(while eating dinner)
LR: Here’s a trick, RJ. What animal is pork made from?
RJ: Cows?
LR: No. Pigs!
Dad: How about this one? What animal is beef made from?
LR: Pigs?
Dad: No.
LR: Cows?
Dad: Yes!
Dad: One more… What is venison?
RJ: Lion food!
On the weekend, LR competed in her first gymnastics competition. Tensions were running high for everyone. After three years of lessons, four hours a week of training, and many, many car trips between the gym and home, we (Mum and Dad) were hoping this would be a positive experience, and not a reason for LR to suddenly take up tap dancing.
It took a while for Mum to get LR's hair exactly right.
(while eating breakfast)
LR: RJ, the Earth wont be around forever. The sun is going to blow up and the Earth will get completely burned.
RJ: But I want to do something awesome. I know, I’ll save the mammoths!
LR: You’ll have to go past Jupiter.
RJ: I’ll take them to Pluto. It’s icy.
Dad: But where are you going to get the mammoths. They’re extinct now.
RJ: I’ll need a time machine… But I have to invent it first.
(while eating dinner)
Dad: I love that song. Maybe I could learn to play it on the piano!
LR: Or on the guitar!
RJ: Or on the ukelele!
LR: Or on the flute!
RJ: Or on the computer!
LR: Or on the drums!
RJ: Or on a violin, but the bow is made from lots of spider webs that are stretched very long on a stick… But you would have to play it very carefully.
Last week, RJ and LR went off to try out trampolining. Their coach is an Olympic medalist and they are using full-sized Olympic equipment — these are some BIG trampolines. While LR’s schedule is pretty heavily booked up these days, it looks like RJ is going to stick with it after we get back from our trip.
RJ catches some serious air time as he works on his tuck jump.
LR: Mom, I can’t sleep on planes.
Mom: Sure you can. We’ll bring you a nice pillow. You’ll be fine. You fit in the seat perfectly.
LR: No. I just can’t sleep on planes. Can I stay awake the whole way to America?
Mom: It’s a very long way. It’s going to take us a full day and night to get there. I don’t think staying awake is a good idea.
LR: Well, I’m going to need a really good pillow and to lay flat then.
(Working on a project on Snow Leopards in the Himalayas)
Mom: The Himalayas are really craggy and sharp looking because they’re young mountains.
Lorian: How old are they?
Mom: Well, they happened when India crashed into Asia. That started happening about 50 million years ago and it’s still happening. The mountains are still growing.
Lorian: 50 million years? So was that in the 1960′s?
(while eating dinner)
RJ: I don’t like the vegetables, but I will eat ALL my rice.
LR: Rice is a vegetable, RJ!
RJ: No it’s not. It’s a grain. It’s a seed!
(while eating dinner)
LR: (singing) We all live in a yellow submarine!
RJ: I know that song! I love that song!
LR and RJ: (joyously singing together) We all live in a yellow submarine!
RJ: (after the cacaphony quiets down) When I was a little kid (in Malaysia), we used to sing that song all the time… But it was a bit different. It was about a blue submarine.
After looking at an underwater video of the disaster going on in the gulf, Mum asked the kids how they would go about stopping the oil gushing from the sea floor.
RJ’s suggestion:
RJ: The oil looks like a black smoker. And you can’t make those stop. They come from under the earth. So you have to make the earth stop pushing out the oil. And I don’t think you can do that. I know… You can go back in time and make the dinosaurs not die!
LR’s suggestion:
LR: You need to find a bacteria that eats oil. And make sure that it will turn into plankton when all the oil is gone so that it doesn’t hurt the ocean.
Good thinking guys!
