Solar Eclipse

So school has started and life has been just been very full lately.  I will update later with pics from the beginning of the school year.  One thing I do know for certain that I am grateful for not working the past years with kids at home and having to work the week before school with all the kids at home wore all of us out!  We are slowly finding a routine-unfortunately it requires early mornings which take some adjusting to.  The Solar Eclipse was a big deal for us and for school-the teachers had been planning every subject around this day.  Ron decided that is would be worth it to drive and see the total ecplise.  I kind of thought this was a bit much, especially when two kids are in Middle School and missing a day creates a lot of problems.  WOW!!  I am so glad we made it all work because it was beyond words what we saw.  Sadly Brayden had to stay, with only one day for basketball tryouts there were no other options for him.  So thankful to a great friend who opening her house at 5am for Brayden!!  We were off and driving early that morning, not knowing what to expect traffic wise.  Funny thing was the closer we got to Monday the more people I talked to who where doing the same thing we were.  In fact our neighbor left Sat driving a huge RV up to Kansas because there were no hotels for them to stay at!  First we were headed to St Louis area.....no then west of Kansas city....no then back to Missouri.....The weather and cloud cover made it hard to decide where to go.  Finally we opted for St Louis and I was so glad as Kansas City area ended up with lots of rain.  We ended up at Anadoga State Park, with thoughts of driving to Meremac Cavern State Park.  After stoppping we had about two hours to spare-turned out traffic was not at all bad and with cave tours going on we headed 14 0feet under ground to explore the cave.  We went from a sauna of over 90 degrees to cool and 56...the kids and I were freezing, Ron was in heaven.  We made it out just in time for the beginning of the Eclipse.  The parking lot of full and people were set up in every bit of shade with blankets and chairs-walking out into the sun/heat every now and then to look through their glasses at the sun.  There was a geologist/naturalist who set up a telescope and white board so we all could watch it.

 I ordered glasses late...which meant they never made it.  Thankfully we had fun making a bunch of different viewers and recieved glasses from a friend who ordered extra!

Ready for the big eclipse...underground!

These caverns/room were just beautiful!

Let the ecplise begin...it was just a big picnic for everyone.

 Even with the glasses Rons eyes had were pretty sentitive.

 The beginning.  Impressive but not a lot to see besides the changing shadow

Just a sliver left...by now I was  bit disappointed.  It was still super sunny, not a lot was changing in the environment around us

But then it happened!!  It was beyond amazing, it was someone just kept turning off more and more lights.  The little wind/breeze was totally gone the air was heavy and very very still.  The planets and bright stars came out and we instantly could take off out glasses and look at the sun, or rather a spectacular glowing silver ring in the sky-everyone around the park was cheering.  It only lasted for a min before and bright pop of red shown through on the opposite side of the moon.  We instantly had to grab the glasses and get them on.  The Suns strength is amazing!  The diamond ring was just like it sounds beautiful and only lasted for a couple sec.  Such beauty, such consistency with such power, only possible with our Lords hand.

 No great pictures....with our life this past month we were happy to just be there.  The ring was just a sliver around the moon with our bear eyes, but even the brightness from the corona about washed out the picture.

The moment!!  SOOO cool.

And then everyone loaded up in their cars and headed home....and road loaded with traffic.  I was a little concerned but things evened out and we were about to make it home.  A full, fun almost once in a life time experience day.

Braydens experience...he was not impressed/90% and really no change in light noticed.