Down & Out

FLAT AS A PANCAKE: It was such a beautiful morning, I decided we simply had to get out in it. We harnessed and leashed Kirby, the kids got their helmets on and mounted their bikes and off we went, down the hill with the intention of traveling to Terminal 91 - the beach closest to us.

We were well on our way when Annabelle announced, "There's something wrong with my tire."

On the tight turn on the trail to Terminal 91 it went flat. Completely flat.

"Sorry kids, field trip's over," I announced. Kirby was OK with it. She'd already done her business. ;) And at first, CJ was OK with it. In fact, he was downright lollipops and rainbows.
"Look on the bright side," he said, cheerily. "At least we still get to enjoy this nice day."

Aw, that's sweet. :)

But about a half mile later - all uphill, pushing a bike - CJ had changed his tune. "This is humiliating!" he declared. LOL.

I told him it wasn't truly humiliating, it was just a big bummer. Tonight, Christian took an inner tube and tire off CJ's old bike and put them on Bee's bike. So her "Princess" bike no longer has two fancy white tires, but she's OK with that. (The bike was a bit bedraggled and $12 from Goodwill to begin with.) Bottom line: We're ready to roll again.

IT'S ALL DOWNHILL: From here on out, the days will be getting shorter (at least as measured by hours and minutes of sunlight). Booo! That's why I'm more inclined to celebrate the winter solstice than the summer solstice.

I did feel compelled to do a little learnin' 'bout the solstice. So, we watched a BrainPOP video about the solstices and equinox. I'm pretty sure we watched the exact same one a year ago today. But that's OK. In math, concepts are revisited, cemented and built upon all the time, right?

The video was well done and the kids understood the concepts, based on the fact they both aced the written quiz afterward. Go team MPA!

DOWNHILL RACER: Pretty much all day, every day we're home, Annabelle is crafting. She creates and recycles so many things, I couldn't possibly detail them all here.

Today, one of her projects was a sunburst shaped vehicle meant to let CJ and her slide down our hillside. She arranged several pieces of cardboard in a pinwheel fashion, held together with a liberal amount of duct tape. (I can't tell you how much Annabelle loves duct tape. You should have seen her when she saw the sale sign on duct tape at Fred Meyer today. It was like Christmas for her. She chose two rolls - Funky Flamingo (neon pink), and a leopard pattern. CJ threw a flame patterned one in the basket.) But back to today's project. They carried Annabelle's contraption up the hill. They were just sure they'd be flying down the hillside in no time.
But, alas, it didn't even move an inch.
We talked about reasons it didn't work (the cardboard was too thin and they were too heavy and there was too much drag/friction). Back to the drawing board!

SUMMER SESSION: Bee started a short (3-week) summer session of ballet today. That meant CJ and I had 45 minutes to kill in 'town.' We went to the library. There, I handed him a copy of "Captain Underpants" by Dav Pilkey. Christian and I read that book and a few others in the series to him probably three years ago. I don't know if he recalls that, but I thought he would enjoy reading the book on his own now. I was right.

He sat down in the library, started reading it immediately, and within about 90 seconds, he was laughing much too loudly for a library. Excellent. :)

I think he got to upwards of page 100 tonight.

BLUE BELLE: Today after ballet class Annabelle's teacher asked me if we brought treats to the recital. Why yes, yes we did, I replied. I knew the teacher was in big demand that night and I figured she didn't make it back to the treat table. But she said she saw someone carrying a ballet shoe cookie and wondered where it came from. And she asked if we brought chocolate dipped strawberries, too. The (Seattle Parks) community center buys the cake and punch, but lots of families brought lots of other stuff. I'm impressed that she pinpointed us for the cookies and berries. I guess it must have been by default - it was Bee's first recital and those must have been new entries on the after party table. Clearly, that woman doesn't miss a thing.

In other news, I also picked up copies of Bee's Ballet I photos today. Because I'm not in the habit of putting other people's kid's faces on my blog, I thought I'd get creative with this. So, it's a class full of Annabelles!!! Can you spot the real one?

The real Bee was front and center.

Likewise, the real Annabelle was front and center on this one, too.