Sunday, May 31, 2009

Memorial Day Weekend







We have a family tradition now to go to Putt N Pond on Memorial day weekend to enjoy the go-karts. Kids were faster this year, and Joe was fastest. I think he got lucky with the car he picked. He whomped everyone.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Guest Blogger!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Anna)

Well, I'm the 'guest blogger'...(YAY) I am the Mars's eldest daughter.
We did this project in science where we lauched projectiles (Tennis balls) at different amounts of force. The hightest we were allowed to go, sadly, was only 50 lbs. of force. Okay, I guess that would have been dangerous. There were some Pullers (people who pulled back on the rubber thing) who fell over at less than that. Although, I have to admitt, seeing Brad launch was hilarious. He weighs like...eighty pounds. (He has a big head even though he's tiny) Anyway, so Brad is pulling back with more than half his weight, he's practically millimeters from the ground, and the Releaser lets the safety pin out and launches, and Brad like falls over. It was pretty funny. Oh, and one day Brad told his team, 'We have no idea', to dress crazy for the last day of launching. Only him and his marker ended dressing up. Brad wore a tie and a construction hat and his Marker, Lauren, was a scuba diver. She had a life jacket, goggles, and bright pink flippers. See, the Markers have to run super fast after every launch and try and put a wooden marker where they thought the ball first hit. Lauren did this with her flippers on. And very quickly I might add.
The whole thing was very entertaining to participate in because we have to go through a verbal procedure. The Puller is the head or leader of the group. They get to order everyone around. The procedure goes something like:
"Are all things ready to begin?" Puller to the Teacher in charge. The teacher nods.
"Releaser, retrieve projectile." Puller to Releaser. Releaser come to the Timer(me), who records the launch times, sled numbers, projectile numbers and what-not on a fancy graphy thing, and I give the Releaser a projectile and write it down.
"Timer, is stopwatch ready?" Puller to Timer. Timer clears the stopwatch and checks breifly for safety hazards.
"Stopwatch ready!" Timer to Puller.
"Releaser, charge projectile." Puller to Releaser. Releaser puts the tennis ball in the pouch.
"Projectile charged!" Releaser to Puller.
"Timer, what are we pulling to?" Puller to Timer. Timer looks at the appropriate box on the cool graphy thing and then tells the Puller a number no less than twenty and no higher than fifty.
"Ready to pull?" Puller to Teacher in charge of sled. Teacher points to the sled so that the Markers, way out in the field, can see who's team is pulling.
"Pull!" Teacher to all people (safety reasons) Puller pulls back till the scale reaches the force given by the Timer.
"Force obtained! Release safety pin." Puller to Releaser.
"Safety pin released. Projectile aimed? Scale tipped down?" Releaser to Puller.
"Projectile aimed, force obtained, scale tipped down...LAUNCH!" Puller to Releaser.
"LAUNCH!!" Releaser jerks on the pin hard to launch the projetile. This is when the Timer presses Start and when the ball hits the ground the Timer presses Stop. Writes down measurements and the whole thing begins all over again.
Signing out,
Anna

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Joe Deere

Joe dismounting from our new Green Machine. The kids think its so cool that I'm thinking about charging them to mow the lawn. Hooray for Spring!