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We took a trip up to San Francisco for the
Maker Faire 2012. It was so
crowded, it was hard to enjoy the hands-on exhibits. The
Mentos
and Coke guys were there, though. They drop Mentos into
Diet-Coke and it explodes into huge gushers of soda. It's pretty
awesome.
Why Mentos? It's not a chemical reaction, you can drop anything into
a soda and some of the carbon-dioxide will bond to it and start to
foam up. If there's a lot of little places for the carbon-dioxide to
grab, it will explode out of the bottle, and Mentos work great for
that.
Why Diet-Coke? Because it doesn't have sugar so once you're covered
in soda it won't be sticky. |
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This was a fire sculpture at the Maker
Faire. There was a lot of fire around, they even had a
fire-breathing dragon that you could crawl inside of. |
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This exhibit had fire up top, and misting
umbrellas below. |
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While up in San Francisco we went to the
Exploratorium, which was
totally awesome. Tons of exhibits and all of them interactive.
Here's a bubble exihibit, which of course the kids loved. Who
doesn't love bubbles? |
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At the Exploratorium they have this
magnetic fluid exhibit that's pretty wild. Mia is moving a magnetic
underneath the fluid making and it's trippy to watch. |
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You can make patterns in the sand on this
spinning disk at the Exploratorium. |
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All the kids took turns making bubbles, it
was by-far the most popular thing to do. The funny thing is how easy
an exhibit it is to do at home. |
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The Exploratorium is located in the Palace
of the Fine Arts. They have these gigantic buildings there around a
lake, it's a really fun place to run around at. |
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This gives you a sense of the scale of the
place, it's huge. |
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After the Maker Faire, the next day we
drove over to the
Monterey Bay Aquarium. It was really big and right now they have
a very cool jellyfish exhibit. |
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This is part of their California exhibit,
it's really beautiful |
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Mia visiting the aquarium. She picked up
the harmonica necklace she's wearing at the Maker Faire. It really
works, too. |
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The kid area at the aquarium was very kid
friendly, including this padded enclosed area to let Miles crawl
around all he wants. |
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Nearby the aquarium is Dennis the Menace
park. Hank Ketcham, who wrote Dennis the Menace, designed the park.
It's actually a really great park. |
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The kids, especially Desmond, were sliding
down this slide over and over. |
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This is a huge bridge at the park. It's
amazing how much fun little things can be, like running across a
bridge as fast as you can, over and over again. |
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They had a cool climbing wall at the park
as well. Hank did a good job on his park. |
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Desmond on a green slide at the park. |
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Mia turned six last month, and I took the
day off to spend with her, we had a great time. And of course there
was cake and ice cream! |
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For Mia's birthday we went to Temecula and
went blueberry picking at the
Temecula Berry Company.
It was like heaven, since I love blueberries. |
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Miles was having a great time, we set him
up with some blueberries and he went to work. |
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We bought three new ducklings for Mia's
birthday. They're Pekin ducks, and I have to say, ducklings are
crazy cute. |
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They bond to you and follow you around
wherever you go. Watching ducklings following the kids is really
cute. |
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Amelie with her duckling. |
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Miles did not get to hold the ducklings,
but Desmond was old enough to hold them. Naomi read on the internet
about using a paint-roller bucket to let them go in the water
without getting stuck. It worked great. |
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The ducklings and Miles got along great. |
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These ducks grow really fast. This is
after about three or four weeks. They're really big now! |
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Naomi and Miles. I liked this picture a
lot. |
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Desmond isn't the only one interested in
skateboards. Desmond can stand up and ride his skateboard, btw. I'll
have to post a video of this next month. He even does tricks like
jumping off it while it's moving. |
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Hey, what are big brothers for, if not to
pour sand on your head? |
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Not that Miles needs any help getting
dirty. This is actually an Acai bowl, even though it looks
suspiciously like mud. |
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The girls have been taking ballet, and
they had a show at the end of the class. Amelie and Mia looked so
amazing all dressed up, it was a lot of fun. |
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Mia giving us her best ballet pose. |
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Of course, some requests for a nice pose
don't go so hot. |
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I recorded their recital, then sync'd a
clean copy of the music to the video, and it came out great. I also
created a couple of videos where I zoom in on
Mia and
Amelie. |
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One night the girls wanted to dress up
like dad. Their imitation of me is spot-on. |
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We celebrated Summer Solstice this year,
it was pretty neat. It's nice to recognize the changing of the year,
plus, there's fire! |
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Until next month, stay happy you fat little
baby! |
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