Callie's Science Experiment: Will it Dissolve?!

After seeing this article about a mouse dissolving in Mountain Dew, I was fascinated.  Snopes even verified it, so it had to be true, right?!  I had to find out if this was true.  Callie was on board and we decided to make this her science project.  

Unfortunately, I do not know how one might obtain a mouse in Japan.  Callie and I  certainly were not going to kill it ourselves, and we couldn't figure out how to ask any of the pet stores about buying already dead ones.  I do not think many people keep snakes here as pets.  So, using an actual mouse was out.  

We went to the commissary and purchase 3 small bone-in pieces of meat.  We purchased Mountain Dew. Coke, and a Monster Energy Drink to make it a well rounded experiment.  We hypothesized that the Coke and Mountain Dew would deteriorate the meat, based on the mouse video.  We did not think the Monster drink would mostly because it isn't a soft drink.

We sealed the meat in their beverages and left them on shelf in the corner of the back porch. We may have forgotten about them for a bit, and it was 55 days before we unsealed them. 

Our meat selections.

What it looked like when we sealed the jars.

What the jars looked like 55 days later.

The meat is swollen to twice its original size in all of them. 

The meat in the coke was quite tender, but definitely NOT dissolved, and the bone was still quite solid.  No gelatinous mass here.  It was definitely still a piece of meat. 

The Mountain Dew was almost the same, but less tender.  It did not break apart at all. 

 The Monster energy Drink was notable in that the meat looked and (when poked with a stick) felt like it had been cooked, but it was not as tender as the Coke meat. And the bone was not dissolved at all.

Conclusion:  Maybe using beef made a difference, but there was no way it could be considered a "jelly-like substance".  It was definitely recognizable and not disintegrated at all. None of the drinks could possible be considered to have dissolved the meat at all.  

This means we must try this again with actual mousies! 

Family Photos

 I decided we needed family pictures.  Good ones.  Ones where we pay gobs of money and someone else makes us look good.  So I did it.  And I agonized over what to wear and what to do, and was it going to be worth it. And I worried that the kids would be dreadful and uncooperative.

Last Saturday we met our professional photographer at Kintai and she spent an hour taking pictures.  The shirts all matched, and the kids were mostly cooperative. I did come to the realization that we really are not a touchy family, as she wanted a lot of hands on shoulders and arms around each other, and the kids were less than enthusiastic.  So if it comes out actually looking natural, she will be worth every penny.

Our photographer was really good with the kids, despite their shenanigans.

Fooling around between shots. 

My handsome boy. 

Rylee was milking the piggybacks for all she was worth.  I missed Joshua giving her a piggyback and she was jousting.  Joshua would race forward and Rylee would have her fist extended  shrieking "Punch!"

Rylee wanted a picture on the bridge at the Koi Pond. 

Yes, they got ice cream at the end as a reward for a job well done. And no, Callie did not wear her pink jacket for the pictures! 

Selfie with Delaney... and her ice cream. (Apple/grape flavor, in case you wondered!) 

Me and Rylee.

For her birthday she wanted to.... PARAGLIDE?!!

 Callie said she wanted to go Paragliding for her birthday.  I was a little surprised.  She's not typically adventurous, but she was adamant that she wanted to.  I got her set up to do it and today (Sat May 21) was the only available day before we head to the U.S. this summer.  So, today it was!  Her friend Charlie managed to come along and that made it even more fun.  It also really perplexed the Japanese who could not figure out if she was a boy or a girl and kept asking, "Boy?  Girl?"

We drove out this crazy narrow road through the fields to the landing area.  I waited there at the bottom.

The girls were hopped up on adrenaline and were very silly. 

 They got in the van and drove to the top of the mountain.  I waited at the bottom to catch the landings.  I confess, I wasn't convinced they would jump!

But they did!  See that field there on the top of the mountain?  That's where they launched. This is Callie.

She floated around the air for about 8 minutes. 

She flapped her arms for me, but I wasn't fast enough to get a picture of that. Silly pickle! 

I love this photo.  If you zoom in, you can see the big grin on her face.

Still smiling and coming down for landing. 

All done!

She had a fabulous time and LOVED it.  She wants to do it again! 

And then I drove down the tiny little roads got get us home.  It was a rousing success.

Kittens!

My friend Traci was the lucky recipient of 4 baby kittens.  The vet asked if she would bottle raise the little things after someone dropped them off at her office.  We accosted her after school and she let the kids hang out with the little darlings.  

Oddly enough, 3 of the babies are tiny and their eyes are not even open yet.  The fourth is obviously older- much bigger and his eyes are open.  Who knows how he wiggled into the family, but he arrived with the other three, and he still needs to be bottle fed as well.

Anyway the girls were ecstatic to maul.... er, I mean, snuggle the fuzzy things.  I confess, I may have done some snuggling myself.  Levi was quite curious, and really wanted to play with them, but also did not want them to approach him.  It was funny.

Why we do not like the Dentist

I had taken all the kids in to the dentist last week.  They wanted to see Callie to do two small fillings, and wanted to put sealants on Marian's teeth.  Irritatingly enough, the only day they offered was Thursday.   I have Body Pump class at the gym on Thursday mornings and I hate to miss it.  I planned my day carefully and took the 7am slot for Callie and 10 for Marian.


