School photo time

Happy Halloween

Here is a quick photo of Arran and Iona in their Halloween costumes ready to go Trick or Treating for candy.

What happened to July, August and September?

I don't know!!. Wow doesn't time fly.

We have, as usual, been keeping busy. I have lots of photos and stuff to post, and it is probably going to appear in some strange order! Sorry.

Just wanted to show you some photos that Iona (age 5) took. We had just visited the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. We wandered out the back of the museum to look at the view across San Francisco bay taking in the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. Iona wanted to take some photos. Here is her first gallery of photos for your enjoyment.



The museum would not allow any photography inside, so we can't show you the fantastic job they have done in there. A wonderful use of technology that would make Walt himself proud. You will have to be content with a photo of Iona in front of the museum sign.

Happy 4th July!

A quiet week for the Robinson Family. It is 4th July this weekend so there are all the Independence Day celebrations going on. We decided to lay low this weekend and just hang at home. Normally we head to downtown San Jose on July 4th for the America's festival and fireworks show, but that was cancelled this year. Whilst there were other shows on, the one we usually go to is serviced by the light rail system so we don't have to mess around with parking and all the traffic on the way out.

Someone in the neighborhood (or neighbourhood for our British friends) organized a block party, so after having dinner out, we joined in with that for a few hours. A nice low key end to the day.

Taking flight

A busy weekend so far for the Robinson Family. Friday we were up to Oakland for the Christmas Carol train tour and an afternoon at the zoo. Saturday Kay took Arran to Moffett Federal Airfield for his first flight in a small plane.

The Young Eagles is an organization that promotes flying to youth. Harrison Ford is its chairman, although he was not around at this event.

Periodically, the local chapter of Young Eagles has a flying day where kids between the ages of 8 and 17 can learn about the mechanics of flight, how an airplane works and take a flight in an aircraft. There were several planes and a helicopter out on Jun 27th. Arran opted to fly in a plane rather than a helicopter. His pilot was John and he and another boy took a 20 minute flight with John that day.

Here is Arran (the head peeping out of the back seat) in the airplane as he started his taxi to the runway.



Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get close to the airplane for any good photographs.

After the flight, Arran said it was "Double Fun!!!"

After the flight, we headed downtown for lunch and then caught a version of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Nights Dream" which had Mayan Ushmal's instead of fairies and was set in a jungle near a Mayan ruin. Arran enjoyed it. I did too, with a little "but"... The acting was good, but I did find it a bit weird with the Mexican theme - sometimes Shakespeare's words seemed out of place in the Mexican / Mayan setting.

By this time it was 5pm and the temperature outside was still over 100 degrees. Can you say "HOT!" Time to go home and have a nap!

This day, Iona stayed at home with daddy as we figured (quite rightly) that there would be nothing for her to do at the airfield, the play would be too long for her and she would be better off staying cool at home with her dad.Th

Monkeying around at Oakland Zoo - Friday 26th June 2009

After the Disney Train tour, we decided to spend a few hours in Oakland Zoo. After all we had driven up that way, we might as well explore a new place!

Oakland Zoo is small but nice. They have enclosures with plenty of space for the animals to roam, the keepers give the animals things to keep them interested, like toys to play with and feeding techniques that help mimc natural behaviours. Thats why you might see paper all over the baboon's cage as their food is wrapped and hidding in paper. There was plenty for the kids to see and learn from.

A Christmas Carol in June

Friday, 26th June 2009 we made a trip up to Oakland (other side of the bay from San Francisco) to meet up with a train tour for one of Disney's new movies "A Christmas Carol". Written by Charles Dickens and produced by Robert Zemekis, this production looks to be fantastic.

The movie has lots of stars in it. Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Bob Hoskins, Robin Wright Penn, Cary Elwes, Fionnula Flanagan

The train is skinned on the outside with "A Christmas Carol" You collect a ticket and then board the train (which does not move, in case you wondered!) In the train there are scenes from the movie (both finished and rough), artifacts from the Dickens Museum in London, Concept art, models, costumes and more. One area you can morph your face into characters from the movie. We did this for both Iona and Arran but unfortunately the morphed photos have not arrived in my inbox. As soon as I get them (may take up to 7 days) I will post them - they are soooo funny!





After the train tour, we got to wander over, past some Dickensian carolers, a stilt walker/juggler, through the fake snow into a portable movie theater for a sneak peak of the movie in 3D. I will say it is a cool movie and the graphics are phenomenal. One that I plan to see when it come out on November 6th.

