Chantilly Weekend

This past weekend we drove to Chantilly, Virginia. Right near Dulles Airport. It rained the entire drive, but Saturday dawned absolutely beautiful. Sunny, blue skies.... perfect day for the Virginia Mens Gymnastics State Championship, E's final meet of his first season of competitive gymnastics.

 

E earned his best-yet pommel score and added a different flexibility bonus into his floor routine. A teammate's mother mentioned plans to visit a Smithsonian Air and Space Annex, 5 miles away. Five miles?!? No passing that up.

 

So after awards, we headed to the museum. Not everyone was pleased to be going- wasn't the meet itself enough for one trip? We only stayed an hour, but all were glad for that hour. Oh my that is an amazing place! The space shuttle Discovery is there, along with all sorts of other flying things. The shortest person among us was always the first to spot the cool stuff on the ceiling- a solar powered contraption that flies higher than a jet, a balloon basket, a Concord, a few satellites. We would have missed them- there was so much to see on the ground- were it not for e. In fact, what she said about the Concord was this: "Mom, there's what I make out of paper! That's my paper airplanes! See, the wings are slim and trim like that, the nose long and narrow. It's my plane!" The connections the children make between new and old information never cease to amaze me.

Our next rainy day movie is going to be the documentary about Discovery's last flight. It was pretty darn awe-inspiring to stand under the shuttle, knowing where it has been and the temperatures those tiles withstood, seeing the gigantic engine-thruster-thingies (I have so much to learn) right there. So huge that they alone fill the frame. This picture was taken looking up at them from a ways back!

 

Then we drove home, and I noticed the soap in the bathroom. This was a soap we felted years ago, perhaps one of the first, and apparently it wasn't felted enough! The kids have been pinching and pulling the wool into different shapes every time they wash their hands for a few weeks now. Never the same thing twice. They call this one 'Turtle'.