Flying and Crashing

COLORFUL CRAFTING: Yesterday the kids received a cool rocket suncatcher DIY kit in a care package from their grandparents in Vancouver. They were itching to get at it, so we were crafting by 8 this a.m.

First, we poured the various plastic beads into their own bowls. Then I rounded up two pair of tweezers and the kids negotiated which colors would go where on the rocket.

Placing those little plastic beads wasn't easy! It was a lot like playing Operation, and definitely good fine motor skill practice. We worked really hard to remove all "strays" and keep the proper colors in their proper sections.

I was surprised - CJ had more stick-to-it-iveness on this project than Bee. (Usually on artsy projects she's the hardcore one.) Then again, she's not exactly a morning person, and CJ had been up since 6. ...

Once we got the beads in place, it was off to the oven for our rocket. Over the course of about 20 minutes it melted and turned into a fabulous creation.
The kids were very proud of their project, but both of them were a bit disappointed we missed one red bead that had apparently gotten buried beneath white beads around the rocket's window. Annabelle got creative and decided the red dot could be some kind of clock on the rocket.

TECHHIES: Being a big fan of "old school" Nintendo games, CJ is all hot to get an original Nintendo NES game system. I'm thinking we'll probably be able to score one from Amazon, Shopgoodwill.com, Craigslist or a garage sale for under $20, but I'm also thinking that since it will be over 20 years old and used/abused by mostly young boys and teenage boys, it will be beat up/in need of servicing to get it to work.

So this morning we spent some time learning about how to repair Nintendo NES systems and NES games. We found a couple of great tutorials that make me think we are completely capable of being repair techs. We also found a source to buy a new 72-pin connector for the NES if need be.

All this said, you can play nearly all the old NES games online, and you can purchase and download many of them to the Nintendo Wii via their Virtual Console feature, but I guess being the purist he is, CJ is seeking the authentic Nintendo NES experience ...

SHOWER OF GLASS: A shower is where you, hopefully, can count on 5 minutes or so of uninterrupted peace and quiet. Instead, today it was pieces and definitely NOT quiet.

I'd barely gotten wet when I heard a crash from downstairs. "I'm so sorry!" I heard CJ lament. I grabbed a towel and went to the top of the stairs and asked what happened. Turns out a vintage Empire Strikes Back glass had gone from the desktop to the maple floor. It didn't survive the trip. I told the kids (both barefoot) to CAREFULLY walk over to where we keep shoes and to put some on and then to stay away from the glass until I came down.

I shut the door keeping Kirby upstairs with me, finished up upstairs and then came down and swept up the Star Wars shards. Bummer.

TAKING FLIGHT: This afternoon we headed over to Ballard to participate in a summer reading series event put on by the Museum of Flight. A representative from the museum was on hand with supplies and instructions for building three types of funky paper airplanes. The kids first project was the most traditional looking type of paper airplane. There were quite a few folds involved but they managed to follow the instructions. After they completed their planes they spent a good 15 minutes flying them around the room with other kids, including their yoga buddy who met us at the library.

Next, the kids each made a wild model, it had a straw in the middle and at each end of the straw was a loop of paper (sorry, no photo!). We were all surprised at how well it flew.

We didn't get around to making the third model (a photo is at the right), but I grabbed the supplies for it. We'll tackle it at home this weekend.

GIMME SOME SUGAR: It turns out flying paper airplanes is draining - afterward the kids were in need of sustenance. Fortunately Cupcake Royale was only a block and a half away from the library.

CJ had a "classic" (vanilla cake with chocolate frosting). Annabelle had a seasonal specialty - strawberry. In fact, she had two - the first she dumped on the floor and it landed frosting side down, of course, so I had to order another. Sigh.

RECESS: After the library, we drove a few blocks north to the playground at Salmon Bay school . It's an alternative Seattle Public Schools school, housed in an enormous old brick building. Salmon Bay has only existed since 1999; I'm curious what this school used to be called.

