Posted in The View From Here

Tomorrow we are taking a trip to Stockholm. It's not by choice; it is necessary to renew DD11's and DD13's passports and to obtain Ella's first. Today we had Ella's picture taken at a photography studio, because there is no way to get our almost 4yo autistic darling to have them taken in a photo booth (as the older girls will do in Stockholm). Gunnar and DD13 biked over and Ella's hair was sooooo flat, but it is a decent picture of her face, so I can live with it.

The trip tomorrow is going to be an interesting one. We are borrowing the car of a friend of Gunnar's (in exchange for some help with the man's sailboat recently) and driving 350 km ONE WAY. That's a 217.5 mile trip one way; at 105 kph (65mph) it should take us around 4.5 hours each way (that's including road breaks for the kids). But that's not the fun part; we have to be at the American Embassy around 10:00 AM -- which means we have to get the kids up at 4AM and leave by 5AM to make sure we're there on time. *BLEAH*

The girls and Gunnar are taking a nap, while I stay up with Ella. Ella and I can sleep more on the trip.

Today we watched a special on National Geographic (channel) about the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991.

From NASA's earth observatory website:

"The explosion of Mt. Pinatubo on June 15, 1991, just 60 miles northwest of Manila, was the world’s largest volcanic eruption in nearly 80 years. Due to active monitoring of the volcano by scientists and warnings of an impending eruption, only a few hundred people died during the main eruption. Most casualties were caused by the collapse of buildings under the weight of rain-soaked ash and the lahars spawned by the eruption.

But the hazards posed by Mt. Pinatubo continue to this day, even though the volcano has remained quiet since 1991. Volcanologists estimate that damaging lahar flows may continue for another 10 years. More than 5 cubic kilometers (1 cubic mile) of volcanic ash and debris were deposited on the slopes around Mt. Pinatubo. Entire river valleys were filled. Each year part of that new volcanic layer is sent churning downslope by the heavy monsoon rains and typhoons that hit central Luzon between June and October. Scientists estimate that as much as 60 percent of the rocky debris from the eruption will eventually erode into the lowlands around the volcano. That’s enough sediment to cover the state of Rhode Island in a layer 1 meter deep."

Will write more tomorrow.