Planes, trains, buses

We left the snow behind this morning and headed for warmer climes and a Walt Disney World vacation. It may sound a little out of character for someone who has carefully avoided the machine that is Disney and other pop culture booby traps, but I have very fond memories of Florida and Disney World, none of them having anything to do with the usual character association. I'm hoping to repeat the experience for Calvin.

If nothing else, our transportation quota was met for today: driving to the airport; using escalators, moving walkways, and the tram (just for fun) in the terminal; taking the bus to the Disney resort. This was the first flight I have ever been on that produced a chorus of "wheeee!" with every sickening drop during landing. The cabin was abound with giggles.

The bus to the resort started us off with videos about the park while Calvin watched for interesting wildlife out the window. Disney makes it easy to vacation here. They picked us up at the airport and dropped us off at our resort, and they did the same for our luggage, picking it up and delivering it to our rooms so we didn't have to wait. Transportation within the resort area has been a breeze as well. We took a bus to Downtown Disney for dinner, which we ate with the dinosaurs at T-Rex Cafe.

For Calvin every step has been a hit. He rode and re-road the moving walkway, and tram rides at both airports were like icing on the cake. He was clearly nervous about the flying, but he handled it well, and by the time we were on descent he was oohing and aahing along with the others. And we were not at all surprised by his excitement over the dinosaurs at dinner. We experience no fewer than four major extinction episodes in the form of meteor showers while we were there, and had a chat with dinos and mammoths alike.

We're in bed now. Tomorrow will be busy. I have a feeling this will be the kind of vacation that warrants a spa weekend upon return home, but what great joy to find ourselves drinking in the warm sunshine in the middle of January.

2012 North American International Auto Show in Detroit

It's that time of year again so today we picked up our dads and headed into Detroit for the NAIAS. New this year—some of the show's grandeur has returned. I remember shows when I was in college that were peppered with loud acts and bright lights. Over the past few years, for obvious reasons, the show has been more subdued. I don't think this was necessarily a bad thing, mind you—they are merely trying to sell cars, after all, and I can't imagine how acrobats hanging from the ceiling help with that—but it was fun to see some of the excitement return this year in the form of large screens, bright lights, loud music, and a handful of acts or rides.

We had a great time. There were some beautiful historic cars, some interesting concept cars, and even a few cars that we have added to our considerations list for the year, some way down the road, when it's time to replace our Vibe. We're thinking Hybrid. Wouldn't that be great.

A quick rundown of events:

I'm not sure the fake Supremes (who were just dancing, not singing) count as Motown entertainment...

1952 The original Mercedes 300 SL (race car)

Safety display fail—that kid in the back seat should at least be in a booster...

Learning about brakes

Acura NSX

1934 Model 40

Designing a Mustang

Honda plane model (but does anyone else see Spy vs. Spy?)

To the Detroit Beer Company for a late lunch. The beer was great, the food was okay, the service was terrible (one out of three isn't bad, if you like really great beer).

Many buildings are sad but pretty in Detroit.

Snow at last

Snow, and the beginning of civilization in America. There is precious little out there for looking into the hunter gatherer period in America, so though we've only just finished researching human migration into that sphere, I find that we are already plunging into the rise of human populations there. We'll do a little looking at the Mayan and Incan worlds, then we'll bring our focus to the nations of North America and stick around there for a while.

All that will be on hold for about a week now, though. We have the auto show on Saturday, for which we'll make another  and a big trip next week so I thought not to start anything new before we left. We watched two videos about the Mayan culture today, one a National Geographic, the other a Nova, but they fell into the "okay but not too thrilling" category. I did get a fun book from the library about the Mayan code with activities and crafts that sounds good, so we might look at that tomorrow, between packing and laundry, and all else that comes our way (more snow, perhaps? And a Gymboree sale at the local resale shop).

What season IS this

Fifty and raining one day, single digits and snowing the next. Or maybe even the same day. Maybe the sun hat and sandals go well with the snow pants after all.

Life gets in the way

I haven't done a good job of keeping up here lately. The holidays always slow things down for me and we've had a number of things going on here that have kept me from getting back into the true swing of things. I still find that laundry is piling up, dinners are haphazard, and most of our days have been rather willy-nilly. I'm even forgetting to take pictures at all some days.

Still, life continues. Calvin has started theater class in Fridays through our homeschooling group (HAA) and was given a speaking part in they play. He has continued swimming lessons on Wednesdays and is really enjoying them. His current "thing" is still reading (almost every spare moment), with a side of Legos. He is now plowing through the Math-U-See Beta book, but we have stalled a bit on our tour through science. History is still a bright spot, though.

Today we effectively closed our survey of human migration and our foray into the rise of civilizations has begun. Calvin is seriously geeked about checking out early American civilizations, and I can't blame him. We picked up a few great books at sales this past weekend and are ready to decipher the Mayan code, etc., etc.

I get new glasses tomorrow, and we are in the process of packing for a big trip. The biggest Calvin has been on yet because it requires an airplane. So there are a lot of items on our to-do list for this week, all of them with a rather happy end goal.