Anywho, they had a decent playground and the kids had it nearly to themselves. There were only two other kids there. Unfortuantely, one of those two was a very nasty 5 year old boy who continually blocked the slide, etc. to antagonize the kids. The 5yo's mother HAD to know this was going on (the other kids were protesting - loudly after awhile), yet she sat on her butt on a park bench, doing and saying nothing. Finally Annabelle basically called her out. From the top of the slide Bee yelled, "Your son is blocking the slide so no one else can go down it and he refuses to move. Aren't you going to do anything about it?"

The woman trudged over to the slide area, did some half a*&ed 'stop it' and returned to her bench. Of course, the kid persisted. I told the kids to just bag the slide and play elsewhere. Naturally, the little pill eventually followed the kids over to where they had relocated to avoid him.

Light Duty

LOOPY: I was feeling the need for some science today. I remembered that I'd scored a brand new electrical science experiment kit for $3.99 at Value Village awhile ago and decided that today would be the day we gave it a go.

The kit, "Electricty" in the ScienceWiz series, is fantastic. It came with this great book that really spells out concepts step-by-step. For instance, rather than just diving right into the "light a bulb" task, it started by talking about the concept of a loop, and how electricity flows in a loop to light a light.

The kids were sitting at the kitchen island and I told them to look up at the pendant lights, which were off. I told them they were off, because electricity wasn't flowing to them - the loop wasn't complete. I walked over to the switch, flipped it and the lights came on. I explained that when they flip a light switch, what they're doing is completing the loop. I think they really got it!

Next, we discussed a diagram the book had of a lightbulb, two wires and a battery making a loop. The kids traced the components with their fingers, like a dot-to-dot puzzle. Then for the real fun stuff - making our own loop!

First, we wrapped a rubber band around a battery. The band would help hold the alligator clips on the positive and negative ends. Next, it was time to make some connections. Annabelle clipped the negative wire to the battery and a terminal on an LED bulb holder, and CJ handled the positive connections. And lo and behold, when he completed the loop, that bulb started glowing (and the crowd goes wild!)

They were pretty pleased with their work. :)That under our belts, we were ready to move on to running a motor. It was the same setup - battery and two wires - but this time instead of a bulb, we had a tiny motor to power up. At first it didn't work : / which was incredibly disappointing. But I gave it a couple of taps and then spun the shaft sticking out of it with my fingers and it took off running! That meant we could go to the next step - adding a pinwheel - woo hoo!

LUNCHEON: This afternoon, Rick and a couple of his Americorps co-workers stopped by for lunch. The three of them work as tutors at a Seattle elementary school.

In preparation for their visit, Annabelle helped me make a 7-layer dip. It was delish. :)

As everyone was lunching, Rick's friend Suzy told CJ and Annabelle that at summer school this week, they asked the kids to think up/create an animal that is two different animals combined. Suzy asked CeeJ and Bee what animals they'd combine.

I was shocked when CJ IMMEDIATELY responded, "A rhinoceros and a fish." For whatever reason, that struck us all as pretty damn funny and we all busted out laughing.

I was surprised for two reasons: 1) CJ was actually listening to the conversation/question and 2) He usually is so slow to answer to kind of nonsense questions (he's a concrete type of guy).

Suzy asked him what the animal's name would be and he said a "Rhish." More laughter ensued.

I asked CJ why he chose those animals and he explained that he thought it was something no one else would say. Very interesting.

Bee's hybrid animal was a cross between an elephant and a zebra. It was called an "ebra."

LOGGERS: As regular MPA readers know, the Seattle Public Library system is offering its summer reading program again this year. If the kids fill out a log with 10 books they read, they get free passes to the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, on the UW campus.

So today, before we returned some books, I had the kids list them in their log.
A couple of the books we read today were "America Is" (a wonderful, poetic, patriotic picture book) and David A. Adler's "Fractions, Decimals and Percents" (I think it's good to just read/talk about math concepts instead of just doing worksheet after worksheet).

