Slip Slidin' Away

AAAH: CJ's first utterance this morning upon heading downstairs - "Ah, I think I'll have a massage with breakfast. Yeah." And so he sat in the portable shiatsu chair, enjoying his Lucky Charms and watching cartoons. Not a bad way to start a Friday. Or any day, for that matter.

COMPOSE YOURSELF: This morning at Musikgarten CJ and Annabelle tried their hands at composing. For weeks now they've been working with the musical staff and the concepts of timing and pitch. Today, one of their exercises was to place six notes on a musical staff and then be able to sing both tonally and for timing, with the four notes being paired together as eight notes (they weren't called eighth notes, mind you, it was just explained when notes have a bar connecting them, they're not as long in duration).

Pictured above, CJ's composition is on top; Bee's is on the bottom.

ROCKET FIRE!: As soon as the kids got home from Musikgarten, we tuned our attentions toward the space race. Specifically, toward the Internet site of SpaceX to watch the inaugural launch of Falcon 9.

Who is SpaceX, you ask? I only learned about them yesterday, when I happened to spy a Yahoo! news story about them and their upcoming rocket launch. (The story was an interesting read, outlining the pros and cons of the privatization of space launches and the understandably hard feelings 9,000 NASA shuttle program employees looking at looming lay offs.)

They're a private company, and arguably the leading entity to take over where the space shuttle program left off after the last NASA shuttle launch (a few short months from now).

The first countdown was held at just 2 seconds to lift off due to an automatic shutdown of the ignition system (don't know why at this point). However, about an hour later, they reset the countdown clock to 15 minutes, it started ticking away and then rocket fire, baby! The kids started cheering. It took me right back to the Causeway, watching the launch of space shuttle Atlantis. We watched Falcon 9 until it achieved orbit. (You can see highlights on the SpaceX Web site.)

Of today's launch, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said, "Congratulations to SpaceX on today's launch of its Falcon 9 launch vehicle. SpaceX's accomplishment is an important milestone in the commercial transportation effort and puts the company a step closer to providing cargo services to the International Space Station."

Following the launch, jubilant SpaceX founder Elon Musk said, "This has really been a fantastic day." Multimillionare Musk used part of the fortune he made from selling his brainchild PayPal to fund the start of SpaceX.

Musk believes Friday's launch bolsters President Barack Obama's plan to give private companies the job of ferrying cargo and ultimately people to the space station, freeing up NASA to aim for true outer space, saying, "This is the dawn of a new era in space exploration, I think a very exciting era and one which I think will lead to the democratization of space, making space accessible to everyone eventually."

I'm so happy the kids and I got to see the historic moment unfold live. "We wouldn't get to see this if we didn't go to homeschool," Annabelle observed during the excitement. (Falcon 9 lift off photo copyright SpaceX, from their great photo gallery.)

LOVELY LUNCH: Early afternoon we had guests - Grandma and Grandpa from Vancouver USA! They came bearing gifts. Annabelle has already had hours of fun with her Polly Pockets motorhome playset, and tonight we gave CJ's electronic 20 questions game a test drive.

For lunch, we went to the wonderfully-located Maggie Bluff's, along the north shore of Elliott Bay, just west of the Port of Seattle's Terminal 91 (a frequent jogging/biking destination of ours). It's *the* spot to be on a sunny day, but even on those gray afternoon, the place was bustling.

MEMORIES: We're still plugging away on scrapbook pieces. I've finally divided the 300(!) or so photos into categories and put them in some sort of order. I still need the kids' written memories to go along with the major events. Today's topic was our visit to Kennedy Space Center. I spread the KSC photos out in front of the kids and asked them to write 3 or so sentences about their favorite or most memorable parts. I'd love to think by next week we might have more than a cover done for our book ...

FRIDAY GLIDE: You know how MPA loves free stuff, so when we heard that there was a free ice skating session at Key Arena today, you know we just had to be there!The ice was in place due to the recent "Stars on Ice" event at the arena. That's right - we were tripping around on the same sheet of frozen water as Olympic medalists - woo hoo!

Honestly, it was just a little CrAzy for me to take both kids ice skating by myself. I haven't been skating in, hmm, well, around 20 years - maybe 25? And the kids have only been once before and it was semi disastrous for them. ;) But it was free, so we HAD to go!

