Month: April 2010

I mt my friend at the park this morning and went to a classic car show and the YMCA Fit Kids day. They had bounce houses for free. We jumped for nearly an hour!

Emmerson was mad he couldn’t go in with us. You had to be at least 3! There was a little bounce house but Mommy wasn’t allowed in with him so he was super sad.

Eventually the bigger kids came in and my friend, Dara, and I were terrified and called it quits. The big kids were being really rough.

When we got back to Nroth Carolina this afternoon we stopped off at the same river we visited last September. Today the goal was enjoying ourselves and maybe finding a salamander. I have been looking for over a week now with no luck.

Mommy told me that the rocks on the sides of the river were good hiding places.

We walked all around the river turning over rocks and more rocks.

Mommy made fun of me a bit because I sat down in the water and my tush got soaking wet!

I am determined to find a salamander!!! I WILL!

Starting to think I won’t. I won’t.

Then suddenly I called for Mommy to come look and help. She came over and helped me catch a SALAMANDER!

He was super tiny but super big in the cool category!

I showed it to everyone.

This is my cool new bug looker! It has a magnafying glass on top for seeing things up close. We took the top off to take a photo and then go let the salamander go back to his habitat.

I got to hold it! The salamanders little toes felt really weird on my skin.

After letting the salamander go, we headed back to Grandma and Grandpa’s house for some running in the yard. I went looking for more bugs.

No luck!

I am really enjoying Asheville and the surrounding areas. I will miss it when we go home tomorrow.

We went to the Gray Fossil site today in Tennessee. About 10 years ago the D.O.T. was clearing for a new road way and discovered an alligator skull. After some research they relocated the road expansion and opened the dig site. The fossils date from 4.5-7 millions years in age!!! They have tapirs, alligators, saber tooth cats, red pandas and a few other things.

This triceratops skull was NOT found here but it was cool to look at! 🙂

Our tour guide took us out to the dig site. They said it will take 700 years to go through the entire site. I just don’t think they are working hard enough! 🙂 It didn’t seem all that hard to me.

I got to try my hand at sifting through some of the actualy stuff from the fossil site.

We had to shake shake shake.

Taking a break to let some other people have a turn.

Back to work. We were in a tour group with about 10 college kids who were really not that bright. They were asking a lot of questions I knew the answers to because Mommy read me the flyer about the dig site!

I was very eager to find something, anything!

I kept asking the guide if I “found something”. He was really cool and talked with me a lot!

I did, in fact, find a fossil! It was a bone fragment of some animal. I got to take it to the paleontologist and he told me it was “bone”. Then I was handed a piece of paper that said I found a fossil. Then my fossil was GONE! Property of the Natural History Museum and State of Tennessee.

At least I got to take a picture with it! 🙂

We explored the museum a bit. I liked all the “digging pits”.

I tried my hands at bone reconstruction. It was tough at first but once I got a few pieces together it started to take shape.

An Alligator skull ! WOO HOO!

They also had a traveling exhibit about DINOSAURS! I took a rest in the dinosaur nest with the huge fluffy dino eggs!

We stomped around and make footprints in the foam.

I got to create my own dinosaurs.

Ta-da!!!

Then it was time to leave and Mommy wanted a photo of Emmerson and me in front of the fountain out front. She snapped one…

Then I told her “NO MORE PICTURES!”

Today was Homeschool science class at Health Adventure in Asheville. It was all about rockets.

It started off with the teacher talking about what rockets do and you can see I was trying my best to keep from jumping up and saying “blast off!”

We started to talk about what shapes rockets are…

I raised my hand and started (when called upon) to talk about how they have a pointy tip, a long body, and tried to describe the tail fins (albeit my description was a bit muddled – the teacher thought I was talking about decorations vs. the fins) For the next question, I answered how pointy tips make it easier to go through the air and how I knew how to make paper airplanes.

Everyone making a rocket shape.

Now we got to experiment with seeing how far we could make a piece of paper go. Well, I couldn’t quite manage the paper airplane. I got the first fold correct then got kinda stumped. I make a crinkle nose plane that flew reasonably.

Then we talked about thrust and air. The teacher held a ballon with the stem of the ballon (the part you tie) down and asked where the air would go when she let go. Some other kids said “up.” I listened carefully to the question so I knew the air would go down (and the balloon up) We got to try the experiment ourselves.

It went kinda up, kind of every which way.

Then we all sat back down and she talked about other ways to inflate things without using our lungs. She showed us how you mix vinegar and baking soda and it will inflate a “zipper style” bag.

Then we got to make our rocket experiment. One clear tube stuck in an upside down deli container with a hole cut in it to hold the tube. One “film” or “push top” (versus child safe) medicine bottle.

Me listening and thinking very carefully.

We filled the canister 1/3 full of water, added part of an Alka-Seltzer and super quickly capped the lid on. We dropped the canister lid-side-down into the tube and stepped back.

A few seconds later… pop! The canisters flew up and hit the ceiling.

Wow. That was cool

Today we took a “moderate” hike out to see Hickory Nut Falls at the Chimney Rock State Park. It was just over 1.5 miles round trip. We started off down a flight of nearly 200 stairs.

We took a break at the bottom. I had no idea that many stairs was so tiring! Emmerson and I built a rock sculpture on top of the biggest boulder we could find.

I was so excited to get hiking. I am really building my stamina! In fact, I didn’t ask at ALL to be carried today!

We took lots of breaks to take pictures, pick up treasures, identify trees and play in the dirt and water.

What an amazing view. It got better and better the higher we went.

Finally at the top and guess what I found… A WATERFALL!

It was really neat to listen to the water rushing over the top and then splashing down the mountain.

Getting ready to hike the trail back.

One last photo with Mommy.

We managed to get back the trail without any incident. I walked up the 186 stairs to the top (we counted this time!). They we headed to the elevator that takes you to the chimney. We had to go through a really old and neat tunnel to get to the elevator. Twenty-six flights up in less than 30 seconds and you could not even feel the thing move! Impressive!!!

We ate a quick lunch and then climbed about 40 stairs to the top of the chimney. I just wanted to run and climb on the rocks but Mommy and Daddy felt it was unsafe. They didn’t want me to tumble off the mountain! How thoughtful of them! 🙂

Emmerson was getting in trouble so he and Mommy headed back down towards the gift shop.

Daddy and I stayed up top for a few more looks around. We are next to the base of the flag pole!

At the gift shop I could NOT make up my mind. Emmerson got a cool cave mining helmet. I had to have one too!

We then hiked a shorter less rough trail called Great Woodlands Adventure. There were lots of fun facts about animals and giant sized versions of some along the way. This is the actualy size of North Carolina’s largest salamander. I have been turning over rocks and logs for days hoping to find a smaller salamander, no luck thus far!

I got to pretend to be a turtle and figure out how they survived since they moved so slow. It was neat because I could stick my legs out and then Daddy would say he could see meat and I had to figure out how he couldn’t see me.

We saw a HUGE frog!

I really thought that this tree was special. I told Mommy it looked like a fire breathing dragon.

We went up on a lookout to see a fake owl that had captured a fake snake! 🙂

What a lovely hike. My feet are exhausted. We ended the day at the playground in the neighborhood where Grandma and Grandpa live.