INTO THE DRINK: It was nearly 80 degrees today and the kids have been jonesing to go the (outdoor) Magnolia pool. Tonight there was a public swim from 6:35 to 8 p.m. and so Christian took the kids. It's the first time they've been swimming since our swimmingly wonderful Florida trip.

Though it's nothing remotely close to the awesomeness that was the Nickelodeon water park in Orlando, FLA, the kids enjoyed the pool's slide. Below are pix of Bee and CJ at the slide's bottom.

Where There's Smoke ...

THERE'S FIRE!: The day started normally enough - the kids had a play date with their favorite preschool pal, Connor. We started up at Bay View Park, and then came back to our house for awhile.

Before too long, the kids were showing each other their favorite funny videos on YouTube. I couldn't help but wonder, is that what many 5-7 year olds do now? Definitely a sign of these Internet-driven times.

When Connor and his mom left, I noticed a big yellow Seattle City Light utility truck parked on our street. A worker was doing something with some cables over the house on the corner (two doors to our north).

I went back down to our house and eldest son Rick stopped by. Soon after I told him, "I smell smoke. Something's burning." I hustled around the house, sticking my head out a window to the alley, where I smelled it, and then out the kids' bedroom window, where I really smelled it.

Immediately after I said that, we heard the sirens start to wail in the distance. They got closer. And closer. And closer.

We headed outside, up the stairs to the road and as we hit the sidewalk, we saw the first engine arrive and park two houses down from us. Another engine rolled up and then another, plus a couple medic trucks.

Man, those firefighters wasted no time in getting the hoses unrolled and hooked up to a hydrant. They were up on the burning home's roof within a minute of arriving, I'd guess.

Mercifully no flames were in view, but smoke was pouring out of the roof in the southeast corner of their home's first level. Right where a weatherhead with an electrical cable was located ... In the photo at the right, the firefighters are getting ready to cut into the roof.

Before long, Annabelle started expressing concern over whether or not anyone was in the house (no one was) and what about pets - don't they have pets (they do).

I told her that smoke rises and since the fire was in the ceiling/rafter area, the pets on the first floor were probably just fine (I hope that's true).

The firefighters (left) cut one small section of the roof out at a time and doused the area.

I think it was a "good" (that seems like the wrong word given a neighbor's house was on fire) experience for the kids to be able to see the firefighters go about their work in such a quick, methodical and effective manner. And hopefully next time we work on fire drills, they'll remember what we saw today and have an increased awareness that house fires sometimes hit very close to home and they'll pay even closer attention than ever.

Though the fire appeared to be completely under control, emergency vehicles kept appearing. There was even a firetruck in our alley at one point.

On the sidewalk in front of our house, the fire department set up a comfort station (for lack of a better term) on a table. It had a big cooler full of water and cups for the firefighters. I've never had such a front row view to a firefight before, so I hadn't thought about having such a thing, but it certainly made sense. It actually topped 80 today and those firefighters had all that heavy gear on. I could see where they'd get dehydrated very quickly if they weren't careful.

Once things settled down 'round our neighborhood, we headed to Magnolia Village to run a couple of errands. While we were near the fire station in the village, one of the trucks from our neighbor's fire returned to the station.

BERRY GOOD: When we headed down the alley to visit our new neighbor's place for the first time (Rick rented an apartment just down the street!), we noticed that amongst the green blackberries there were a few truly black berries! The kids scooped 'em right up, and we are looking forward to lots and lots more where that came from.

IN MEMORY: For this afternoon bike ride/jog, we headed down to Fisherman's Terminal. I'd watched "The Deadliest Catch" last night, and it was the episode where Captain Phil Harris, 56, died after suffering a couple of massive strokes.

Capt. Harris was one of the show's stars who keeps his boat here at the foot of our hill. I had a feeling that there would be some tributes to Phil at the permanent memorial at the Terminal, and I was right, there were.

In much happier news, we also noted several new, welcome additions to Fisherman's Terminal - educational/informative signs about the type of fish and other creatures that fishermen who work out of the terminal go chasing/catching.

