In my last entry, I mentioned my favorite author, Frances Mayes, who has written several books about her life in the Tuscan area of Italy.  She lives there half of the year and she has restored two homes there.  She loves the lifestyle and people in Italy.  After I read her first book about Tuscany, I was inspired to learn Italian, and it just expanded from there.  The whole family got involved.  We learned how to cook more Italian dishes (we love Italian food anyway) and I bought some Italian language books.  The kids and I began to learn more about the country and its history.  I love it when learning is a natural outgrowth from something you discover and love.   A similar learning situation happened a few years ago when my husband bought a book by Peter Mayle, called "A Year In Provence".  This time, France was the topic and we spent time learning some French language, French food, even bought our first set of china (couldn't afford it way back when we first got married!) with a French-inspired pattern.  We got the kids the Muzzy language program from the BBC.  Good for learning the language, but I really hate the story-lines.  Anyway, we all had a good time of learning and still come back to those two cultures all the time.  I just recently started up the Italian language again.  I want my kids to learn about other cultures and it's even more fun when Todd and I are interested as well.  We have even discussed moving to a foreign country some day.  First, however, I need to overcome my fear of flying.  We'll leave that for another blog.

      Today, however, the subject was nuclear power plants.  We have a now-defunct nuclear power plant about 60 miles inland from us that has caught the interest of my kids.  This Sunday, the cooling tower will be demolished using dynamite!  (BOOM!)  It's supposed to fall in on itself but then, one never knows which way dynamite will blow, does one!  Anyway, we have to leave here at 6:30 am to drive over there to see it (from a safe distance!) and the boys are really excited.  They built little power plants out of Legos and had little explosions of their own.  On my computer, we learned how power plants work and what went wrong at Chernobyl.  We discussed the pros and cons of this kind of energy source.  We have recently learned that there are plans to build more of these power plants in the U.S. and we pondered if this was wise.  An interesting afternoon, to be sure.