To safely view the Transit of Venus, we set up a pair of binoculars and projected the image of the sun onto a flat surface. It was really exciting to see the image of the sun with a tiny black dot which was the planet Venus.
A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and Earth, becoming visible against (and hence obscuring a small portion of) the solar disk. The event is visible for several hours.
Transits of Venus are among the rarest of predictable astronomical phenomena. They occur in a pattern that repeats every 243 years, with pairs of transits eight years apart separated by long gaps of 121.5 years and 105.5 years.
This transit of Venus occurred on June 5 in our location and is the last Venus transit of the 21st century. The prior transit took place on June 8, 2004. The previous pair of transits were in December 1874 and December 1882. The next transits of Venus will be in December 2117 and December 2125.
Venus transits are historically of great scientific importance as they were used to gain the first realistic estimates of the size of the Solar System. In particular, observations of the 1639 transit, combined with the principle of parallax, provided an estimate of the distance between the Sun and the Earth that was more accurate than any other up to that time.
Click on the picture above to see more pictures from our observation of the Transit of Venus.
It is that time of year when the 4th graders study the California missions and create a Mission Project of one of the 21 missions.
Our annual Christmas puzzle is available now. It's a fun maze in the shape of a snowflake.
As in prior years, the reward for solving is a video Christmas card, but you'll need to figure out the password by solving the puzzle.
Christmas Day was started with everyone in their Christmas pajamas. First came the stockings which were overflowing with gifts from "Santa." Then we had a breakfast of homemade banana chocolate chip muffins, omelets, waffles, sausage and scrambled eggs.
Click the image to the left to see a smattering of photos we took on Thanksgiving Day. Dinner was at Mum and Dad's house and everyone brought something to enjoy; there was lots of scrumptious food! After dinner we had fun playing games (Blokus, Cribbage and Mille Bornes) and later on Hisae taught us how to fold our paper napkins into origami creations.
This is the second year that Alpine Meadows Ski Resort has opened up a tubing area called "Tubeville" just beyond the lodge. The tubing course consists of two steep, long lanes, each with a couple humps and a big half-pipe at the end. There's a moving "magic carpet" escalator to get you to the top of the hill and then a quick, fast ride down to the bottom.
Tanya came out to visit with the twins, Sydney and Sara. Obviously the kids had a great time playing with their cousins in the pool with lots of jumping, splashing, spinning and other water fun.
Rosemary, along with her classmates Will and J.P., came up with the following French commercial as part of a French class assignment. They had to create a commercial for a product and tout the positive uses (along with things to avoid). This was filmed over a weekend and then edited together with sound effects, titles, etc.
As part of Teacher Appreciation week at school, Jason's 3rd Grade class made a video thank you letter for their teacher, Mr. Fisher. 
Each Christmas we pick a fun craft to do with the kids. This year we made little felt mice with candy cane tails and handed them out to family, friends and classmates.