October 6, 2012

We are officially on Fall break!!!  And I am SO loving every minute of it!  It seems like it's been a long time a coming...but really...not so much.  I'm so grateful to be living in AZ and NOT in Texas right now because Texas is most definitely NOT on fall break and doesn't have a good break until Thanksgiving.  I remember the three years that we lived in Texas always really feeling like life was just DRAGGING by, starting about now and lasting until Thanksgiving.  The kids were tired.  The parents were tired.  Everyone started to get all run down.  I would just hope and pray that Thanksgiving break would hurry up and get here without everyone falling ill.  I just felt like if we could get that few days break, everyone could recharge their systems and then come back at 100%.  So I have to say that I LOVE that we have a break right now...a whole week to recharge and recollect.  And before we desperately need it too!

I had big plans for Fall Break.  I was heading to Phoenix for a party to celebrate a friend's 50th birthday.  But life had other plans for me.  My car has been making a crazy noise forever.  And I was afraid to get on the road with it.  It went to the tire doctor for the day instead...and it APPEARS that that little visit seems to have helped a bit with our noises!  Here's hoping anyway.  There are still a couple of issues to be dealt with...but the tires are a start!  Anyway...I'm here when I had planned to be THERE.  So we decided to make the most of the day.  After we dropped my car at the tire place, we headed down to the San Xavier Mission, south of Tucson.  It's a place I always wanted to visit when we lived here before...but never went.

It was very neat and beautiful.  So cool to see how the church has stood for so long and all the history that there is there in those walls.

After we left the mission, we headed somewhere I NEVER thought I would go in a million years...the Titan Missile Museum.  Chris decided that we should go and visit  and I was just going along peacefully, especially since everyone was nice enough to indulge my little mission trip.  What I didn't anticipate was how much I would enjoy the museum and how much I would learn.  It was SUPER cool!  Clara got to sit at the "mission control" desk!

The docent told us all about the mission room, the cool rules who had to be there and why, and what all the many buttons and lights indicated.  How the place is built is SO neat.  I loved learning all about that!  After he explained all the buttons and lights and procedures, Clara got to help "launch" the missile.  It's a two man job...

In preparing for the missile launch, he told her "On the count of three, turn your key.  One, Two, THREE"

She did such a good job fake launching the missile, that he presented her with a card that says "I turned the key!"  Not many kids can say THAT I suppose!

After leaving the control room area, we got to see where the missile was kept.  The missile that is there now is not the real thing.  It's a dummy missile, but was still WAY cool to see!

Did I mention that the whole thing is underground?  SUCH a neat thing to tour!  I highly recommend it for anyone visiting Tucson!

After the museum, we enjoyed a great lunch in downtown Tucson, then started working our way back up to our part of town.  You never know what you'll see in downtown Tucson.  It's a different world down there.  For example...

The NO-Tel Motel.  Still open and operating right by where we had lunch!  I've always heard of it...but today was the first time I actually got to SEE it!

In other news....we have had a lot of projects to keep up busy the past couple of weeks.  Clara had a major historical fiction book report that had to be completed.  And Max had to build a tennis ball launcher for his physics project.  That was a lot of hands on work!  Of course...once he built it, he had to test it.  Here is his creation!

A highly intricate and refined design.  All loaded and ready to launch for the first time.

And...off it goes!

The launch cup seems to need a modification.  Enter...the hacksaw!

Perhaps a change of direction also?

And FIRE!!!!  Incoming Ben!

Is it just me?  Or does it look like maybe Chris doesn't really trust this contraption they designed?!

Turns out that Max and Chris did GREAT on this project.  His launcher fired the ball 30.7 meters!!!  The next closest legal launch was only 6 meters!!!  Way to go Max!  That victory snagged him some MUCH needed extra credit points!

In addition to history and physics projects keeping us on our toes, Max also wanted to do a practice run on a Dominican cake for his spanish class project.  I agreed without really knowing what I was agreeing to.  BIG MISTAKE!!!!  Nearly 6 incredibly LABOR INTENSIVE hours later....THIS is what we ended up with...

A rather messy and ugly Dominican cake.  With runny caramel and icing that just would not peak!!!  After this whole thing was said and done I went back and looked over the directions again to see if I could tell what we did wrong.  In researching that, I discovered that very few people ever actually MAKE a Dominican cake because they are so complex and time consuming!  They ORDER their cakes from master bakers!!!  YIKES!  Well...that explains a lot!  LOL!  I have to got to be one of the world's most pathetic bakers ever!  I hate to disappoint Max...but he is NOT making a Dominican cake for his spanish project.  Instead, I found a lovely recipe for popsicles....I'm thinking that's the way we will go!  No bake....and 5 ingredients or less!!!

And so....now you know what we have been up to!  We still have some big plans ahead of us for this week....staycationing around here and seeing some more of the sights!  Clara gets her braces on Wednesday.  She is SO excited! My patio and the cool night air is calling me now and so I must sign off!  Until next time!  Adios!