Grand Time

LIFE IMITATING ART: Thursday morning we headed down to Vancouver, USA, for the kids' grandpa's 70th birthday.

One of his presents was a super cool sculpture of a slice of cake from Renee (pictured on the right, above). When she told me what she was making, I said, "Oh, fun, I'll make a real slice of cake that looks like it!" And so yesterday afternoon that's what we did. I'd baked the yellow cake ahead of time, but we had to carve it and frost it to look like Renee's piece once we finally got to see it. Here's Renee's 'slice' ...Doesn't it look delicious? And below, our slice is in the foreground. Annabelle was very particular about picking the perfect strawberry.

LETTERS, WE'VE GOT LETTERS: Scrabble was a part of the evening's festivities. Annabelle insisted on playing with Grandpa and Kennedy, and she held her own, scoring nearly 200 total if I recall correctly.DROPS OF JUPITER: First thing this a.m. we tuned into NASA TV (I know, big surprise, right?). But today was extra special, because it was a rocket launch day. And this wasn't just any rocket launch - it was Juno, destination Jupiter! Image: NASA

It was a bit of a tense countdown, with a couple of anomalies that meant troubleshooting for the launch team in the heat of the moment. But they worked it out, and a little before 8:30 Pac Coast time, aboard an Atlas V rocket, Juno roared toward the heavens. We watched the rocket boosters fall away, and tracked Juno's height and speed as it made its way out of Earth's atmosphere, on the start of a five-year, 400-million-mile voyage to Jupiter. Once reaching our solar system's largest planet, Juno will orbit it, and use instrumentation to probe its internal structure and gravity field, measure water and ammonia in its atmosphere, map its powerful magnetic field and observe its auroras.

Won't it be fun to hear, five years from now, the first reports from Juno? In the meantime, you can listen to this, a lovely acoustic version of "Drops of Jupiter."

FUR FIX: The kids missed Kirby, but fortunately G&G were dog sitting a sweet little furry thing named Bella. Annabelle, especially, was all over the thing (a Maltese).

STOMPING GROUNDS: Before leaving town today, at the kids' insistence we stopped at the park behind our old house. The place was packed - seriously busier than I'd ever seen it before. Part of that was due to a two-bus full field trip there by a daycare, and then there was also a soccer camp there today.

It's so funny to see the kids on that playground now. They were much toddlers when we moved away, and now they (CJ especially) just dominate the thing.
OVERHEAD: As we approached Seattle today, I was on the lookout for the Blue Angels. It's Seafair this weekend and , and sure 'nuff, as we drove by Boeing Field, there they were.GOOD QUESTION: CJ, tonight - "What kept us standing on Earth before the law of gravity was passed?"