Model Rocket Flights

The Republic Attack Gunship that J got Christmas Eve has finally been completed. The base of the ship was flexible after completion causing the ship to break apart easily. We were able to correct that design flaw by adding 8 additional plate pieces strategically to the base.

When we left the house today there was NO wind. So we decided today would be a great day to fly model rockets. We brought two rockets and six motors with us today. By the time we got ready to fly the wind had picked up. Flight one the parachute did not deploy completely and it landed in a tree. We were able to recover the rocket by knocking it out with a stick. Flight two was with our second rocket. It's parachute did not deploy well either and it is still in the tree. Flight three was great...but it was caught by a wind gust and was lost completely. But the day was not a loss....we met some nice kids at the school field and we enjoyed the three flights we did have ; )

Fontana Dam Video

We took a great day trip out to see Fontana Dam. It was unseasonably warm for December (upper 60's+ F). NC has been experiencing a severe drought. You can see in the pictures that the reservoir is drastically low. http://www.ncdrought.org/ You can see from the link that the area where the dam is located is classified in the red 'D3-Extreme Drought' zone. The Dam was very impressive and the pictures do not really convey the scale of it.

Christmas Eve & Christmas 2008

Friends of the Library used bookstore in Sylva, NC....one of our favorite destinations!
Fontana Dam

Guitar Hero World Tour for our wii!

Lego#7676 Republic Attack Gunship!

We had a nice Christmas eve at Maw Maw's house with lots of good food and presents. Maw Maw and Paw Paw got J this HUGE Lego set of the Republic attack gunship. It is taking longer than expected to assemble mainly because of all the presents Santa brought for J on Christmas morning. We all enjoy playing with the Wii Guitar Hero World Tour. Santa also brought some star wars guys, a jenga game, a rubiks cube, and a scuba diving outfit for the GI JOE santa brought last year. As a family Christmas treat we all took an overnight trip to Dillsboro, NC and had a wonderful time. We took a drive out to see the dam at Fontana Lake. I will make a microsoft photostory 3 video of the trip and post it soon.

We are also very excited to begin this year's Cub Scouts Rocket Derby Kit! This year our design will be 'Glamourous Glennis' Chuck Yeager's Bell X-1 plane that was the first to break the sound barrier. It will prove difficult because we have to use the wood in the kit to make the wings. This will take some thought....more to come on that later.

Happy 13th Birthday Monterey Jack!

Last Sunday Dec 15th was Monterey Jack's 13th birthday!! We had a huge celebration. We all went to hardee's and had cheeseburgers for lunch, we went to petsmart and got all sorts of attention, we also go to go to grandma's house and had cake!

Gingerbread house and Christmas tree shopping

Somehow we missed out taking pictures of Thanksgiving...but here are some pre-Christmas photos of J's gingerbread house (all by himself) and the perfect tree he picked out for us this year!

Runescape

J is just learning to play runescape. Jagex now has it set up so that if you are underage there is no 'chat' feature turned on. J really enjoys this game. There are a lot of quests and puzzles to figure out. His character name is Jgp2001 if you want to play too!

Lego Agents Mobile Command Center #8635

Yes it has been a very long time since we have posted! Things have been busy! But Christmas Vacation is finally here and we are really enjoying the nice rest! So I will try to do a few 'catch up' posts today...

This is J and one of our dogs. J made a special bed for him for a camp out in his room.

This is a pic of J at the cub scout bike rally. J is still learning to ride, but he had a great time. This was a really cold day.

J worked really hard and saved up his own gift money and allowance money for MONTHS to buy this Lego kit all by himself!

This is the Lego Agents Mobile Command Center. J was able to assemble it completely by himself in a few hours. The kit has awesome playability!

Halloween 2008 Indiana Jones Costume

This year's costume turned out great! We went to party city to look for ideas and J saw an Indiana Jones hat and it was decided at that moment he would be Indy for this halloween. The costume at the store was not in his size and was very fake/cheap looking. So I went online to look for ideas and found the 'official' indiana jones hat at the lucasfilms website. The pants, shoes, belt we had already. I found a 'safari' shirt online at cabela's. The whip and gun were just cheap little things we found. I really wanted to make a duct tape whip...but I just didn't have the time. The scruffy beard was done with a pirate makeup kit that came from walgreens. We just dabbed a sponge into the black makeup and stippled it on.