There were also signs about the types of vessels on site and the history of the terminal.
LEGOMANIACS: I found out today that kids can get a free subscription to LEGO magazine. You know I was all over that!

Americana

Bison photo from National Parks Service

HOME ON THE RANGE: A few days ago CJ asked me what a buffalo is. I was surprised. Even though I can't recall a specific discussion about them to date, I guess I figured he'd just have learned about them by osmosis by age 7.

Given that he didn't know about them, I can only figure buffaloes aren't on cartoons very often. ;) Ironically, a character named 'Buffalo' in a video game was what got him interested in real live buffaloes.

I told the kids that buffalo used to roam in huge herds in what's now the United States, but they were darn near all killed off, as people prized their hides and the sport of hunting them (not to mention that buffalo meat is good eating).

I started poking around the Internet for buffalo resources to share with the kids. Of course I had to play/sing "Home on the Range" for the kids. (What a childhood flashback that song is!) I found a great Pete Seeger version and we all warbled along.

Then I went looking for some video, facts and photos about buffaloes. I checked National Geographic, Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, but all I kept getting was hits on African water buffaloes. Interesting animals to be sure, but they're not what was on the back of the U.S.'s "buffalo nickel"

I thought to look up a buffalo preserve and found Wild Winds in Indiana. Their Web site had several photos. I noticed one photo's caption called the buffalo a bison (because it IS a bison). Well that was a complete DUH ME moment. Then I went back to NatGeo et al and found LOTS of great bison stuff, including gorgeous photos and a cool video of some bison headbutting, and National Geographic Kids' site even had a Creature Feature all about American bison.

We learned that bison are the largest land mammals in North America. They weigh in the neighborhood of 2,000 pounds, and around 6-feet tall. For most of the year, bison live in small bands (a few of them), but once a year, during mating season, bands band together into a herd.

Female bison are pregnant for nine months and almost always give birth to one calf at a time (sounds familiar)! We learned that we never Ever want to invite a bison over to dinner, as they regurgitate their food - a new word to the kids. (CJ found this concept of regurgitation extraordinarily gross and extremely hysterical.)

Through the magic of the Internet, I also found a couple of neat-o buffalo hide art projects/lesson plans online, and we used it as inspiration for the kids making their own decorated 'hides.'

I cut a brown paper grocery bag in half and had the kids rumple and crumple it and then smooth it out (so it looked more rustic and less like a brown paper bag!), and I had them tear the corners off. I shared some Native American petroglyphs and pictographs with the kids and then lined them out with paint and brushes and told 'em to go at it. (Here, Annabelle paints the "legendary rainbow bird.")

After doing a bit more research, I think our best bet of seeing a real live bison is a field trip to Northwest Trek, This 725-acre park has a little bit of everything: lakes, trails, meadows and plenty of animals. Northwest Trek is home to more than 200 North American animals. It's in Thurston County, west of Lacey (near Eatonville)- at least an hour or so drive for us.

An interesting aside: while looking for all things buffalo to show the kids, I came across a Wikipedia entry regarding the grammatically valid sentence Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. It's mind blowing.

AMERICAN PIECONS: Tonight is the Major League Baseball All-Star game. In our house, that means it's cause for celebration. We invited the big guys (Rick and Kennedy) over for hot dogs for dinner (not fancy, but definitely "ballpark" food) and we decided to make an apple pie from scratch as a creative arts/life skills/math/reading lesson here at MPA.

We used a recipe from the Food Network's Paula Deen. (I figured she just exudes 'I know how to make a pie' from her pores.) We chose some enormous, wonderfully flavorful organic Granny Smith apples from Whole Foods, and used organic brown sugar and organic butter for good measure. (That way the pie HAD to be good for you, right? Right!?!!?)

I was going to wimp out and buy a prefab crust, but I couldn't find any at Whole Foods. I think that wound up being a good thing. Really, a pie crust is NOT hard to make from scratch - I already had all the ingredients and the kids enjoyed helping.
While the recipe called for a lattice topped pie, that simply wouldn't do for tonight. Instead, we used star-shaped and circle cookie cutters to come up with this design ... When we took it out of the oven after 45 minutes, it had transformed to this (below) ... It tasted even better than it looked - the Granny Smiths were a perfect kind of tart, which made a nice marriage with the brown sugar and cinnamon.