Little Miss Gymnastics

For the last few years, Iona has been going to The Little Gym in San Jose. It is gymnastics, but in a fun way - no pressure to win medals. She has turned out to be a natural gymnast and really enjoys it. At the end of every semester they have what they call "Show Week" where friends and family can go into the gym and cheer the children on. This happened on June 9th 2009.

Iona's dramatic entrance and best handstand ever!





We were so amazed at Iona's handstand here - we had been practicing a few days before, but those ones were no where as good. Way to go Iona!

She had a great class. Afterwards we gave her a congratulatory rose. She was so pleased.


It was also great for her that her daddy managed to attend (its during work time so he normally doesn't get to watch her) and Dana (also known as MeMa).

Maker Faire, Mentos and Mad Scientists

Catching up on a few of our recent comings and goings. Maybe someday I will post things quicker - right, when is that going to happen! But a girl can dream can't she!!!

So my last blog post was about Arran's Mad Science birthday party where we concluded the event with a diet coke and mentos explosion. Our Mad Scientists had a great time, but we couldn't better Eepybird. They are the original Mad Scientists who made the diet coke and mentos explosion famous on YouTube. We were lucky enough to be able to see Eepybird in action, live at Maker Faire 2009 in San Mateo. We even managed to get one of the diet coke bottles that they used and have it signed by both Fritz and Stephen.

Here they are (this is video that we took at Maker Faire)




Maker Faire is a weird and wacky place. Lots of things to make, do and see. There are strange vehicles from Lego Jeeps to Cupcake Cars. A giant game of mouse trap, hula hoops, a tesla coil, science projects galore, a giant 'musical' playground. A veritable feast for the eyes and mind.

Here are some of our photos from the day:

Mad Scientists, Part Deux.

Well I was having problems loading all the pictures I wanted to, so I had to split the post into 2. Just so that you can see photos of the finale.










We tried a fun attempt at the Diet Coke and Mentos trick. The kids really enjoyed it, even though we were unable to get them to let off all the bottles at the same time. Someone invarably had trigger finger and set at least one bottle off early.

If you want to see the pros at work check out this video of Eepybird. It's awesome.

Mad Scientists take over the World

Well, Valley Glen Drive anyway.

To celebrate Arran turning 9, we had a party on May 23rd. The theme was a mad scientist party. The kids all had safety goggles and 'lab coats' as all good scientists do.

We had yummy food and bubbling potions. Then the kids started experimenting. First up was slime, with the help of Mad Professor Michael. Slime is a polymer with long chain modules, which is why it is plyable. Jello / Jelly is also a polymer. Remember that when eating jelly!

The kids also had Oobleck to make and play with, but the wonderful non-Newtonian properties of Oobleck enthralled even the adults. If you don't know Oobleck (made with cornstarch and water) acts like a liquid at times, but also as a solid. Move or hit it, its solid, let it settle and it behaves like a liquid. Simple, but wonderful stuff!

There were also expolding volcanos (base and acid reactions with baking soda and vinegar) and an experiment called elephants toothpaste. Elephants Toothpaste mixes hydrogen peroxide with yeast and produces and exothermic reaction as well as lots of warm soap bubbles for the kids to play with.

This kids made compounds with gum drop 'elements' and toothpicks.

Some tomfoolery ensued with various amounts of oobleck, cornstarch, baking soda, foam and whatever else was around being thrown in a war of the scientists. A suitable hosing down of said messy scientist was also in order.

Cake. A mountain of it! Well it is supposed to be a volcano, you can just about see the smoke simmering in the mouth of the volcano.

We have plenty left over! Anyone for cake?

Happy Birthday Arran!

9 years old yesterday.


As you can see, we gave him an electronics set for his birthday. He spent all day, apart from a short time where he had to go to science lesson, experimenting with electronics. By the time Neil returned home, Arran had build a circuit that recorded a voice. He recorded Iona going "Meooww" and tied it to her back. Iona was wandering around the house with the circuit going "Meooww" all the time.

That evening we celebrated his birthday at Chevy's. If you go there on your birthday, they give you an ice cream and a sombrero as well as chant (very loudly, along with clapping) a happy birthday chant. Rebecca the balloon lady just happened to be working there also, so Arran and Iona both had balloon sculptures. Arran chose Picachu and Iona chose a pink kitty in a yellow basket.

