saturday fun

Saturday's are always such a great day. We get to sleep in! This morning we didn't get up until 7am.
DH went to play paintball after we got up. The rest of us got to have family cleaning hour, which actually went fine. We had a fun afternoon planned which really works great as a motivator to help with chores.


















H's friend Emma had a birthday party today. It was at Keller Pointe which has an indoor pool. S didn't want to go but the rest of us did. It was a lot of fun. The water was a little on the cold side but the kids didn't mind. Little Lucy is a daredevil. She is completely fearless and has such joy in the water. She purposely bobs under and kicks up to the top. She LOVED the slide and went down a million times. It was very cute.

I am reading a good book right now. It's called "in Code", it's the story of an Irish mathematician. She talks a little in the beginning of her interest in math and how her parents cultivated it. One of the things they did was work on mind puzzles all the time, not as a chore but just for fun. She talked about the first one she remembers doing when she was about 5 years old. On the way to the pool I asked the kids to try and solve it. I wondered if they would figure it out (I didn't but I am horrible at puzzles of all kinds and anything spacial, musical or mathematical).
The puzzle went like this:
There is a farmer who is walking home from the village to his farm with a fox, a goose and a bag of oats. On the way home he has to cross a bridge. The bridge is only strong enough to hold the farmer and one item at a time so he has to decide how to get them all across. He can't leave the fox and the goose alone because the fox will eat the goose. He can't leave the goose and the oats, because the goose will eat the oats. So, how will he get them all across?
J and her friend Emma came up with several plans, as did H. None were right. E thought the farmer should climb a tree and throw things over, which is not the answer either. He could not let go of the tree idea. The kids worked on the puzzle for quite awhile. Finally H said "why couldn't he just take the goose over, go back for the fox, take the goose back while he gets the oats, take the oats over and then go back for the goose." Which is the right answer. We were all excited and congratulated her on finding the answer and she was very excited. Then Emma and J asked for another one, they went "duh" and wanted to try more. Sadly I am only on chapter one and only had one other to tell them.
My brain doesn't think like that, although DH's does (thus the career as engineer extraordinaire) and so do the kids. I wonder if this is a thing that can be taught. Can you train your brain to think....I believe so, not that I've done it. Anyway, interesting. I'll be curious to read the rest, and to give the kids more puzzles.

When we got back from swimming J went to spend the night with Emma. I went to Wal mart. DH had work to do and eventaully had to go in to the office to finish up. I am waiting up for him now and watching "Marie Antoinette", which is a sad story.