Ridin' the Rails

THREE AMIGOS: Here's the thick-as-thieves trio early this morning, having a pow-wow on the couch. Annabelle's watching CJ play his Nintendo DS, and Kirby's there because, well, they're there.

VILLAGE PEOPLE: While Bee had ballet, CJ and I ran errands - first to the post office to mail a letter, and then on to the hardware store to find wood putty. While there we cruised the aisles to kill time. Every once in awhile I'd pull an oddity off a shelf (and there were lots of 'em, from funky mouse traps to weed pullers) and ask CJ what he thought they were. He provided some entertaining answers.

After ballet, I let the kids play in the park adjacent to the community center for some fresh air and exercise.

INSTRUMENTAL: We checked in on BrainPOP Jr. to see what their movie of the week is and found it was about musical instruments. They watched the film and then took both the easy and hard quizzes, acing both the first time through. They also played an instrument matching game, and completed a writing exercise where they had to think of as many musical instruments as they could and then categorize them as one that's plucked or strummed, hit, or blown.

RAIN DANCE: It's been a couple of days since we planted our bean and pea seeds. Today I had the kids water the two dozen pots AND we started some tomatoes! Of course now I'm in panic mode wondering where the hell I'm going to put all these plants a month or so from now ...

QUIZ KIDS: Midday I was looking for something new, exciting and, well, an easy way for me to challenge the kids a bit. I turned to Comcast's On Demand. In scrolling through the ActivityTV selections, I noticed "Trivia and Games" for the first time. There were several listings for "Brain Game" and I randomly picked one. It was just general trivia questions, most of which the kids knew the answers to, but the Big Announcer Voice and the fact that they had a time limit for answering freaked them out a bit (in a good way, I think).

ALL ABOARD!: We had to make a trip to downtown this evening to complete a mystery shopper assignment (shh! don't tell anyone!) and rather than fight rush hour traffic, we decided to pop over to the Seattle Center, park, and then hop on the monorail. However, before leaving home, we boned up on our Monorail history.

Built by Alweg Rapid Transit Systems for the World's Fair in Seattle, the monorail began operating on March 24, 1962. Its initial cost was $3.5 million. During the fair's six months, the monorail carried more than eight million passengers, and already paid for itself. In 1965, the monorail was sold to the City of Seattle for $600,000. These days, it carries about 1.5 million riders a year.

The kids just LOVED the ride. They'd been on the monorail once before, but never in the front seat, and that vantage point was a thrill for them.

The pink and blue are walls of EMP (Paul Allen's Experience Music Project). The monorail runs through a tunnel between the buildings.

Pulling into Westlake Mall, the end of the line.

BREAKING NEWS: CJ would like me to report to blog readers that there is a new puffle in Club Penguin. "He's the color orange. He has two teeth connecting together and his smile looks kind of creepy."

Annabelle's rebuttal: "I think his smile looks kind of happy."

Somehow, CJ managed to see past the "creepy" smile and work his penguin tail off to earn the 800 coins necessary to adopt the new orange puffle, which he has named Carrot.

LEFTOVERS: I forgot to include this in yesterday's round up. At CJ's request/urging/begging, we made peanut butter cookies yesterday evening. I honestly can't remember the last time (it's been years) I made peanut butter cookies. We found a recipe calling for ingredients I had on hand on the Jif Web site. (In fact, there were hundreds and hundreds of recipes there, including some very kid-friendly ones. We'll have to explore the site some more in the future.)

It's amazing how much education you can pack in a cookie making session. The kids measured (including fractions), had to follow directions exactly (which is so important so often in life) and had to obey safety rules (wash your hands, oven = hot, and cookie sheet fresh from oven = hot).