Saturday afternoon is party day. We are having a mad scientist party. Experiments are all prepared (including 4 mini volcanos to set off!). Just have to prepare all the lab attire, prepare the food and bake the cake. Sunday WILL be a day of rest!

Getting sent to Coventry!

OK, not quite Coventry!

This is Arran at the USGS Open House. USGS stands for United States Geological Survey - they monitor and survey geology in the US, including earthquakes which occasionally occur around here. Last weekend (May 15th, 16th and 17th) they had an open house which occurs once every three years, we took a field trip there. The scientists were enthusiastic and great at explaining things to the kids.

The picture shows Arran dressed as a Marine Geologist. After entering the room, Arran stated "I'm not dressing up" next thing I see is him all in red. LOL. Iona didn't want to dress up either, but she meant it :-)

There were lots of rock samples for Arran to observe and enough even to keep Iona interested. Highly recommended if you are in the area at the next open house (2012 I think!)

Negative tides...

No, not something out of a horror movie, but a great time to go tidepooling. A negative tide is where the tide actually goes lower than the average water line. What this means is that areas that are normally way under water are open for people to see.


Recently (Feb 8th, 2009) there was a wonderful negative tide at Half Moon Bay which is about an hours drive from here. The forecast was for showers/rain, but we thought we would try and go see it as the negative tide rarely occurs on a weekend. On the drive over, the rains came down quite heavily. We thought that perhaps the journey was in vain, but much to our suprise, the weather at Half Moon Bay was great. The rain stayed away until much later that evening, so we had a wonderful time looking around the tidepools.



The land behind Arran and Iona is usually covered in a few feet of that wet stuff.

Mussel beds were plentiful (as were people harvesting them for dinner that night!). Tons of anemones were on the rocks, covered in seashells to keep themselves from getting sunburnt. We saw plenty of starfish in a rainbow of colours, including one which was using its suckers to pry open a mussel for lunch. Starfish pull the mussels apart a bit, then stick their stomach in the mussel and digest it. Yum!

Then a walk back down the beach to where we parked the car.

You Rock!

Well they rock!

Arran and Neil have been playing Guitar Hero for some time, but recently we obtained Guitar Hero World Tour which came with the drum set. We now have a little drummer girl in the family.

March is almost here!

I can't believe that it is almost March. Wow. Time is going fast (again!!!)

We have had some winter storms here in California. I can't complain because we need the rain. The unfortunate thing is that we went to Yosemite last weekend (February 21-24th, 2009) . It was going to rain in the Bay Area so we hoped that it would at least be snowing in Yosemite. No such luck! We drove up on Saturday (avoiding the incoming rainfront. Sunday it rained. Not heavily, but it would have been nice to see snow. We decided to go into Yosemite on the hopes that it was colder there and therefore the rain would be snow. Nope. Here is Yosemite in the rain! This is El Capitan. In photos, it looks small and insignificant, but believe me, it is one awesome slab of granite rock.


We decided to have lunch at the Awahanee Hotel. It was either that or sandwiches from the Village Store and we wanted somewhere warm and dry to eat. That was probably the most expensive bar meal we had! We decided against going in the restaurant - the Sunday brunch there would have cost us almost $200 for the 4 of us. In comparison the bar meal was cheap, but never the less, and expensive lunch! Arran and Iona enjoyed their warming cups of Hot Chocolate.

After lunch, despite the rain, we decided to do a short half mile walk to Lower Yosemite Falls. It is an easy walk, even when the path is covered in snow and slush. Snowballs were thrown, we all got wet and had fun. One of the best things was seeing the deer wandering through the forest.

Monday came, more rain. We just hung out in our townhome for the day, watched movies, played playstation, didn't get dressed. A totally lazy PJ day! Most excellent.

Tuesday we had to return home, but the weather was glorious. We decided to take one trip up to play in the snow before heading home. The snow play area was on the edge of Yosemite National Park so we decided that, as we had come all this way, we would drive the extra distance into Yosemite to see the valley all covered in snow. We were glad we did. This is what we were greeted by.

That is the same El Capitan as in the first photo. What a difference the sunshine makes. The middle photo is taken at the tunnel Overlook. Its a great shot down the valley showing El Capitan and in the rear, Half Dome. The last picture is a shot of the river Merced and in the background is Half Dome. Its hard to believe that Neil and I have actually climbed to the top of that peak. Ok we were much fitter then!









We finished our trip off with some sledding.

We have had a few other outings in the past few weeks. I will try and get them posted on here too.