The Science of Pixar

The kids and I went to the Science Museum a few weeks ago to check out the new summer exhibit The Science Behind Pixar.  The exhibit shows you how Pixar movies are created and allows people to experiment as if they were making a movie following the production pipeline.

You can make your own stop-motion animation video...

You learn how characters are made to move...

You see how certain details are more important, especially if they are closer to the camera...

Of course you can also see some of the characters themselves...like Buzz Lightyear...to infinity and beyond!

Or Dory...

Mike and Sully...

And even Wall-E...

Yes...we even saw a Omnitheatre film and dinosaurs...

A good day...

Hey...We're Flying...

For a while now, Craig has been telling the kids that he'd take them flying...last Sunday was the day.  We were going to meet at the airport in Glencoe at 10:30, but low clouds prevented it, we didn't actually meet until about 1:00...the kids didn't mind waiting...

 Craig had to take three flights to fit everyone on the plane (it seats 4, including Craig).  Luke, Lex and I went on flight #2 and Lukie snagged the front seat...

I sat behind Lukie and it was easy getting lots of pictures of him watching Craig do his thing...like this, just as the front tires left the runway...

Luke admiring the ground below...it was Luke and Lex's first time ever flying...they loved it...

 I have no idea what he was pointing out, but I bet it was important...

Here he's just admiring the country landscape...

Lex had a great time in the back seat too...

Lukie wanted to fly over the pool in Norwood, so here's a picture of us coming up on Norwood (just about 2,500 feet below us)...

And the picture of the pool that Luke wanted...

He was happy sitting in the front, thinking he was in charge...

We then flew over Cologne and Waconia before heading back to Glencoe...

Kieran was on flight #3, you might be able to see him in this picture sitting right behind Craig...

All the kids had a blast and have talked about it many times since Sunday...

Nerstrand Big Woods State Park

Last weekend, Luke and I went to 5 baseball games (8 pm Friday - 8 am, 5:30 pm, 8 pm Saturday - and 6:30 pm Sunday) and Luke caught 28 foul balls....but this post isn't about baseball...

In between the morning and early evening games on Saturday, Luke and I drove to the Northfield area to spend three hours at another state park, Nerstrand Big Woods.  We had been there a couple of summers back, there's a nice waterfall, but we hadn't done the hiking club trail....

The park has some pretty steep ravines and the waterfall because it exists just to the east of the last glacial margin...meltwater from the glacier carved the ravines, one reaching deep enough to bedrock forming the waterfall...

Though the ravines are covered with vegetation now...

Water still flows downhill, just not as much...

We found an unique tree (or trees)...

And found the password we were looking for...

From there, we took off for Hidden Falls - a 10-12 foot waterfall over the Ordovician Platteville Limestone...

Just like most waterfalls, the creek is eroding a softer layer (in this case shale) and flowing over a more resistant rock type...

Its a nice waterfall, in an area of the state you don't really think about waterfalls...

What's cool is that you can get all over the waterfall, above and below the falls...

The last picture just had to be of the park's sign...

West Carver Community Pool

So Luke and I (sometimes Lex and occasionally Kieran) have been going to the West Carver Community Pool in Norwood 3-5 times a week this summer.  What's cool is how much stronger they've been getting swimming...there are few places that they can touch bottom, so they're forced to swim...

Luke wanted to learn how to dive earlier this week so I taught him on the fly.  We started on his knees and moved up...he's gotten pretty good...

Luke's moved onto running off the board and diving...getting good...there were a few bellyflops in the process though, part of learning...

Not to be outdone...Lex asked Mary (a lifeguard) if she could go down the slide in the deep end if I was there (just in case).  I said no lifeguards would get wet, I'd deal with it if needed and they agreed --- I don't have pictures of that, but the next logical progression was the diving board...so she's figured out how to survive the board...

We're still working on that 'plugging the nose' bit...

She's winning on the nose thing...

Next step is to get Kieran diving...he hates that Luke can dive better than him....

Grandma's Marathon

The reason for heading north last weekend was that I was running Grandma's Marathon for the third year in a row....it was a really good idea last October...not so much last week...

Friday afternoon, the kids and I stopped to pick up my packet at the DECC, we also had a spaghetti lunch while there (man Lex eats slowly)...because it was taking too long, Luke and I took a picture...

Saturday morning, I woke up early and left the campsite --- Lukie woke up just long enough to say goodbye...the other two (and Craig), I have no idea when they got up...

This picture is me wondering what the hell I'm doing here again...

If you want to know what the start area looks like, look at this picture...there were 8,700 people running the marathon and this is about 1/5 of the porta-potties at the start...

When the race actually starts, you're well back from the starting line if you're like me...it takes several minutes of walking to get across the starting line (way off in the distance)...

The weather at the start was fantastic -- cloudy, cool (about 60 degrees) with a slight breeze off the lake.  About 8 miles in the clouds were gone, the temperature was in the mid-70s and the breeze was gone too.  That made it tougher...of course the longest run I had done in the last two months was 12 miles, so that didn't help either...

Because I didn't train very well in running the long runs, I slowed my pace to a little over 9 minutes per mile.  It was working pretty well for the first 18 miles or so...I ran all the way to that point and then walked through a water stop...bad idea...the legs were gone at that point.  From that point on, I'd walk about 1/5 of every mile and jog the rest --- of course walking the waterstops too, over drinking water...

I knew someone I teach with would be up there watching his kid and about a half mile from the finish I hear my name getting screamed...it was John and he sent me this three pictures...

It wasn't my fastest marathon or my slowest, but it was #5...I finished and that was my goal...