Within 1/4 lap around the rink, we were all rethinking this ice skating thing. My right ankle was ranging from unbearable to intolerable on the pain scale (my skates loaner were horribly ill fitting - men's hockey skates, I think, with way too much lateral wobble). Even though he was using one of those "I'm handicapped" looking skater's helpers, CJ was digging NO part of it and Annabelle looked like she was on a Slip-n-Slide rather than ice skating (propel self forward, fall, slide, stagger to feet, repeat process).

But somehow, some way we slogged our way through 40 minutes of it. I never did fall, and neither did CJ. Poor Bee fell too many times to count, but she always got up and kept going. By the last 10 minutes she wasn't clinging to me or the wall, either. And when I saw a poor young lad curled up in the fetal position on the ice, I insisted that CJ give his 'walker' up to the boy (my god was the kid's mother grateful). And though he was unsteady, CJ did an admirable job without it. I was very proud of both of them.

There was one casualty - Annabelle's ill fitting skates gave her a blister on the heel. :( "Even though I got a blister, I just hanged in there," she points out.

Sorry for the crappy, blurry ice skating pix. They were taken by my crappy, blurry camera phone in low lighting and I was moving, trying not to fall down/get run over and the kids were moving/trying not to fall down.

Move to the Music

GRANTED AN AUDIENCE: This morning was one of those rare and much-appreciated opportunities to sit in on Bee's ballet class.

It was a pleasure, as usual. She has made such progress these past few months - it's starting to really look like ballet!

I think what's impressing me even more than her plies and chasses is the way she's really paying attention in class, keeping her ears open and her mouth closed. Annabelle is, shall we say, a very VERBAL child. For her to be quiet for 45 minutes during waking hours is pretty much a miracle. :)

After they went through came everyone's favorite part - the free dance where they don't have to follow their teacher's instruction.


In the car on the way to ballet, Annabelle was planning her free dance choreography. :)
As soon as ballet was over, we put some wax on the tracks and slid on out of there - we had a concert to get to!

ROCK SHOW: Don't know how you spent your lunch hour, but for the MPA student body, it was a full blown rock-n-roll extravaganza - at Seattle City Hall, of all places!
The show is part of the city's Seattle Presents series.

Today's headliner (and only liner) was Caspar Babypants, the brainchild of Chris Ballew, who is famous for his years spent as the lead singer of The Presidents of the United States of America (a band Rick and Ken used to listen to a lot when they were kids).

PUSA's upbeat, poppy, quirky music and easy-to-understand lyrics were always kid friendly. Case in point: Rick, Ken, CeeJ, Bee and countless others love their song "Peaches." In fact "Peaches" was what the big boys played with drummer friend Kyle at their World Premiere in a South Ridge Elementary talent show about, oh, 15 years ago!) But I digress. ...

Caspar Babypants is good fun - kids dig it and the parents can't help but sing along, too. Here's a snippet of CeeJ and Bee's favorite song. ...
One of the biggest surprises of the afternoon was a cover song they did. While I expected a PUSA tune or two (there were none), I sure wasn't expecting a Nirvana song. When Chris said it was going to be a Nirvana song, I started running through a list of potentials - and rejected all of them for content/lyrics. However, they launched into "Grandma Take Me Home," which was actually quite appropriate (but still a when-worlds-collide kind of moment for me).

Bee spent basically the entire hour dancing. Again. :)

And after the show was over, the kids got autographs from the band.

If not before, we'll for sure be back to the Seattle Presents series in July, when the Not Its play.

End of an Era

UNDER A SPELL: We started the morning by test driving an educational computer game I bought months ago. "Mrs. Flinkster's Spelling Accelerator" is supposed to be for grades 1-5.

The jury is still out on this one. I'm not sure it's working the way it's supposed to be. There are "six (mildly) entertaining, animated games" but it seemed to be missing "a dropdown list (of words students' need to learn) for easy, quick customization." Instead, I had to type in my own list. What a nuisance! (Just kidding - not like typing a list of 20 spelling words is hard, it was just unexpected, given the literature on the box.) But seriously, it wasn't quite as gee whiz as I was hoping for. We'll give it a few more tries. The "games" (flashcards, letter sorting, and such) did hold their interest for a half hour, so that was a plus.

WONDER BOY: C "Question Guy" J has been very inquisitive as of late. Before, during and just after Florida he was on a huge "what if there were no such thing as..." kick. (For instance, "What if there were no gravity ... food ... hands ... you name it.")

He seems to be coming out of that phase, but the questions haven't stopped. The first question today was, "I wonder who ROM hacks are made by."