I called the dental office and let them know Callie was going to need nitrous.  I wasn't clear on what they were going to do, since none of the dentists can do nitrous.  He said the pediatric dentist would be in and it would be fine, so I crossed my fingers.


I got Callie to the dental office at 7 this morning and reminded them that she was going to need the gas.  I got a blank look and then he came back and said we would have to reschedule with the pediatric dentist.  Sigh. I'd like to say I was surprised, but I was not.  I said I would like the 10 slot so I could bring both girls in at the same time (and still make it to Body Pump!).


As soon as I got home, someone from the dental clinic called and asked me to bring Callie in at 8.  Grrr.... In hindsight I should have asked more questions like, "Do I HAVE to?"  But I assumed they had a good reason for calling to move the time. I got Callie back to the dentist at 8 and  I still do not know who called to reschedule or why, because there was apparently no real need to.  I was cross.  Cross I missed my class at the gym because some random jerk decided to juggle appointments.  


However, Callie got her nitrous, and her appointment went fine, and we were done by 8:30 with very little drama. (But still too late for for me to change and get over to Body Pump Class.)


I got Callie back to school and picked up Marian.  I told her it should be an easy appointment- no shots, no drilling, just sealants.   Nope.  This dentist looked at her teeth and said she needed fillings not sealants.  He hoped they wouldn't be too deep, but they were.  So he had to give her several shots and those were less effective than Marian or I would have liked.  Marian was so brave.  She did great, but some water may have leaked from her eyes.  I could see her feet twitching and her hands holding the chair for dear life.  But she lay there and did not complain. I was so proud of her and I wanted to cry.


It was almost 11:30 when we finished and as we left the room, I put my hand on her back and it was drenched with sweat!  My poor baby!  I took her home and gave her a few minutes to get her composure together.  I offered to let her stay home the rest of the day, but she said no, she had to go to school!  I love this kid.  I really hope she isn't traumatized for life. 

Friendship Day 2016

 Friendship Day is kind of an Airshow and Open House for Iwakuni.  The base opens the gates to all who want to come and see, and they put on an air show and have lot of booths for food and merchandise.  There are also some games and kid play stuffs... all for a fee, of course.  May 5 is the designated day and they were predicting hordes of people to come.  There were hordes, but not as much as expected.  The Kumamoto earthquakes caused the Japanese air show event to be cancelled and a lot of resources went south to Kumamoto.

It was still a jam packed place to be and we squeezed into the fun.

The flight line was full of people.  Fortunately it is huge enough it wasn't too cramped most of the time.

Posing with Callie by the static display. 

Folks picked out good spots to camp out and watch the air show. 

And I do love a good air show! 

This little yellow plane was a lot of fun to see.  Joshua was quite impressed with it's aerobatics. 

I love the Japanese.  This is a very long line to get to tour the inside of that plane. 

Yep.  I brought a stroller to haul stuff and for when Rylee's little legs got tired.  It was a LOT of walking. 

This cracked me up.  Those guys in uniform.... their job was to stand there for photos.  People stood in line to get their pictures taken with them.

 Rylee is photobombing my selfie with the plane.  And I have to tell you how much this made me laugh.  If you look closely at the plane, you can see the pilot in it.  His job was to sit there and smile and give thumbs up so everyone could take his picture.  What a great job!  If you wanted to feel like a celebrity, this was the place to be!

One last selfie on the flight line. 

Heading home and this was too cute.  These kids all helping each other was so sweet.   

Dan and Joshua walking home.  We are almost there!  Since we live on the other side of that wall on the left, we got to take the empty road home.  If you look closely, you can see the teeming throng on the other side of the green barrier. It was kind of crazy!  But a good time.

I loves my kids!

I got to attend the 4th quarter award ceremony and Marian got a certificate for achieving a 3.5-3.9 GPA.  So proud of her!

Waiting his turn....

Joshua got a good GPA award as well.

So cute to see these 3 sharing the Friend magazine before church.

Dn and I took this kid out to lunch at a Japanese "Italian" restaurant.  She liked her spaghetti.

Hiroshima Castle

 On May 2, one of our former sister missionaries came back to Japan with her parents.  She let us know she would be in Hiroshima for the afternoon, so Dan thoughtfully took the afternoon off work and we drove the hour up to the Peace Park.  We didn't stop at the Peace Park, but met our friends at an Okonomiyaki place across the street.

Lunch was lovely and it was fun to get to know (former) Sister Klein's parents. After lunch we walked over to the Hiroshima Castle, which I had never been to.  We were on a bit of a time crunch, so we hustled through the castle and didn't get too many photos.

Super cool watch-tower on the wall.  So pretty.

Tippy top of the castle. 

 The Castle was really tall!  It was hard to get the whole thing in a photo.  (And apparently impossible to get one and tourists.)

Look!  It's me!  Me and the Castle.

My darling friends.  Sister Welte was in Iwakuni for a few months, and is still missionary-ing in Hiroshima. Sister Klein (in the middle) is the one who came back to visit.  I love our sister missionaries!