Eclipse

Today we need to go way back a year and a few months ago to when we took a family trip up to the Philadelphia to celebrate my niece's baptism. While we were there my sister's FIL told Bill and I about this strange thing he called a totality. I'd never heard of the word before but he showed us a website of how this was going to happen in a year and four months and how we lived right there and wow, that was cool! We kind of filed that away and moved on.

Fast forward to January 2017. Bill started reaching out to companies to interview because he was sure he was just about done and wanted to start the job hunt. We found a fabulous place very quickly and started negotiations only to discover a couple months later he wasn't as close as he thought and our timeline backed up to August of this year. And I thought wow, that totality thing is going to happen just after we graduate and leave. Bummer.

Then the timeline backed up to December. And guess what?! We got to be here for the eclipse! This totality thing everyone talked about. Guess what else? It was a HUGE deal here because not only were we in the path but we had the best spot in the whole state to watch just by stepping outside. And then all the schools provided glasses for the kids and people planned trips and there was loads of excitement. And today was the day and we didn't have to do any of that. I got to pick my kids up from school at noon, meander over to Bill's work, then go over to Bill's lab and watch Magic School Bus until the eclipse started. It was in the mid 90s and sunny as could be, so we went in and out for the first 45 minutes and peeked at the sun's progress. And when it got much closer we setup our chairs and enjoyed the cooler temps and watched the show.

I didn't want to still be here in grad school at this point, but wow, the eclipse delivered and I'm glad we didn't miss it. I saw the world darken up and a 360 degree sunset around the horizon. I saw the most beautiful corona for two and a half minutes and that cool effect of seeing the sun peek through the mountains and valleys of the moon as it came out of totality. I heard the crickets go crazy. Then I saw sunrise at 2:45 in the afternoon. It was awe inspiring.

Spencer was jazzed the whole time. He caught right on to wearing the glasses and he ran in and out on repeat checking to see the progress. Genevieve and Aaron were underwhelmed at first because it was still so bright and they had a hard time seeing just the sun. Genevieve got scared because she hurt her eyes a bit first go when she didn't hold her glasses close enough to her face. Hurt in the sense that she got sun in her eyes a bit and immediately didn't want to try again. We got both of them to come around when it got closer to total eclipse and they figured out the glasses, and then they loved it. Chloe just buzzed around, happy to be outside. She pushed her chair around, and completely ignored what was happening in the skies above, lol. We're going to remember this one for a long time. It kind of gave me goosebumps when that corona burst forth around the moon. It was so stinking beautiful. This world is an amazing place.