I know that's what I ponder over my morning coffee, don't you?

Christian explained ROM hacks are made by people who know about computer programming. CJ spends a fair amount of time studying ROM hacks (the work of people who have altered a game's graphics, dialogue, levels, gameplay, or other gameplay elements) on YouTube. I'm pretty sure CJ dreams of a day where he can ROM hack.

QUICK DRAW: It has been a long time since we've availed ourselves to a fun drawing lesson with Emmy nominated cartoonist Bruce Blitz.

Using a big letter X to get them started, the kids created a pair of kissing fish . After that, the letter G was turned into a grumpy guy.
While I certainly wouldn't want to use only a 'copy this' type approach to art instruction, I do think these lessons have merit - especially for CJ who (at this point) really doesn't show much interest in free form drawing. I can see these exercises giving him confidence in using the media and producing a picture that he's proud of.
SUGAR BABY: Around noontime. in what might have been a flash of nostalgia, Annabelle asked if someone would play Candy Land with her. I can't stand that game, because it's one where no skill is involved. So I volunteered Christian (who has a wacky work schedule this week).

The game is great for learning colors and counting to 8 or so - but those are both things CJ and Annabelle have been doing for years at this point. And the characters are whimsical, I'll give it that. Of course they've been updated since the Candy Land I played with back in the late '60s, early '70s.
Me being me, I got to wondering about Candy Land's history. Turns out 2009 marked its 60th anniversary. Wow.Hasbro has a nice history on its Web site (including a neat slideshow of the game's incarnations).

Candy Land was invented by Eleanor Abbot, who was a recovering polio patient. Her goal was to create an activity that would entertain children affected with the disease. That's a sweet backstory.

For its first 30 years, Candy Land's packaging declared it "a sweet little game... for sweet little folks."

In this photo, Annabelle carefully watches her Dad to make sure he's not cheating ... ;)

VIDEO EDITOR: This afternoon CJ called me into the bedroom, saying, "You've got to see what Bowser is saying."

CJ was playing Super Nintendo 64 and had collected 7 stars during a certain mission. He approached a locked door, only to be told by Bowser, ""You need 1 more stars." CJ thought it was hysterical that Bowser didn't know star should be singular when it's with the number one.

POETRY IN MOTION: Today I got an email that contained a wonderful poem written by a reader's grandson (hi Ruthie!). It got me to thinking - the kids and I haven't talked at all about poetry. Oops. Time to right a wrong!

I suspected BrainPOP would have a lesson on it, and I was right. Unfortunately it wasn't working/wouldn't play for some reason. So we turned to BrainPOP Jr. and found a GREAT movie (viewable only by subscribers/those of us on a free trial). It introduced several kinds of poetry, including haiku, free verse, shape and rebus poems. After the video, the kids wanted to give an acrostic poem a shot. So, I wrote S-E-A-T-T-L-E down the side of a whiteboard and then the kids started spouting out words or short phrases that started with each of those letters. Here's what we would up with.
Afterward, I told them they could write any kind of poem they wanted. CJ chose to do another acrostic poem.

Chuckling
Jam he does not eat

"Guess who it's about?" he asked. I guess correctly that it was autobiographical. :)

Annabelle's was definitely, um, free verse.

I saw the shuttle lift off into space
My brother has a shirt about an
intergalactic space race!

We'll be doing more poetry in the future.

GOING, GOING, GONE: Stunning news in the Emerald City today. Ken Griffey Jr. called it quits. He's hanging up his spikes. The Kid is Done.

When I gave Annabelle the news she said, "Why did Ken Griffey Jr. quit baseball when he was so good at it?"

I suppose the "right" answer to that is that he was so good, he got to decide when he was done.

I'm so happy we just happened to be at Safeco Field last night - the very last night Junior donned a Mariners uniform. He didn't play - but for much of the game stood on the top step of the dugout, smiling and joking with his teammates.
Oh, Junior, how you will be missed.

Super Tuesday

LAKE LOOP: First thing out of the gate, we headed for Green Lake. It has been a long while since we did the round-the-lake loop. The kids have become much more proficient on their bikes since our last go round, so today's trek was a little quicker with less oh-my-god near misses. ;)

It was overcast, but not raining (hooray!) for a change.

There were a couple dozen fishermen dotting the shore of Green Lake today. Wonder what, if anything, they catch. It would be fun to fish there with the kids sometime (at least for a few minutes, before their 'this is boring' radar kicked in).

