Events of Sunday, August 22, 2010

Today is Caitlin’s sixteenth birthday, so we began by presenting her with a plateful of chocolate mini-doughnuts (an approximation of our birthday tradition) and singing her ‘Happy Birthday’. At breakfast, we enjoyed a fresh ripe cantaloupe along with our cereal. For church today we attended the 10:00 mass at the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis. Little did we know that this was the one Sunday of the year when they focus special attention on their patron saint, King Louis IX. The homily zeroed in on Louis’s purity and humility. He endeared himself to the poor and offended the powerful with his Christ-like habits. The priest’s challenge to us was to look at life in light of the perfect Law: love God first, then love neighbor, and consider oneself last. As non-Catholics, we found the whole experience quite accessible. The songs, prayers, and physical movements (stand, sit, kneel, etc.) all made sense.

After lunch, we explored the St. Louis Science Center. The afternoon was not enough time to fully experience all the hands-on activities and multi-media presentations. To provide a sampling, though, I will mention some of the most memorable activities. The kids worked together to create a catenary arch (like the Gateway Arch) from foam blocks. After building it, Ben kicked out the top “keystone” piece, and the other pieces aligned to again create a smaller arch. Then they built a taller arch from larger blocks. Ben again tried to kick out the keystone…and pulled his hamstring. Caitlin enjoyed learning about the “child mummy”, created a truss bridge, and even designed her own web page. Ben, the pre-engineer, enjoyed learning about construction and tried his hand at bridge design. Lindsey had fun creating an array of gears and solving math logic problems. Abby liked working online, collaboratively with others, to design, order supplies and construct buildings. Five of us spent too much time on a video game in which our shrunken video avatar constructed then drove a nano-vehicle. (Lindsey rightly condemned us all for wasting our time on video games: “You are all stupid.”) Pam enjoyed the displays on architecture and the collaborative design game. I returned twice to play a laser harp, where instead of strings there were red beams of light. The speed of my fingers crossing the rays of light signaled the pitch and duration of the note. It is fun to make music with high-tech gadgets that make me sound like a virtuoso.

On the way back to our campsite, we picked up some last-minute ingredients for Caitlin’s birthday dinner: Chinese vegetables and chicken on rice. Before eating, Caitlin had an online Skype meeting with her Uncle Scott, and she opened his present to her: a photo of him and his Honda and the title to the car. Yes indeed, Caitlin got a car for her 16th birthday! Then after dinner, Pam and the kids went swimming. From the side of the pool, they had another Skype conversation, this time with their Aunt Pat and cousins Timothy and Claire. Timothy, almost 2, could not get over the fact that his cousins were swimming­­--and he was not!