We’ve been seeing this Santa Claus (the REAL Santa!) since Emily was a screaming 1 year old sitting on his lap.

Hope you have a very Merry Christmas!

“Sissy, you know, your skunk is old.  And old means special!”

—-If only society felt the same way—-

If you live in the Denver area, make sure you visit zoo lights at the Denver Zoo.  It is a great family tradition and if you bundle the kids up well enough, they won’t complain about being cold!  Oh, and make sure you bring your camera with CHARGED batteries, or else you’ll end up with one crappy picture, like the one I took.We made the mistake of going on a Saturday night(what was I thinking?  I homeschool!  We could go ANY night!).  It was really cold and I thought it wouldn’t be busy.  It. was. packed.   But beautiful.  We paid $24 dollars for our family of 4.  Yes, is a lot, but much less than a movie and we actually interacted and got to see some animals!

Emily immediately  noticed the zoo had changed a ton of their lights over to LEDs.  According to their website, 90% of the lights are LED and the rest are wind powered.  Mike and i were discussing how much more profit they are getting this year because their power bills must have been *MASSIVE*.  We made the switch this year from our 13 year old lights that we bought(and seemed like we paid a fortune for)in college to LEDs from Costco(cheapest place to get them)when my husband had spent over an hour trying to figure out which bulb was burnt out.  After much swearing, he agreed “it was time”.  On the outside of the house, we put up 3-4 strands of energy hogging C7 bulbs that twinkle.  I have a soft spot for twinkle bulbs as they are the ones we had on our tree during my childhood.  Don’t mistake “twinkle” for “blinking” either.  On my twinkle bulbs, each bulb is controlled by an individual twinkle controller which makes it turn on and off independantly of the others.  It is really very pretty.  But I do shutter to think of the electric bill this month.  I turned down the heater at night a couple more degrees in order to try and offset the cost of running the lights.

Don’t forget to add your answer when visiting the beatnik lounge in the Hamilton Building at the Denver Art Museum.  You are helping create a perpetually changing work of art.

I didn’t participate because I thought it was too contrived ;-)  But the kids loved doing it.  Bring your own pen; their’s were out of ink. 

Going to the next floor of the Hamilton Building, the new addition designed by Daniel Libeskind.  Standing at the bottom looking up, or peering down from the upper floors, gives many a weird sense of vertigo.

I am working on a list of fun and educational things to do in the area with your children.  It is ongoing, but instead of hiding it in the “draft” portion of my blog, I decided to post it and work on it on an ongoing basis.  You can find the list here, or see the tab above.

In an afternoon, as a lesson in electronics and building, Emily and I built a small robot. Although it has a small rechargable battery, the robot is based on ideas of BEAM robotics, which combine simple electronics with simple locomotion to produce insect-level behavior. This robot uses two photodiodes as eyes, and vigorously seeks out the brightest light source in a darkened room.

In order to make life easier, we used a kit for the robot that included directions, all parts and a pre-printed circuit board. Emily was able to solder all the joints herself, with me only needing to do some cleanup after the project was done.

You could tell that she was astonished when we charged it up, and it actually worked! Besides the discussions about basic electronics, it was a great way for Emily to learn how to follow written directions, and match parts to a schematic. See the rest of the pictures here.

I don’t know if it was because it was a cold, rainy Denver day, but free day at the DAM was packed.  Add to that a lot of crabby docents(we went to 3 different areas of the museum and in each area, were accosted by a docent and our children told to not touch things(they weren’t!!  Not even close!  And we were right there, one adult with one child!)), and I was quite glad to leave the Museum after 3 hours.

We spent much of our time in the Native American exhibits, catering to Camille’s current interest in all things Native American.  The beadwork/pottery/basketweaving/etc was all gorgeous.  I especially love the teepee made (if memory serves me) in the late 1890s/early 1900s.

From there we moved into the new wing and to the modern art exhibits.  We recently watched the 2nd Installment of the Young Indiana Jones series where he meets Picasso and Baroque.  We saw several examples of work by both, as well as a Pollack(the drip painter) which was huge and beautiful. 

After this it was just so crowded that the kids(and I, I admit, more than they)were on sensory overload and were all ready to leave.

DH and I decided we need to break down and get a membership.  They have an amazing exhibit from the Louvre right now that I am aching to see.  If all of us were to see that on the free day, as well as see the Impressionists exhibit coming in February, it would cost more than a Family Membership(a very reasonable $70)!  With a family membership we would get free tickets to those exhibits, PLUS get to see them on a non crowded free day with Docents in a better mood.