Christmas Family Traditions

Every year we go to Leavenworth to visit my mom's side of the family and have Christmas with them. We usually have it the weekend before Christmas. We eat, talk, watch a little TV, get pictures taken, play games, and of course, we exchange gifts. This year we ate chili, turkey & noodles, vegetables, and various snacks. There was much chatter and laughter the entire time. Everyone had a smile on their faces. These are some pictures of the fun event. The stockings are all homemade by Maamma, with neat designs. In the stockings there is always money, candy, and a small gift. Isaac and I usually get pomegranates.

Maamma

The game we are playing is called Apples to Apples: The Game Of Crazy Combinations.

    As you can see, we had a grand time!

Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid (DNA for short.)

We had an experiment on DNA today. We used marshmallows and toothpicks to make a model of a DNA strand. DNA is made of sugar, phosphate groups, and nucleotide bases. Those bases are named guanine, cytosine, adenine, and thymine. Each base can only be attached to another certain base. Guanine can only be attached the cytosine, and adenine can only be attached to thymine. In our model S stands for the sugars and phosphate groups, G stands for guanine, C stands for cytosine, A stands for adenine, and T stands for thymine. DNA molecules are in a double helix form which looks like this:

This is the nice picture...

...and this is the silly picture.

I am trying to escape Isaac, who is trying to give me bunny ears.

Underground Railroad Experiment

     Isaac and I had an assignment to draw a map (done by Isaac) of our neighborhood. This is because we studied the Underground Railroad and abolitionists in History this week. Back then it was to dangerous to use house numbers. So they had to draw landmarks instead. Isaac drew a map of our neighborhood in that fashion. I scanned it onto the computer and posted it.

Trunk or Treat! Yes, I mean trunk.

Every year our church holds a trick or treat for the church and the neighborhood. Everyone lines up in vehicles with candy in their trunks. There is also a bouncy house and a slippery slide. We have a lot of fun every year.

Isaac and Travis fighting with a sword and a spoon. Yes, a spoon.

Travis is a cereal killer.  Get it?

Isaac won. Not surprisingly since Travis only had a spoon.

Bounce House

Ninja Turtle!

Slippery Slide