Holy meteorite, Batman!

The walls of Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area outside of Las Vegas, NV

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Wow!  If you spent any time last week outside staring up into the sky at night, you were probably as in awe as I while I watched the spectacular display of light and shadow created by the Perseid Meteor shower.

As a lifelong science and nature buff, I admit this year's shower may not have been as grand as past years on Wednesday due to the cloud cover in our area, but I was delighted just the same.  Thursday night we saw a meteor so vivid shooting across and above our house, we forgot we weren't watching a movie.  What made it even more special was having Bumpa (my dad) and our kids in the backyard oohing and ahhing with me.

Unfortunately, our dread camera (boy could we use a new one!) had eaten up the batteries by taking just two pictures again over the previous weekend.  This meant we had no power to take any images for posterity or the scrapbook, thus no awe-inspiring pics here!

Instead, the kids and I have decided we'd like to capture the night creatively!

Experimenting with colour on a rainy day

I'm notorious for making the kids put away gifts for later.  You know, when you put it out of sight, hopefully out of mind, until they reach a point of such boredom, it's time to re-gift it to themselves! 

www.giddyup.com for more info

For Christmas, my kids each received a gift from a friend - a Do-It-Yourself Science Kit, suited to each age - and these were one of those things I suggested would be good to hold for later.  Bailey's kit experimented with colour and Josh's, with germs.  I swear that almost every single day since Christmas they've nagged me to use those kits and my reply has always been: "wait until a rainy PA day [or summer day], you'll be glad I made you wait".

Today started with some pretty heavy rain.  Not afraid of little rain, they tore outside to be with friends while there was a lull in the downpour.  But what a bunch of disappointed faces when they couldn't play outside anymore by 11 am, because it was coming down too heavily again!  That's when we decided today was finally a great day to crack open the first of those coveted kits:  "My First Science Kit" by Scientific Explorer.