BETH'S I HEAR YOU CALLIN': The reward for making one's way around Green Lake is a trip to the nearby iconic Beth's Cafe on Aurora Avenue. How best to describe Beth's ... hmm. It's a cramped, dingy, greasy spoon cafe and it feels like you're in a dive bar - but there's no alcohol. (There are, however, usually lots of hungover people.) Patrons' crayon artwork adorns the wall.
CJ had two enormous pancakes and a side of awesome bacon (seriously, look at that fried pork!). Bee had one pancake and bacon. It's 6 hours later and I'm still too full to write about what Christian and I had ... : /

DAY LATE: From the 'better late than never' file, although yesterday was Memorial Day, today we finally made it over to the military burial grounds at nearby Fort Lawton. We've driven by it lots, but had never turned down the driveway into the grounds before today.
According to the Magnolia Voice, "There are 902 military personnel, their families, and civilian employees of the Army in Fort Lawton Cemetery. The first grave was dug in 1902."

Looking at all of the headstones - most of them white or light gray, CJ was overwhelmed. "There must be over 5,000 graves here," he estimated.

We spent some time walking around, looking at names, dates, service ranks and wars veterans fought in. We saw multiple headstones listing more than one combat (WWII, Korea and Vietnam, for instance). One enormous marker we found was for a man who had fought in the Civil War and the Mexican War.

Figuring the Boy Scouts or patriotic elves or someone would have taken care of such matters, just one day after Memorial Day, I was expecting to see all of the tombstones marked with US flags and at least one flower to be on each grave, but there was no such scene. There were probably a dozen bouquets scattered amongst the hundreds of plots, but not a single flag.

In looking at the story in The Magnolia Voice about Memorial Day at the cemetary, it does appear that mini flags were in place yesterday. But I guess someone already scooped them all up and put them away until the Fourth of July or Veteran's Day. I'm thinking perhaps since flag protocol calls for Old Glory to be illuminated after dark, that's why the mini flags were removed. I get that. However, there's no 'light the flowers' at night rule. So unless someone came and stole a bunch of flowers, that means they weren't there to begin with. Which makes me feel even crappier that we didn't go there yesterday and take some mementos with us. (Next year, I vow!)

One of the last graves we noticed on our way back to our car was marked "UNKNOWN." It had several bouquets on it, and even some pocket change set atop the headstone.

As we exited the cemetary we found two graves were separate from the rest; both of them were WWII POWs - one German, one Italian. Those men were laid to rest a long, long way from home.

HAPPIER NOTE: On a much lighter note, tonight we went to the Mariners game. While their record this season is certainly not cause for celebration, tonight was a good night.

For starters, we had kick arse FREE seats - 19th row behind the visitor's dugout. I don't think I've ever sat anywhere at Safeco where I've heard the crack of the bat like we did tonight. You could HEAR the homeruns as opposed to the long fly outs.

CJ and Annabelle were superstars. : ) I could practically *feel* the disdain of the folks behind us (two nice, season ticket holding couples in their 70s) when we sat down and I heard their mutterings to that effect as we were getting settled. I knew what they were thinking - "Oh god, two little kids are going to be spazzes and spoil the game for us." And I've sat next to enough spazzy kids to understand their dread. But they don't know our kids. ;)

By the second inning, we were their new BFFs. The kids had won them over. CJ was watching the action more quietly and contemplatively than most adults, and Annabelle was her typical enthusiastic, happy self, cheering on the Ms and remarking on things she was reading on the Jumbotron, like "Oh, (the batter) went to William and Mary College." (Strangers are still freaked out a bit by the fact she can read like she does. A few days ago, I swear a woman followed us around in Fred Meyer just so she could listen to Annabelle. It was a little freaky ...)

Anyway, by the end of the game the season ticket holders behind us told Christian they wished we had those seats all the time. (Believe me, so do I!!!) It's always gratifying to hear that, especially since CeeJ and Bee are homeschooled and, therefore, the assumption would be they are socially maladjusted. ;)

The Mariners won tonight - unfortunately, a rarity this season. I guess that just makes today that much sweeter. ;)

Our Most Solemn Holiday

MEMORIAL DAY: For kids in a standard school, today represents the Memorial Day holiday - a harbinger of summer vacation. No such luck for the kids of MPA. Today, class was in session and what did we study? Memorial Day, of course.

I started by asking the kids if they knew anything about Memorial Day and was met with two blank stares and silence. Time to remedy that!

