Moision Madness

Yesterday, it was time to say goodbye to our little ones. No, not the boys — the tadpoles and toads that have graced our dining room table for the last couple of months. We’d all become attached to them, but I was grateful when Ezra and Finn agreed to Bruce’s plan to take them back to the Arroyo this weekend since they’d balked at the idea a few weeks ago. Finn said that now the tadpoles could make friends and get married, since they’d find other tadpoles that weren’t in their family. I’m not sure where he learned that concept.

Anyway, we loaded them up in the van for their final trip.

And took them here.

I skipped out on this trip, but Bruce enlisted some friends — Cari with Ruby and Chapin and Jon with Kai and Caleb.

What on earth possessed them to do this I’ll never know, but Ezra, Finn and Ruby jumped in that gross water and started dragging out the algae.

They eventually had this giant haul.

Kai and Caleb preferred to play on the shore.

And Chapin caught a lot of toads.

Here’s a video to show the toads. Bruce said it was hard to really get them because they would scatter when he got near. It’s hard to believe there were more than this.

Even though I didn’t get to go on this trip, I felt like I was there thanks to Cari’s awesome texts and pictures while they were there. Here’s a sampling:

“Our kids r going 2 come down w algae disease. They’re in heaven!”

“U might want to toss ur plastic containers. I’m just sayin’.” (They went right in the trash when the boys got home. Yuck.)

And my favorite: “Half step from Lord of the Flies.” I was on a nice walk up in Altadena when I got that one and laughed out loud.

All in all, it was a successful — if gross — trip. And my dining room is now tadpole free.

Every Wednesday, the Aveson Kinders are treated to a guest speaker, usually a student’s mom or dad, sometimes a grandparent. The talks vary widely — they’ve had a veterinarian, an actor, a high school teacher, a special effects guy, a doctor, a coin collector, a rock star, and many more. This week, much to Ezra’s delight, was Bruce’s turn.

First, here’s the audience (46 or so Kindergartners).

He started off by talking a bit about Mars and showing, with his helpers, the size difference between Earth (the blue balloon) and Mars (the red one). Finn’s holding a Mars globe on loan from JPL’s outreach office.

Ruby helped to demonstrate how far apart Earth and Mars are.

He brought some things to pass around, including a wheel just like the ones on the Mars Exploration Rovers.

Turns out, Kindergartners aren’t really able to pass cool things around AND pay attention, so after a short bout of chaos it was decided they could look at those things later.

After watching the video of the MER launch and landing on Mars, he started talking about how the JPL engineers communicate with the rovers and how the rovers send data back to Earth. He talked about using something like a megaphone to broadcast data and a “big ear” to hear the whisper from outer space. Here’s the big ear. (He was listening to Ezra’s whisper from across the room but I was too distracted by one child losing a tooth and another child having a bloody nose — within minutes of each other — to remember to take a picture of Ezra. I swear, I don’t know how his teachers keep their sanity.)

After the communication portion of the talk, he told them a little about the math he uses for his job. He told them that math is used to figure out how the world works, especially when you can’t do an experiment to figure something out. As an example, he showed them how to calculate how much water would fit into a glass. Then, to demonstrate his confidence in the math, he had one of Ezra’s teachers (Ms. Jessica — the math and projects teacher) pour 500 ml of water into a cup on his head.

But, of course, he’d switched the glass out for a smaller one and got drenched when it overflowed.

The kids were cracking up.

“So what went wrong?” he asked.

One little girl shouted out, “It was the wrong glass!”

And they all watched in anticipation as he poured 500 ml of water into the correct glass. Math prevails!

After a brief question and answer period, his time was up.

The kids split up into their blue or purple groups and went on about their day.

When Mom’s in charge of washing the cars, the boys’ feet stay firmly planted on the ground.

When Papa’s in charge, not so much.

No standing! Oy.

We took the boys up part of the Altadena Crest Trail on Sunday — a short loop starting around Mt. Curve/Maiden Lane and ending up at Lake/Loma Alta. The beginning is an old road that passes by the backyards of the neighborhood houses (including our gardener, Vivien’s house). At one point, there is a rock sculpture that the boys thought was pretty cool. Bruce decided to do some “repair” work and put some rocks back that had fallen.

As he touched things, of course, more rocks fell. Ezra got a little worried and asked Bruce to STOP!

Along the path, someone has put a swing which both boys enjoyed.

This is the only real climb — which is a good thing because Finn was about done at this point.

All in all, this hike was very successful and just the right length for little Moision tolerance levels.

The Saturday fun continued at Aveson’s June Jubilee. Sadly, I have only one picture — Ezra, Finn, Ruby and Chapin cracking confetti eggs. A perennial favorite.

The Pasadena Police had an open house at their heliport on Saturday and the boys and I had to check it out. Mostly, they had just been acting crazy at home and with Bruce busy relocating the sprinkler system, I had to get out of the house. We got to see a few helicopters, Pasadena’s SWAT strike vehicle (who knew we had one?!?), and two simulated arrests. Here are the boys in the SWAT truck.

And here is the calm before the storm of the second simulation — cops pulling over a truck and calling in the K-9 unit for backup. Very exciting. And scary.

More pictures and a story here.

We met Bob, Vanessa and Thomas today in Thousand Oaks to see the final stage of the Tour of California. It was a much-needed fun day after a tough week.

We got a spot not too far from the finish line. The cyclists rode five laps around so we got to see a good bit of riding. Here are Ezra and Finn anxiously awaiting their arrival.

Finn is an avid Team Radioshack fan. Obviously.

These were the leaders in the first lap, although there was at least one rider ahead of these guys but my iPhone camera was a little too slow to catch him.

Thomas wore his helmet the entire day which caused a lot of smiles from the other onlookers. Here he is with Ezra waiting for the final lap.

And here’s a video of the peloton riding past us in a blur and their support cars. I liked the Jelly Belly car at the end the best.

Bruce set up the tent on the balcony Friday night so the boys could do some camping. Here’s what it looked like from the backyard.

And here Bruce and Finn discuss logistics.

Bruce was going to sleep with them but Ezra stole his cot so only the junior Moisions ended up in the tent. They fell asleep pretty quickly with no shenanigans (but an hour after regular bedtime), but they woke up (and woke us up, of course) at 5:30. Ouch.