Tales from a Tuesday

TAPESTRY: For about three days now, Annabelle has been on an absolute tear. Fortunately, it's a good kind of tear - as long as you don't mind feathers, glitter, glue, fabric, cardboard boxes and tubes, tape, googly eyes and more covering every horizontal surface of the house.

Bee has been a crafting maniac - making all sorts of creatures and accoutrement. One of her first creations this a.m. was a blue bird of sorts. She was pretty damn disappointed that he wouldn't fly, despite his feathers and really big white wings.

I keep a huge drawer in the kitchen chock full o' crafting supplies in a spot where the kids have easy access to it. (Annabelle is a much more frequent craft drawer raider than CJ, and boy is she miffed when "her" supplies go missing. Case in point - this morning she had some harsh words for big brother Rick, who borrowed her pink duct tape and (gasp!) didn't return it yet.

CACOPHONY: The kids had some music homework to do this morning and as they dug around looking for the right rhythm cards and sheet music to copy and the right paper to copy them onto, they had soon covered the entire island with pages. "This is becoming a music mess here," CJ correctly observed.

I left the kids to do their work for a few minutes and when I returned was surprised to find Annabelle hadn't transcribed a SINGLE note yet. However, she did have a cute musical doodle scrawled across the top of her page. ...DREAM MACHINES: In recent days, the kids have both been talking about game systems/consoles they plan on designing in the future. I encourage those thoughts - why just play games when you could design them and/or the hardware they're played on.

I asked the kids to each write down some of their ideas about their future systems. CJ wrote, "My console will be called The Arcade Simulater. I have no doubt that a lot of games will be ported to the Arcade Simulateor. Here are three of the games that I think will be ported to the Arcade Simulateor: 1. Super Mario Bros. 2. Yie ar Kung Fu 3. Super Mario World. I will try to make the best Arcade Simulateor as best as possible! Of the grate things about the Arcade Simulateor is that it has short loading time!"

And as for Annabelle, she wrote, "My Consle by Annabelle Kisky. My consle is called: The Busy Bee for short.) Any way, TBB's first game is: "Bee," a pollen collecter. You're playing as a badly drawn bee named Honey-Gal. So ... I'll come up with more games soon."

CLASSY: The kids had Musikgarten today. They learned a promenade type dance to some Mozart music. Fancy! And at yoga they worked on handstands against the wall. Wish I'd seen that (I was out walking 'round the neighborhood).

SOIL SAMPLES: We went ahead and got the science homework done this morning, too. It involved a little math (figuring out how many ingredients they'd need to complete a soil related experiment), and then they were asked to go collect two soil samples apiece from our yard. We chose to scoop some dirt from the planters outside our front door and a big dirt pile by the alley.
FINAL FLIGHT: There's one last chance to get your Face in Space on a space shuttle http://faceinspace.nasa.gov . NASA will be accepting submissions up to the liftoff date of Atlantis (targeted for July 8). NASA also released the final tally of submissions to the Space Shuttle Program's "Face in Space" campaign for STS-134 (which is currently docked at the ISS). Earthlings (including CJ and Annabelle) submitted a total of 128,940 photos for uplink to Endeavour via the Mission Control Center at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The images will return to Earth through a data transmission, and contributors will be able to print certificates verifying their photos flew aboard Endeavour.

WEEKEND REWIND: I forgot to mention in yesterday's post that this weekend we went to watch an orchestral performance at the historic Moore Theater - the oldest remaining theater in Seattle. But this wasn't just any symphony - it was Seattle Rock Orchestra performing early Queen music. Most excellent. :)

We got there early and enjoyed checking out the architecture and memorabilia around the theater, which was constructed in 1907.

A series of vocalists performed with Seattle Rock Orchestra. They all did a yeoman's job (singing Freddie is NOT easy). Our homework earlier in the week paid off - the kids recognized most of the songs. In fact, after just two notes, CJ leaned over and excitedly whispered to me, "The March of the Black Queen!" I found a video of vocalist Tai Shain singing "March of the Black Queen" and "Lap of the Gods." Good stuff.

There were just a few other kids there for the sold-out show. Annabelle was the youngest fan, I do believe.

CALLED UP: I am happy to report that CJ has been called to take part in his first Microsoft Playtest. Based on the (many, many) screening questions I was asked on the phone, I think he might actually get to play a game. (When Annabelle was a playtester, it consisted of the two of us sitting on a couch and reading books, which was fun, but not what she was expecting!) CJ's test is on Thursday.