That includes me. And that's a compliment to all who I will write about. Noticed I capitalized Nerds. That's important.
We had a great Thanksgiving! All the Astlings came to our house to eat and play and play and eat. And think. We generally do some thinking during the day, but when David wore scientific riddle shirts every day like this . .
we had to start thinking before breakfast was served. I think I stared at his chest for five minutes when he wore the periodic table called "The questionable table of elements." Sorry if that made you uncomfortable Dave. Here's a sample:
The day he wore that shirt, we went to the new Utah Natural History Museum and wouldn't you know it, they had periodic table flash cards that David was determined to put in order. The rest of us left after 12 elements in place. We went with Jenny, Stephen, Lieve and David. It was great to have five adult brains and five set hands (and extra shoulders to cart James) for three boys. We were all extremely impressed with the museum and learned more about Bonneville Lake, dinosaurs discovered in Utah and other places, Utah landscape, how to save water, the economy and reduce pollution, cell division, DNA, deer scat, ants, solar power, American Indians, erosion, wind force, viruses and much, much more! The museum is beautiful and uses every bit of space for learning. I highly recommend it!
That evening, we counted pennies. Well, not really. We weren't allowed to count them until we figured out how many were in the jar. Over the course of an hour, the boys, David, Lieve and with a few interjections from me, the boys eventually figured out the if you weigh ten pennies, divide the weight in grams by that number (26), you get the weight of the average penny. If you weigh all the pennies in the bottle (3023 kg) and divide by the weight of one penny you get the number of pennies in the jar without counting! Answer: 1,162.69 pennies. That wasn't good enough for my practical brain, so I made everyone count pennies. If our counting was correct, we counted 1,177 pennies, which means our math was only off by 14.31! Pretty darn good if you ask me! I am thankful for brainpower and patient people. And thanks for the jar Granna!
Brainstorming. . .
Weighing the booty! (James approves)
We decided this year to fry a turkey. . . and bake one just in case the fry turkey ended up as charcoal. Mark was very kind to show me some youtube videos on turkey frying safety controlled by firemen. After reading statistics that there are 5 deaths every year from turkey fryers and multiple injuries and $15 gazillion in damages, I tried to convince Mark to fry it at a park away from our home. But he assured me that he had it under control. Plus he had "As Seen On TV Ove gloves" so all was well. Some of us stayed inside while he verrrrrrrry sloooooowwwwly lowered the turkey into the fryer. Not a problem. The turkey was out in 50 minutes and was very tasty!
Before
After
Dinner was great, if I do say so myself, with welcome additions of salad, pumpkin cookies, drinks and veggie platter to cut the density of all the other dishes. We laughed and ate and ate and laughed, though I don't think we did one math problem, except maybe to calculate which of the Astling boys has produced children. The evening was full of games, puzzles and science experiments accompanied by an ensemble of football games.
Mark, Spencer and D.J. went to the last Utah home game where we were hoping the math of wins and losses would equal a visit to the Rose Bowl, but sadly that problem was over thought.
We had to have one brainless event though. It happened after I left my chair and I returned to find that James had put banana peels under the legs of my chair. Duh. Guess who get mop duty.
Saturday was the Mark Astling nuclear family time, so we went to, not Boondocks, not Kangaroo Zoo, but. . . drumroll. . . . the Clark Planetarium, where we watched an IMAX movie called Flying Monsters - the history of the Pterodactyl and other flying dinosaurs.
The evening ended with Grandma Wheeler coming to babysit while Mark and I had mind-stinulating conversation over dinner and a movie about time used as currency.
Perhaps I should go watch a fluffy chick flick to decompress.
Thanks for all the mind-stimulating fun!
Thanks for letting us stay with you and for all the great times. Thanksgiving dinner was amazing as always. I hope I didn't overdo the geeky stuff, but as a true geek I feel that I should pass some if it along to the boys.
ReplyDeleteThe new Natural History Museum is excellent and in a wonderful location. I felt a little saddened and nostalgic about the old museum. I have fond memories of my mom taking me there. But they really did do a great job with the museum that I think it is for the best.