Star Party

Ishaan really likes talking about stars and planets and when I tell him something new he really catches it fast. We tried to explain him about directions and he did not remember them, but recently when I told him about the pole star and showed it to him a couple of times, now he remembers where the pole star is and says thats the north direction, he then turns around and says thats south.
He talks a lot about planets, remember all 9 planets and his favorite is Saturn because it has beautiful rings. He was surprise to know that "Pluto" is a planet too because he always thought Pluto is Mickey mouse's dog but now he understands that there could be 2 pluto's in this world just like there are 2 James in his school.

Last weekend we got a chance to visit French creek national park for hiking which is about 25 miles from our house, and fortunately on that night one of the astronomer's associations organized an open event to show celestial objects. Ishaan always talks about telescopes, so we thought to take him to the event to show few stars and planets. Ishaan was very happy to see all the scientist with their telescopes and red light headlamps. He patiently waited for them to setup there telescope and then moved up to have a peep in the eye piece, he use to describe what he saw in each telescope. He was very excited to see his favorite planet Saturn in the telescope and saw 2 more stars around it, one of which was Saturn's moon Titan. He also saw a couple of clusters like M13 which were very far and were not very clear and a nebula. We were told that in north direction there is a supernova but they did not focus on that.

Just before watching stars Ishaan also participated in an activity where he made a planetosphere which can be used to determine position of a star at any given point of time in year 2011(not sure why they call it planetosphere). He also learned about few constellations which he would probably forget but he wont forget the big telescope and beautiful Saturn rings that he saw tonight.

Camping June 2011

Ishaan had his 3rd camping this year, and it was first time when he actually understood what camping means, although all he cares about is if his friends are around him. One of his favorite activity during any outdoor activity is throwing stones in water with his friends and he got a lot of opportunities to do that. We also got a chance to spend a little time at river bank and Ishaan enjoyed that, he was so excited to go in water all by himself.

Few things that Ishaan really enjoyed during the camping were
1. Playing with Rishab, Anshi, Nihal (as usual)
2. Watching the campfire
3. Sitting and swinging on the Hammock
At camping we all were little concerned about Dear ticks, and Neha found a tick on Ishaan's neck but because it was not there for 24 hrs, it wouldn't have caused any harm. Later when we were back home after 2 days we found yet another tick on Ishaan and that was very scary. We took him and the tick to the doctor and got a confirmation that it was a dear tick. Still not every dear tick is harmful so doctor asked us to observe him for 7-15 days and if he gets fever only then he will be given a dose of antibiotics. So far we haven't seen any symptoms of an infection so we are guessing he is fine. Ishaan keeps says, Daddy I want to go back for camping with my friends Rishab, Anshi, Nihal and Baby Mahika.

May Long Weekend Vacation

For May long weekend we decided to go to Pocono mountain for vacation. The plan was to go Hiking and Biking and enjoying at vacation rental. We along with 3 other families made a plan to do a hike of 5 miles around Tobyhanna Lake in Poconos area, it was a flat hike around the lake.

I was interested in giving Ishaan exposure to hiking and check if he enjoys it. We started the hike in the morning, for the first 1 mile, Ishaan was very comfortable and was running with Anshi. But there were a lot bugs around, so in-spite of using bug spray he got several bites which were bothering him. At about 1.5 miles, he started asking to come in backpack (we had a shoulder backpack to carry kids during Hiking) but I asked him to find a water creek, if he wants to come in backpack, just to keep him involved in something else. At a point around 2 miles he was very tired and was insisting to sit in backpack again and I thought he might not be able go further. I took him on the backpack and while we were singing songs on the way he slept. He had a nice 20-30 mins nap in the backpack and when he got up, he was fresh and we were about 1 mile away from our destination. He came down again and started hiking for the last 1 mile.
He had a lot of fun, he saw bridge, trees, creeks, birds and flowers on his way. Most of the time during the hike he was holding Anshi's hand and both of them were moving together. He was careful while walking and covered about 3 miles on his own, that was much more than what I expected from him on his first hike.
Next day we went for biking but because it being a long weekend, we were unable to get the child seat for the bikes. Although after a lot of hassle we were able to manage a caboose to give a nice ride to Ishaan.