SO THEY SAY: On the ad for the product, kids' voices sing, "Zoo Pals make eating fun!"
I would think the maker would probably appreciate this photo. Annabelle doesn't just eat off the plates, she wears them. Sometimes while eating. Needless to say, that slows the eating down.
ON THE INSIDE: Today, Christian and CJ finally sat down and cracked open the Sega Game Gear with an eye toward fixing it.
The units are notorious for having bad/leaking capacitors. Awhile back we happened upon a great YouTube video showing how to replace the bad capacitors.
Christian ordered the parts and today, CJ methodically removed all the bad capacitors and Christian soldered new ones in their places. The process took a couple of hours. Once they were done, it was time to power up the unit. "I'm going to cross my fingers," CJ said.
And then (insert drumroll here) ... he turned it on.
And it didn't work. :(
CJ took it pretty well. By now he's kind of a veteran of working with oldish electronics and he knows it can be sketchy.
Christian reviewed all their steps and he's pretty sure he's figured out the problem. He thinks two of the capacitors are the wrong type. So, he's got a parts list and it's back to the drawing board. Stay tuned. ...MEANWHILE, IN THE KITCHEN: While the electronics project covered the dining table, the kitchen island was (partially) covered in fondant. KENNEDY IF YOU ARE READING STOP HERE. :)
We are working on a birthday cake for Kennedy, whose birthday is on August 24. He's a really good Scrabble player, so I thought we would make him a Scrabble cake. It seemed like such a great idea initially - before I was faced with drawing that playing board grid out of royal icing. And making 100 letter tiles, etcetera. The first step in making a wood grain fondant is twisting two different colored ropes together, then rolling that out and painting a bit on top of it.
Tomorrow, we'll be writing on the tiles and lots of other detail work. Oh, and I suppose I should bake some cake to put it all atop.
WATERY WEEKEND: We had all sorts of fun this sunny weekend.
On Saturday, we spent some time on a beach at the foot of our hill. We watched cruise ships depart for Alaska.
CJ and Annabelle pretended they were surfing. 
And we even got buzzed by a super rare "Flying Fortress" - the B-17!
On Sunday, we went down to Lake Union Park, about 6 minutes from our house, to the east. Our first order of business was taking advantage of the free Sunday sailboat cruises the Center for Wooden Boats offers.
We signed up for a 3 p.m. cruise on board the Admirable, a 1900 gillnetter salmon fishing boat that spent most of its early years in Alaska.
CJ and Annabelle each got a chance to operate the boat's tiller.
It was a lovely day on the lake - in fact, it was the hottest day of the year, 87 degrees.
After the sail, the kids spent nearly an hour enjoying the fountains in the park, spraying up from the sidewalk.
After that, we walked over to the beach area.
Good lessons on the maintenance work. Lots of times things don't go right on the first try.
ReplyDeleteAmazing to me how South Lake Union has changed from industrial to park over the last 50 years. Used to be a Coast Guard or Naval Reserve station there.
The Naval Reserve station is still there. Next year it's set to turn into the Museum of History and Industry. We're looking forward to that!
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