We started with a nicely done video on the History channel's Web site. By viewing it, we learned the holiday's roots are traced back to 1868 and "Decoration Day," an observance started by a Union Civil War general Gen. John Logan. Gen. Logan hoped the "Decoration Day" sought a way to help the country come back together after the horrors and divide of the Civil War. He purposely chose a date (May 30), that was not of significance in the Civil War to either side.

I was surprised to learn that Memorial Day didn't become an official federal holiday until 1971, when Congress passed the National Holiday Act, creating a three-day weekend at the end of May.

Next, we watched a touching tribute the History Channel produced regarding our most solemn holiday.

After that, we turned to good ol' BrainPOP to learn more about the military, its branches, and the branches' characteristics/duties. Afterward, the kids took an online quiz on the topic (and did OK).

BACK TO NASA: Today my thoughts turned back to the quiet Astronaut Memorial plaza at the otherwise bustling Kennedy Space Center. There, men and women who gave their lives while serving in the U.S. space program are memorialized. Many of them were active duty military assigned to NASA when they died in the line of duty.

The largest feature in the plaza is the The Space Mirror Memorial, which was designated as a national memorial by Congress and the first President Bush in 1991.

The Memorial honors the 24 U.S. astronauts who gave their lives for space exploration. It features the names of the fallen astronauts from the Space Shuttle Columbia, the Space Shuttle Challenger and Apollo 1, as well as the astronauts from training and commercial airplane accidents. The monument is a 42-1/2-foot-high and 50-feet-wide black granite surface. It's polished to a gleam, slightly tilted and backlit so that it appears as if the names on it are being projected into the heavens.WHEN PENGUINS ATTACK: While on BrainPOP today, we wound up venturing to BrainPOP Jr. and watching a movie about bullying. It included a segment on cyber bullying.

Later this afternoon, I overheard the kids incorporating some of the lessons from the video into their play (yay!).

Apparently Annabelle's penguin had been posting stuff on the Internet about the Jester Clown Penguin. Here's a photo of the pink penguin in action, at her computer ...

None too happy, the Jester Penguin arrived on her igloo's doorstep, yelling threats about calling the police.
Annabelle reminded CJ that BrainPOP Jr. suggested "treating other people the way you want to be treated," and encouraged his penguin to use a friendlier tone.

At that, CJ changed the Jester's tune. He politely said, "Excuse me, cyber bully, but I don't want to be bullied anymore." :)

The penguins resolved their differences and ended up playing together quite nicely.

CAMPUS IMPROVEMENTS: The maintenance director for MPA spent the entire day pouring a 6-by-8 foot concrete pad at the 'campus' front door. (For months/years now, our entry has been a combination of gravel and mud.) It was a gargantuan task involving 36 60-pound bags of concrete, a whole lot of lugging and grunting and mixing and lugging and pouring and lugging. In the rain, of course.
When Christian was just about finished, the sun made a rare-in-recent-memory appearance here in Seattle. I ordered the kids and dog outside, post haste. The kids each got to help spray some water into the cement mixer. However, mostly they were directed to stay away. So they frolicked on the hillside for awhile. Part of Annabelle's frolicking involved kicking an orange rubber ball. Which, of course, rolled. Down hill. Into the wet concrete. ...

I could see it going down in slow motion. I screamed at Christian let him know INCOMING!!! Not like either one of us could do anything to stop it. ... The ball wound up bouncing a couple of times on the wet cement, but it didn't wreak too much havoc.

MINDING OUR PEAS: Part of today's outdoor activities involved harvesting some peas - four whole pods in all. Woo hoo!!
FIELD TRIP REWIND: Last weekend we took a field trip to the Volunteer Park Conservatory with Nonnie and Bops. I never did get around to posting any pics - until now.

Some parts of the present day conservatory date back to 1912, including the "lunette" (half circle) beveled glass window above the entry door (pictured below). There are five houses in the conservatory (the Palm House, Seasonal Display House, Cactus House, Fern House and the Bromeliad House), each of them breath-taking.

The Palm House includes the Orchid Collection, which dates back to 1922.CJ is a cactus fan, and the Cactus House was his favorite. I thought these specimens looked a bit like lethal Cheetos!
Of course meat eating plants are always of interest ... [Do NOT stick your finger into this pitcher plant. ;-) ] This beauty was a favorite of Annabelle's (it's pink Pink PINK!!!)
And the Seasonal Display House had the most gorgeous fuchsia I've ever seen ...