Short Stuff

ITCHY SITUATION: No, CJ's back isn't normally hairy. He got a little (well a lot) off the top this morning.

CJ being covered with hair led to me calling him Harry Jr. and he wondered why the "junior." I explained that was a Harry Sr. from the 1987 movie "Harry and the Hendersons." A movie I had to watch like THREE times a day for a good stretch, when Rick was a preschooler and it was his favorite movie.I told the kids about the movie and their curiosity was piqued. Thank goodness for Netflix streaming. It was fun to watch since it was filmed in Seattle and Mt. Rainier National Forest. Turns out the Hendersons live in the Wallingford neighborhood- less than 15 minutes away from us. ;)

This afternoon the kids played outside while I mowed the lawn. I love watching them turn found objects like sticks, stones, into playthings.

BUCKET LIST: For whatever reason, today Annabelle was all over our stack of Moose Meal buckets gleaned from oh-so-many kids' meals at Safeco Field the past few seasons. She made binoculars, a hat and some drums.

INSTALLED: The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 (AMS) (I call it the space sifter) has been successfully on the outside of the International Space Station's right side. A robotic arm was used to install AMS on the starboard side of the station’s truss.

According to a NASA press release, "The AMS team will monitor the experiment 24 hours a day, gathering data for as long as the space station is in orbit. Using a large magnet to create a magnetic field that will bend the path of the charged cosmic particles already traveling through space, eight different instruments will provide information on those particles as they make their way through the magnet. Armed with that information, hundreds of scientists from 16 countries are hoping to determine what composes the universe and how it began, as the AMS searches for clues on the origin of dark matter and the existence of antimatter and other unusual matter. AMS also could provide information about pulsars, blazers, gamma ray bursts and any number of other cosmic phenomena."

Leftovers

FIT TO BE TILED: Not gonna lie. We didn't do a whole lotta schoolin' today. At least not traditional schoolin'. Now if you count tiling a shower and making multiple Lowe's trips schoolin', well, then the kids and I got a full day in. ;)

On the morning Lowe's trip, the kids spied a meat eating plant. