It's SUPER Moon

Only every 18 years or so, the full moon appears on the moon's perigee. This perigee marks the closest distance from the earth in the moon's orbit. Pseudo-astronomers call it a Super Moon.

As family leader, I pull us toward nerdy activities. My wife, though glamorous and fantastic, has the heart of a nerd, too. So all day Saturday we talked up the Super Moon to our 2 children. We together worked them up into an almost Christmas Eve frenzy of anticipation and expectation.

As the sun sat, we all began looking eastward. As heavenly shades of night were falling, we loaded into the fam van and crused around looking for a high place to see the moon above the beautiful, but obstructing West Virginia hills.

We drove to one high point but could not see the moon. We drove to another. Still no clear view of the moon. Momma had googled that the moon appeared biggest when just breaking the horizon or tree line. But it was still behind the hill and we were now Bedtime minus 10 minutes! The static charge of tension was palpable in the famvan -- and growing...

...then on the last hillock, we spied through the trees the Super Moon. Momma and I "o-o-o-h-e-d" and "a-a-a-a-h-e-d" dramatically. The kiddos strained to see. Then the excitement faded as the moon did not appear in any way "Super."

Later that night, about 10pm, we could easily see the Super Moon from our kitchen window. We laughed about our family adventure and how un-super the moon turned out to be. Like so much we experience...