These are just some funny teeth that came with the makeup I bought to do the Indiana Jones beard.

Click above to watch a movie of our halloween!

Scottish Heritage Days

We took a trip to a local museum last weekend and discovered that they were celebrating 'Scottish Heritage Days' complete with bagpipers!

This is Phantom the Border Collie. We had a great time watching him herd ducks.

J got to haul some buckets of water to experience child labor in the 1700's!


I am always facinated by blacksmiths

We were able to watch this woman card the wool, spin the wool, and knit the wool!

Our Latest Fishing Trip

This is a picture of our latest fishing trip. Who thinks to call ahead to see if the lake is still there??? It is closed for some sort of maintenance. We did have fun exploring the dessicated lake bed. We found a few frogs, and some spiders. We released our bait worms.

Lazy 5 Ranch Day Trip

Lazy 5 Ranch

We just got back from the Lazy 5 Ranch in Mooresville, NC. It was a perfect fall day. There was actually a nip in the air and we had to wear jackets. We bought tickets for the wagon ride (def. worth the extra $5!!!) and spent the time waiting walking through the petting zoo grounds, and playground. We had a great time. The animals come right up to you and take the food from your hands. They have a huge variety of animals, you see chickens and camels, goats, parrots, prairie dogs, and lemurs! The atmosphere is very laid back. It is not like a zoo where you see the animals from a distance. The wagon ride was amazing. We actually got to touch a zebra and a giraffe! The water buffalo came right up and opened it's mouth waiting for you to pour the food in. The staff was super friendly. Our wagon driver kept us entertained the entire time. Nothing was rushed. After the wagon ride we watched a blacksmith shoe a horse. All of us enjoyed the place immensely! I can not WAIT to go back.

To top off a near perfect day we stopped at beautiful Carrigan farms and J picked out a 24lb pumpkin! There was a lot more to do there, including a corn maze, but it was getting very late.

And to make my day absolutely perfect the Red Sox just won game 6!!!!!!!

A Wolf Spider in the House!

This is a Wolf Spider that made it's way into our house this week. We captured him, observed him in a bug jar for awhile, and then released him back into our yard.....far away from the house.
Our DVD/VCR broke. Whenever something interesting in our home breaks, Dad and J disassemble it together. It is a great learning experience. Don't worry...they know all about the danger of the capacitors.
We went to our local farm to get a pumpkin this weekend. We went late in the afternoon and the farm was mobbed! There are usually big stacks of pumpkins to choose from. Yesterday there were just a few here and there in the store. We played around for awhile and then went home. We will try again next weekend and maybe they will have a better selection of pumpkins!

Apples

Yummy Apple Crisp for dessert
J doing homework
This week's project. Decorate an apple and write three sentences about it. J chose to do a pirate apple.

Apple Festival

Lincolnton Apple Festival

the weather was perfect, but the crowds were HUGE.

It was really a nice festival. Tons of stuff for the kids. Lots of food and vendors!

Solar Hot Dog Cooker!

Solar Hot Dog Cooker based on designs from Boys' Life magazine September 2008 pg. 40

We are inscribing a curve on the inside of a cardboard box. This circle has a 24" radius. That means the the focus is 1/2 the radius so the hot dog should be placed 12" above the foil.

We cut out the curve and used the cut out as a template for the other side.

We then laid the poster board on the box and traced it.

J cut out the poster board and covered it with sliver reflective tape.

We then attached the foil to the box.
We used the scraps to make the side supports to hold the hot dog. They are perpendicular to the curve. We made a hole for the skewer 12" above the surface and several other holes to experiment with.
The finished product next to the instructions from Boys' Life.

We should have done this yesterday when the sun was blazing hot. Today the clouds were beginning to build in late afternoon.
For our latitude the cooker should be at a 33-degree angle. We were unsuccessful and the hot dog was only increasing in temperature about 1 degree per minute.
After changing the angle to about 57-degrees we could visibly see the sun striking the hot dog more intensely. This increased the cooking speed to about 2.5-degrees per minute.
J used his lego motor and gears to construct a rotisserie device.
We are definitely going to try this again with several design improvements. We got too hungry to wait for our slow solar cooker and resorted to the electric stove!

Helpful links:
http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/projects/solardogs.html
http://worldwatts.com/hotdogs/solar_hotdog_cooker.html
http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-solar-hot-dog-cooker/