Is It Time to Go in the Pool Yet? (The recurring question of the day.)

I know that's hard to see, but Jane and Rosalie are cuddled
together while I get ready for work.

Sunday dawned bright with exhausted children who grudgingly roused themselves to take me to the Convention Center.  Poor babies!  It's so rough being on vacation. 

Library Stuff That No One Probably Cares About But Me

Again, I had some great sessions that I won't go into detail about here, but I took good notes. Briefly, I heard all about what's going on with the IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library Science - the federal voice for museums and libraries).  You can see what they're up to here. Having just finished an Early Learning Initiative in the 2012-2013 grant cycle, they are now focusing on funding projects relating to STEM.

 

Then I went to an interesting session on supporting Common Core Curriculum with useful non-fiction materials.  One of the panelists runs the blog, Great Kid Books, which offers tools for selecting non-fiction for 4-14 year olds as well as quality book apps.
 

This year there was a Gaming and Graphic Novels stage in the Exhibit Hall.  I heard a panel speak on Comics that Make Kids Smarter.  Josh Elder makes the case (using research!) for comics in the classroom to teach difficult non-fiction topics. Listen to him speak about it here. Also on the panel were Gene Yang, of Boxers and Saints fame who also is working on comics in the classroom, and even has a site called Factoring with Mr. Yang & Mosley the Alien. Although, my favorite panelist had to be Nathan Hale who uses comics as his medium for illuminating weird (but true!) history. 

Finally, I attended a great workshop on how to hold financial literacy classes during Money Smart Week in April. They had ideas on everything from "Best Bang Boot Camp - Extreme Couponing" to a treasure hunt called "Geocaching for Cash" which was more for college campuses, but I'd love to figure out a way to do it with a smaller prize. 



 

Wow--I babbled on longer than I meant to-sorry about that.  I tend to geek out over library stuff.  Did I mention I love my job?

 

The Fun and Exciting Vacation-y Part

The kids got a sneak peak of where
Heather and Zach are going on their
vacation - Paris!

Meanwhile, the family was traversing the city in 103 degree weather (the high being 112 yesterday) with lots of sunscreen and shade wherever they could find it.  First stop, the Bellagio for the Dancing Waters show!  From the parking lot, you could see the Paris and so the kids got a sneak peak of where Heather and Zach are off to next week.

The water show itself was amazing and they thoroughly enjoyed it, though Grace did find it a little  loud.  This show was done to Frank Sinatra singing "Luck Be a Lady."

 



If Rosalie could have stuck her head in any
farther, I think she would have got stuck!

Auntie finally picked her up for a better view.



After the Bellagio they walked to the M&M and Coca Cola stores which were less impressive than Heather remembered them being.  After that, they came and picked me up and the girls and I had a nap in the hotel room while Arthur went on his own adventure!

Arthur's Atomic Adventure

So, the National Atomic Testing Museum was just right down the street from our hotel.  Since I was only mildly curious about this topic, I was happy to let Arhtur go take an hour of grown-up time to explore without a small child screaming in his ear.

He learned some fascinating tidbits!

Tidbit #1: The drilling technologies developed for underground testing of nuclear weapons led to the technology used to rescue the Chilean miners in 2010.

Tidbit #2: Nearly 1,000 test shots were fired from 1952 to 1991 in the Nevada desert.  100 of these were in the air, the rest underground.

Tidbit #3: They used to watch the above-ground tests from the Las Vegas Strip. The last one was in the 1960s.


One of 30 stations in the Las Vegas area monitoring radiation
from the Nevada Test Site







Yes, the weather station says it is currently 109.5!
Down from the high of 112.5.





One artifact was an N scale model railroad that was located
at the test site.  This model represents the actual railroad
that moved nuclear engines from the assembly building to
the test stand.



 



A nuclear bunker buster bomb for destroying command centers.





A chunk of the Berlin Wall.



 



A piece of the World Trade Center.





Someone likes cream puffs!

BUFFET TIME!

(So sorry for the horrible segue from the Berlin Wall and the World Trade Center to Vegas Buffets.)

We had subsisted on brown bag lunches and dinners for the past three days so that we could afford to hit a buffet on our last night in Vegas.  And hit it we did!  The Silverton offered an amazing spread.  The kids' eyes were bugging out of their heads.  Of course, Grace immediately pounded her chocolate milk before I could stop her and was too full for dinner.  But, Rosalie (whose dinner was free) more than made up for it.

After dinner, we wandered through the Silverton so the kids could show me where the Mermaid Show had been as well as the Bass Pro Shop (which was huge and full of taxidermied animals).  The Silverton is about a mile off the strip and seems to have more normal looking touristy people.  The strip was full of really young, scantily clad girls and guys with extra mousse in their hair.  I felt about 95 years old in comparison.

Obviously, the sugar has hit Jane. You can
see Arthur trying to get her to cut it out in
the background.



Jane bravely tries shrimp for the first time -
and loves it!

Is there anything more fun than jiggling a plate of jello?



Not sure why I'm visiting a herd of thundering moose when
I live with it every day.



Rosalie figures out she can "beep" Uncle
Zach's nose/chin/face and now chases
him everywhere!

We topped the evening off with a night swim with Auntie Heather and Uncle Zach.  Jane came up with this complicated game whereby she, Grace and Auntie were mermaids. Uncle Zach was a fisherman. I offered to be Ursula since my swimsuit was black and you really need a supervillain in any game.  So, Uncle Zach and I took turns trying "get" them.  I must say, their swimming skills have markedly improved in just 48 hours.  They'll be little fish by the time we get home.  Our hotel was right next to an airport and so everytime a plane passed over while we were out in the pool, Rosalie would wave and blow kisses.

Finally, we bid Heather and Zach good-bye.  There were many tears and wails and heartbroken sighs, plus suggestions that maybe we should just all live together at the Red Roof Inn forever.  The saddest thing was, probably 15 minutes after they left, Rosalie kept going to the hotel room door and tapping it--waiting for them to come back.

Can't wait to meet up again in about a month with stories to tell from both of our vacations!