would be a brisk fall day in Kiruna, but here in the DC area it feels like death. Probably because we don't have approrpiate clothes for this weather. I took the kids to Chuck E. Cheeses and we were only in the cold for about 3 minutes total from outside our door to into the car, then out of the car and into the restaurant, but of course the car was cold. That was two hours ago and I'm still frozen in my bones.
I am mainly concerned about what this means for January 21. I'm headed to the Women's March and am hoping it will have warmed up by then. I saw that they are predicting rain for inauguration day and a sunny, 50F day for the Women's March, so let's cross our fingers and hope that doesn't change. I am going down with a group of women and who knows what will happen. We all assume it will be a long day of peaceful protesting, but we are also prepared for it to turn into a really ugly situation since Trump is batshit crazy. I briefly thought about taking the kids to this historic march, but decided that A) it is going to be really boring from a child's perspective and I can't deal with listening to them be bored and B) I don't want to put them in harm's way if it gets crazy. When my friend and I decided to go, we decided that we would only let people known for making smart decisions and who were able to handle themselves go with us. The last thing we need is to go with someone who doesn't know how to act. We've got a good group going, so fingers crossed it is peaceful and impactful.
I had a panic attack on Friday when I realized that the science fair is this coming Friday. The kids don't want to participate, but this is one area that I'm a stickler in. They will participate, gosh darn it. They may not like it, but they will learn science. I found a great resource for finding a project, http://www.sciencebuddies.org/ and used their suggestion wizard to figure out some ideas for the kids. Erik is going to see what material blocks wi-fi the best. I guess we'll do that tomorrow night. Elsa made plastic out of milk and vinegar. Crazy stuff! I had no idea this was even possible, but it worked. We finished the project just fine, but unfortunately we did not work with the plastic quickly enough to actually shape and mold it. It cooled down too much and it became extremely crumbly. I may play with it a little while the kids are at school to see if I can actually make a piece of moldable plastic. It is super simple. Heat milk to at least 49C (we did 53C), then add one cup of milk to 1 T. of vinegar. Our test was to see if we would get a higher yield if we added more vinegar so we did six runs--1 through 6 T. of vinegar. Turns out that that 1 T. made the same amount as the 6 T. For a child who whined and complained about not wanting to do a science project, Elsa sure did have a lot of fun.
I am mainly concerned about what this means for January 21. I'm headed to the Women's March and am hoping it will have warmed up by then. I saw that they are predicting rain for inauguration day and a sunny, 50F day for the Women's March, so let's cross our fingers and hope that doesn't change. I am going down with a group of women and who knows what will happen. We all assume it will be a long day of peaceful protesting, but we are also prepared for it to turn into a really ugly situation since Trump is batshit crazy. I briefly thought about taking the kids to this historic march, but decided that A) it is going to be really boring from a child's perspective and I can't deal with listening to them be bored and B) I don't want to put them in harm's way if it gets crazy. When my friend and I decided to go, we decided that we would only let people known for making smart decisions and who were able to handle themselves go with us. The last thing we need is to go with someone who doesn't know how to act. We've got a good group going, so fingers crossed it is peaceful and impactful.
I had a panic attack on Friday when I realized that the science fair is this coming Friday. The kids don't want to participate, but this is one area that I'm a stickler in. They will participate, gosh darn it. They may not like it, but they will learn science. I found a great resource for finding a project, http://www.sciencebuddies.org/ and used their suggestion wizard to figure out some ideas for the kids. Erik is going to see what material blocks wi-fi the best. I guess we'll do that tomorrow night. Elsa made plastic out of milk and vinegar. Crazy stuff! I had no idea this was even possible, but it worked. We finished the project just fine, but unfortunately we did not work with the plastic quickly enough to actually shape and mold it. It cooled down too much and it became extremely crumbly. I may play with it a little while the kids are at school to see if I can actually make a piece of moldable plastic. It is super simple. Heat milk to at least 49C (we did 53C), then add one cup of milk to 1 T. of vinegar. Our test was to see if we would get a higher yield if we added more vinegar so we did six runs--1 through 6 T. of vinegar. Turns out that that 1 T. made the same amount as the 6 T. For a child who whined and complained about not wanting to do a science project, Elsa sure did have a lot of fun.