the night sky and things that inspire me and a sleepover

For the Everything AG follower competition thing that I am late for but whatever.
I arrive precisely when I mean to, and everyone else is simply early.
And the question is:
What inspires me?
The answer is Everything.
The quirky people I hang with at lunch, my oddball language arts teacher, Pinterest, my cousins, you guys, nature, the night sky.
Speaking of which--
Oh man I have the most amazing news.
So.
There is a middle aged couple near my town who live on the top of a hill. They have a small planetarium and an observatory.
And it's the coolest thing ever because they let schools and scout groups come to see and use and learn about their space stuff. Touchy feely intergalactic education. At star parties you get to use their fancy telescopes to find Andromeda, our sister Galaxy, and other things like Hercules and constellations and planets. In the observatory you learn about astrophotography and use the big mechanical telescope to take pictures. (It takes black and white photos, but then you take each picture and put it through a red, green, and blue filter {those are the three colors of light} and use photoshop to put them together.) and Mr. Pauly lets kids turn the big domed roof and control the window so we can look out into the night.  

Yeah. It's the best thing ever.
I had gone there once with my 5th grade class, and then again to the star party in August. After that I didn't get to go anymore 'cause I'm not a 5th grader.
But yesterday I had the opportunity to go again with my brother's boy scouts.
And it was just as awesome as I remembered.
The best part was that Mr&Mrs Pauley remembered me and offered me a position as "star guide", which means I go to star parties in the summer and help kids find Andromeda and such.
My friend John is a Star Guide also, I discovered.
This summer is going to be the awesome!!



Also, Barrett came out for my brother's birthday and she brought Kaya.

So Kaya hung out with Andie and Lilly and Rylan. They ate cookies and watched the new Avengers movie Age Of Ultron.

Getting to watch it from Max's phone was also very exciting, it looks like.

And then in the morning everyone had pancakes for breakfast.

Also, Barrett forgot Kaya here, so I get to keep her until we see her again. This will be fun.

Having my little brother's party was extremely tiring. We had both sets of cousins for a sleepover plus all of their affiliates (parents).

Oh my gosh. So. Many. People.

I spent the last couple hours hiding in my room.