Jeff and Family Visit

February 10-13, 2018

Jeff and the girls arrived near midnight on Friday, February 9, for our Mardi Gras blessing visit. We were disappointed that Darla couldn't come because Judy was in the hospital. But Mark was able to break loose and visit with us on Sunday, February 11. Now Elyse is about the same height as Jordan and Ashleigh, so we have three grown-up young ladies visiting us.

Getting Grandma Brenda to join the group made for a great family picture.

The girls pryed Granddad out from behind the camera and got a picture of Rod and Brenda, Jeff and Mark.

We wanted to get a picture of Ashleigh, Elyse and Jordan by the tree that Brenda had decorated for Mardi Gras. This is a symbol of our celebration of our Mardi Gras blessing when they come to visit us.

You never know what kind of things we will get into on these visits. Marty shows up with a baby rat on his arm.

The baby rat seemed completely unharmed, even though he had been grabbed and carried and delivered as a gift by Marty's cat!

Elyse thought it was cute and had to get her own picture of it with her phone.

We couldn't capture the dramatic sound of the Rijke tube sounding, but you can see a bit of it in their faces. On Tuesday the 13th before they left, I got them down to the shop to hear a demonstration that I have done in the Physics of Music and Speech course for probably over 40 years.

It was good to get a little surprised disbelief with this demonstration of the loud sound of the resonance of an open metal tube you can get with the application of a torch to the bottom of the tube. A short way in the tube is a copper gauze, and the chimney effect through that red-hot gauze pushes air toward the center of the tube and excites the resonant vibration of the air in the tube. It is surprisingly loud! I have used many ways to hoke up this demonstration in classes just to catch them by surprise and demonstrate the nature of acoustic resonance.

Given this high-tech generation, I was not surprised when they whipped out their phones to video the demonstration!

After the Rijke tube, we had a go at the set of tuned pipes I had made up.

We were sad to see the visit end on Tuesday the 13th but Ashleigh had class at Tulane on Wednesday and Jeff had class at NOBTS. We had enjoyed a relaxed visit together and praised the Lord for our Mardi Gras blessing.