Sweet Deals

FRIDAY FREEBIE: One of the most important things on our To Do list today was swinging by Starbucks at 3 p.m. to take advantage of their "We-Love-You, Seattle" promotion. Each Friday for a few weeks, Starbucks stores are giving Seattle dwellers coupons for free fun around town. Today it was free youth passes to the Seattle Aquarium, which is great, because that place is not cheap to visit. Next Friday it's free Mariners tickets. You KNOW we'll be all over that!

BACK TO EARTH: This morning we spent some more time studying for the kids' science final next week. They each had a "word bank" with about three dozen words in it and we talked about the definitions for each word. They got off to a bit of a shaky start (especially CeeJ), but rallied toward the end. When we went through it a second time in the afternoon, they did much better.

Here, they contemplate the definition of basalt ...GET ON BOARD: Midday, the kids and I boarded a bus a half a block from home. We had to ride to Sodo to pick up a car we'd left there yesterday, when we met Christian at his work and all rode to Microsoft together. The kids like riding the bus, no doubt due to its novelty to them.On our way back, we could tell that tourist season is in fully swing here in Seattle. The double decker tour buses are out and about ... and the cruise ships are in port. Look at how this one dwarfs the semi-famous Edgewater (The Beatles stayed there looooooong ago).GEMS: All day long, I find little art projects of Annabelle's strewn about the house. Things like this black balloon turned into an angst ridden character ... SPECIAL DELIVERY: Today CJ was THRILLED to find the parts he and Christian ordered to try to rebuild/fix a couple of old Sega Game Gears. CJ wanted to start soldiering right away. I told him it would have to wait until his dad was home. It will be really interesting to see if they're able to resurrect the old units!
SWEET EXPERIMENT: Not sure how we got on the topic, but a couple of days ago Annabelle and I got to talking about making a S'mores cookie. Yesterday we (impulse) bought a tube of that horrid sugar cookie dough in the refrigerator case at the grocery store and today we tried to transform it into something tasty. Of course, every experiment needs a good plan. Annabelle drew ours up. ...Then it was time to spring into action. CJ was in charge of slicing the sugary log up.The kids put chocolate chips, marshmallow bits and graham cracker crumbs in the middle and we put another slice of cookie on top. During the cooking process, things got a little messy.
But the kids didn't mind that they weren't too aesthetically pleasing. I didn't think they were very tasty, either, but CJ and Annabelle managed to choke one or two down.

TOMORROW, TOMORROW: It's a bit like Christmas for CJ tomorrow. It's the first annual Seattle Retro Gaming Exposition. Supposedly EVERY single game ever made for the Nintendo Entertainment System will be on site in the free play zone. There will be vendors with all sorts of oddities we need and who knows what else. Doors open at 9 a.m., you know we'll be there!