Sue is AWESOME!

Today we went to the Natural History Museum at East Tennessee State in Johnson City. Libby read over the weekend of a new exhibit there of "the largest, most complete, and best preserved T. rex fossil ever discovered." The place was awesome; the T. rex was awesome; the whole trip was awesome, all according to Briggs (we even had pizza for supper after we got home). The assembled T. rex skeleton was pretty incredible. There were plenty of hands-on exhibits for all ages. We also watched a short film about the site, and then got to do some pretend digging for bones. Finally, though it was cold, we got to go outside and see the actual site where the ETSU folks do their digging.

To be clear: Sue, the T. rex, was found in South Dakota, by a paleontologist named Sue Hendrickson. The fossil was ultimately purchased by The Field Museum in Chicago. ETSU has the exhibit on loan through April. There is however a Miocene era dig in progress in Gray. They have found lots of bones near what was once a watering hole. It was nearly paved over by Suncrest Drive, but work was halted, re-routed, and the site secured by ETSU. The university then established an entire department to begin unearthing the site. The T. rex exhibit is no doubt a coup for this smallish department and school, but it was really drawing a crowd today. It was well worth the travel for us; I think everyone learned a little something. Briggs for sure had a blast and was turned on even more (if that's possible) to the world of dinosaurs!

(The museum had a really nice white, yellow and red logo/design (lower left of the graphic above) for the exhibit (signage, promo items, etc.) but I couldn't find it anywhere on their site; I had to make do with this rather bland B&W rendering above.)

So proud

Black Mountain PC(USA) did two services for Christmas Eve (much as they have in the past). The early service is for families and in the past was pretty standard fair with lots of adult involvement. I suggested this year letting children do the bulk of the service. An adult (clergy-person) would only need to do the welcome and concluding blessing. I was able to utilize all of the children participating and present in the Aerie Singers (grades 3-4-5 in our Logos program) as readers and pray-ers. Eli was one of those, though he usually does not sing with the group. He allowed himself to be convinced by myself and our educator Ginny Soll to be a lector. He did a great job. This is a posed shot after the service of Eli at the lectern. He did actually sing the anthem the group sang, though he had not practiced it before! He even got to ring a chime as part of the accompaniment.

Snow!

It ain't much, but it's actually snow. Other parts of the county (of course) got more; we managed only a dusting. But it was enough to close daycare for Briggs (school for Eli was still on holiday). Not so much snow, but plenty of cold: 17 degrees right now at mid-morning! I am reminded just how leaky this old house is!