I think baking projects like this are good for the kids. They have to read, follow directions carefully/in order, they measure, use fine motor skills, and realize that pies don't just come from a store/bakery. Plus, they have a great feeling of accomplishment when it's done.

Within a minute of pulling the pie out of the oven, we were off to yoga.
STACKED DECK: This evening Annabelle begged me to play Candy Land.

I was set up.

She said she got to go first because she is youngest - that that's an official rule. I was OK with that. And then lo-and-behold the very first card she draws from the top of the deck is shortcut card giving her this HUGE advantage. How nice for her.

She won.
I suggested Christian be her next victim, er, opponent. At that, I heard some snippets of conversation about her having a hand in how the deck was stacked. Literally.

I have mixed feelings about this. The ol' baseball saying, "If you're not cheating, you're not trying," comes to mind immediately, and it's savvy to realize that if you can manipulate a situation so that you have the upper hand, you're likely to come out on top (Kobiyashi Maru, anyone?).

However, "Cheaters never win" comes to mind, also. But wait, oh, they DO win (just ask Annabelle). Hmph.

DISCOVERY OF THE DAY: Crayola (the crayon people) has a Web site for educators, featuring lesson plans, art techniques and even some science experiments. Neat-o!

Touring

COMPANY: Today we had some special visitors - Grandad and LaRayne came up from Portland to see Seattle sites and visit with us!

Last night the family enjoyed dinner at Maggie Bluffs, along the shore of Puget Sound. This morning it was off to the ever-popular Hiram Chittenden Locks. It was a dark and dreary Monday morning, so there weren't a whole lot of people around - but there were more fish than we've ever seen before!

We could, of course, see them in the underwater viewing windows. But for the first time we could also see them while standing above water, on the dam, swimming in a huge school. Very cool!

The tide was really low this morning during our visit. That allowed us to see this HUGE jellyfish (the size of a large pizza) that was clinging to some rocks.

At first CJ and Annabelle were too afraid to approach it, but eventually they worked up the gumption to go check it out up close.

After the locks, it was on to a stroll through an outdoor art museum.

ON THE WATERFRONT: The Seattle Art Museum's Olympic Sculpture Park is a must-see for Seattle visitors (and area residents!) The setting offers sweeping views of Puget Sound as well as Belltown's highrises and peekaboo looks of the Space Needle and World's Fair Pavilion.
This is our second trip to the park and the kids love climbing around on the the eyeball sculptures that double as outdoor seating.
After the eyes (along Alaskan Way), we meandered up the path to the other sculptures, including perhaps the showiest of all - Eagle (1971, painted steel, by Alexander Calder, an American artist 1898-1976).
The kids love playing tag under and around this particular sculpture.

Just past Eagle, we noticed in swath of grass and wildflowers between the path and the railroad tracks what looked to be some furniture and appliances dumped. How rude! Who the hell would dump their cast off household goods there? And why would you go to so much trouble to haul your unwanteds there? Ridiculous! Oh. Wait. Maybe it's an installation ...

Sure 'nuff. ...

Upon closer examination, the sculptures were made of wood. The all wood retro stereo console, especially, looked like hours and hours of work - the attention to detail was fantastic. As it turns out, the "stereo" and washer & dryer are part of a temporary installation for the summertime.

Interestingly enough, later on our tour, we came across a patch of wildflowers that looked like it had been part of a brush fire. The grasses in the swath were pitch black and looked scorched, but the flowers were healthy and vibrant. Turns out the black was paint - and the area was part of the same summertime art show. It's was work of Andrew Dadson.

Realizing full well that today's entry is mostly a photo diary, I'll close out with a couple of other photos from the sculpture park. Tomorrow, we'll hit the books. Or at least A book. Probably. :)