The Search for Miss Direction: Solar Sunday

Sunday, June 1, 2014

Solar Sunday

We put our Michigan Science Center membership to good use this morning by taking part in a members only event they hosted - Members Mystery I-Max movie. A week or so ago I signed us up for the chance to head to the Science Center, have breakfast, check out the museum and then watch a free I-Max movie. We then got to take part in a survey about movies they are considering bringing to in, which was cool because maybe they'll bring something we like! We got to see Solarmax which was kind of interesting, though probably wouldn't have been our first choice. I have to admit that I was kind of creeped out by some of the close up images of the sun. Too much information for me :)

This afternoon, taking full advantage of the absolutely gorgeous summer sunshine, we decided that Sasha and Blue (the Rav) needed their first baths of the season. Considering there was still an imprint from my Michigan logo on Blue before we moved it over to Sasha I'd say that was a definite yes. The kids enjoyed the sunshine, I got some more of the flowerbeds done, Grant got some yard work accomplished - it was just a nice way to spend the afternoon. And with dinner in the crock pot...

Before we left this morning I turned the heat up on the Cranberry Apple Chicken Breasts and let the crockpot work its magic. As I briefly mentioned yesterday, cranberries are a bumper crop for Massachusetts. According to the Cape Cod Cranberry Growers Association: "The cranberry, along with the blueberry and Concord grape, is one of North America's three native fruits that are commercially grown." The cranberry is the state berry, cranberry juice is the state juice (yes those are real things) so there was no doubt that I had to include some cranberry recipes this week. This was an easy dish to throw together today since I wasn't sure what we'd be up to and the results were yummy.

The kids passed their Massachusetts state pop quiz with flying colors so we game them the Michigan version of Connect 4 (a Milton Bradley game!) which we had to give a go after dinner tonight. We were having fun, the sun was still shining and I hated to send them off to bed. The next couple of weeks are going to be rough that way - have to still stick to a regular bedtime while Noah is finishing up school. So wish we were done already...

We officially kick off Montana tomorrow. Should be exciting! (OK, not really, I had quite the time with Montana. No, it'll be good, I'm on it :-p) So until then...

Massachusetts Fun Fact of the Day: The USS Constitution 'Old Ironsides', the oldest fully commissioned vessel in the US Navy is permanently berthed at Charlestown Navy Yard. Since 1897 the ship has been overhauled several times in Dry Dock 1.

I went to the store for Boston Cream Donuts this morning (because they are the official state donut of Massachusetts (yep, that's a real thing, too!) and Kroger let me down again (Mom, I went to get WW's yesterday and they were out of those, too!) so we made do.