Egg Drop

 Case's class had an egg drop this last week in science.  We used spray foam insulation, as did my father before me. 

 I let Case fill it up, which he enjoyed tremendously.  And excessively.  Since the can is a one-time use item anyway, you might as well go crazy.

 Not shown:  the giant (basketball sized) glob of foam glued to the garage floor where it burst from the top and dripped off the work bench. 

 We trimmed it to size, added a very technical duct-tape closure, and sent it off to school. 

 We also discussed the possibility of using left overs for Crazy Hat Day.

 The big moment...

Triumph!

Green Sand

 Back to our adventures on the Big Island!  While there I had the bright idea to visit a green sand beach, which can only be accessed by foot or very serious 4 wheel drive.  No problems, Case walks over a mile to and from school every day.  We figured it would be worth it, as there are only two green sand beaches in the world.  The other one is in the Galapagos, and hence even harder to reach.

 The directions we received were a bit vague.  I read between 1 1/2 and 2 1/2 miles.  Having done it myself, I'm guessing it was closer to 2 1/2.  Case was not really happy with the distance, but marched along pretty well.

 When we reached the cliff overlooking the beach though it was stunning.  The ocean was ridiculously blue and clear. 

 We hiked down the cliff and dove in.  Case found a snail and parked himself in the glittering crystal sand.

See how green the sand is?  It was actually slightly more green in person. 

The visitor center at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park says that the lava there is unusually rich in olivine.  Olivine is present in most lava, and like most lava, the rocks on land there are black, but if you look closely you see very small flecks of green.  Olivine is green due to the presence of iron and magnesium, which makes it tougher and more dense than the rest of the rock.  When the lava here breaks down the less dense silicate materials are washed away more quickly, causing the olivine crystals to build up on the beach.

When olivine crystals are large enough they are known as peridot.  These crystals were pretty tiny, but quite striking when you have an entire beach made of them.

Caldera

Well done on the comments regarding the previous post!  Having received sufficient validation, I will now post the next segment of the trip.

When last we left our heroes, they were trekking through lava tunnels in the rain forest.  Our next adventure was checking out the smoking Halema'uma'u crater of Kilauea from the Jagger Museum.  You can see lots of smoke pouring from the earth there, but it's not high enough to see in to the fiery open pit of lava from there.  Case was a good sport and yelled about volcanoes a lot, but I think he was a little disappointed.

At night, however, the lava lights up like the fires of hell.  Case was much more impressed by that.

In the interest of truth, Marc insists that I identify the above picture as a slight trick of the camera, and that the actual appearance was more like the still impressive photo below.  I will also take this opportunity to confess that I gathered a small crowd behind my tripod and quite enjoyed the attention.

Lava Tubes

My boys and I just got home from a trip to the Big Island, (it's rather inconvenient that the largest island is also the name of the state, I blame Kamehameha.)  On our very first day we saw volcanoes and hiked around in drippy lava tubes in the rain forest   

 We actually hiked through the tunnel twice; once with a busload of tourists staggering through, and then again because Case loves tunnels.  The second time the tour had left and we had the cavern to ourselves.

 Case loves to admire his shadow.  I took a bunch of other photos of him in the lava tube, but he is streaky in all of them because the light was dim and he is always moving.  In this one he has stopped to check out his silhouette.

We exit the cave!  Case is on the stairs, moving swiftly upward.

A nice guy offered to get a photo of the three of us, it took some . . . encouragement to get Case to look at the camera.

And this was only the first day!  (Before we got sick!)  More to follow!

Musicians

We need a drummer but he just wants to hammer on the bass.

Reading

Amazing!  New library book, about spiders of course.

Food

 The three of us have been known occasionally to enjoy some tasty food, and when we have time we like to cook fancy delicious things together. 

 Like this truly sublime Pecan Macadamia Nut pie which I actually made (except for the crust, thank you Marie Calendar!)

 Marc baked a really delicious chocolate cake frosted with ganache.  Turns out you need to let the ganache really set up before you frost a cake or it just weeps.

 A little time in the fridge will let you neaten things up though.

 Dozens of bacon-wrapped scallops were consumed,

As well as lots of very gourmet pizza.