It's not great, but it's a start

I saw the beautiful full moon in the sky tonight with no clouds to block the view and I absolutely had to take some pictures. I've wanted to for the last several nights but it's been cloudy. I really need to remember to take some pictures when it's a new moon because a full moon tends to drown out everything else.

Anywho, my moon picture looks pretty much exactly like my last one so I won't bore you with it. But I did take this one during the day a little while ago.


There's not a lot more I can do with the moon, but I also took some other pictures while I was out tonight.


I know it's hard to tell but this is Mars. This is the best I can do with my camera. I figured out how to auto focus so at least you can tell it's round and that it's orange. I've decided that I want a telephoto lens. That's probably the cheapest way to get a better picture.

I also decided to try some pictures of stars.


For those who don't know, these are the Pleiades. A group of bright stars that you can see in the West in the evening. I left the shutter open for four seconds for this one. Any longer and they start to streak since, you know, the planet is rotating.

I noticed that the constellation Orion was also in the Western sky so I decided to see if I could get a picture of the Orion nebula.


This is as close as I could get and I can only leave the shutter open for four seconds. I know it's not fabulous, but the middle two stars are fuzzy because that's where the nebula is. It's just hard to see when there's so little light and we're so far away.

Thanks for reading. I'm really excited to take this up. It's something I've wanted to do for a long time. Unfortunately, it's going to cost more money to get anything better than this. We'll see how it goes.

"Mom, I have to do a science project and it's due tomorrow."

Has this ever happened to you? It happened to me yesterday. I had other plans but they fell by the wayside and the rest of my day was spent helping Nathaniel with his project. After hearing the news that forever altered my day, there was some yelling and some tears. Once we calmed down a bit we got to work figuring out what his project would be. Luckily, we already have some books of experiments to give us some ideas. Nathaniel said he already had a project and that it was to see the effect of light on plants. I told him that that project would take weeks and that we had to find one that we could do in one day. We tried making a light switch with parts from a science kit he had but the bulb burned out, plus I didn't like the idea of sending him to school with something so volatile. We tried a sunset in a jar but the results didn't impress me. We even tried a solar eclipse demonstration but I decided that was lame. I found a Kinetic Energy kit of Nathaniel's and I considered building a car that runs on kinetic energy, but, like some of the others would be more of a demonstration rather than an experiment. In that same kinetic energy kit there was a book with a handful of experiments and I found one that was perfect. We filled 3 bottles with warm water and recorded the temperature. Then we covered each with tinfoil, woolen sock, and a cotton sock respectively. Then we put them on the porch for 15 minutes to cool. After that we measured the temperature again to see which one cooled the least. Turns out that the woolen sock was the best insulator.
The experiment part over, now it was time to display our findings. Nathaniel brought home a poster board so at least we didn't have to worry about that. I had Nathaniel type up the Question, Hypothesis, Experiment, Data, Conclusion, and even a bit on Insulation in general. Couple that with some pictures I took during the experimenting and there you have it: a cool science project!


I hope this wasn't boring to read. I wouldn't even have posted again so soon but this was a big part of my day yesterday and I put a lot of work into it so I feel I should share.

Family Night

We've been pretty good about having Family Night every week this year. We only missed one Monday back in January. It's been fun. Several years ago my mom gave me a binder filled with Family Night lessons. Apparently I either didn't look at it or maybe I needed to grow up some more because I looked at it again in December and realized that there was a lesson for every week of the year! I would hardly have to think about it! So starting in January we've been doing just that. They've been great.

We often adjust the activity to better suit our family and last night was one of those times. The lesson was on Compassion and after we read a story about Heber J. Grant, we played Charades. We picked a word out of a cup such as Cold, Tired, Hungry, or Sad and the kids had to guess what was wrong and pick an item out of a box that would make the person feel better. The kids did so well. Jonathan usually isn't really paying attention but he was really into it. He had a lot of personal experience to back him up when it was his turn to pretend to be "sick" and "hurt". He even said "Thank you" when Nathaniel got him a tissue and a band aid. Nathaniel got "hungry" and wasn't sure how to express it non-verbally, but he rubbed his stomach and Jonathan totally got it. He didn't say the word but he picked a package of Ramen out of the box and handed it to him. I was really happy with how it turned out, the kids did great and had a lot of fun.

We must be doing okay because now Nathaniel assumes we're having Family Night on Monday nights. This generation is going to be tested like never before and I want to make sure my boys know the truth. Satan is out there deceiving even the very elect, not with outright lies, that would be too easy to see, but with half truths and rationalizations. We can't afford not to have Family Night.


I hope you don't mind but I'd like to tack on a picture I took of the rose Jaaromy gave me for Valentine's Day.

As I've mentioned before, I'm really trying to experiment with my camera and see what it can do. I'm pretty happy with this picture. I'm no photographer but my camera comes with so many tricks it would be a shame not to use them.

Nathaniel's Recital

I've been meaning to do this for a long time. I've decided to record some songs Nathaniel has been working on since I don't have enough students to justify a whole recital. I had him practice hard on these songs and I even had him dress up nice as if he were performing for a crowd.

I hope you enjoy the songs, he has worked really hard on them and I'm so proud of him for sticking with it even on days when he doesn't want to. Enjoy!





Thank you for coming everyone. I'd serve some light refreshments but...well, you know.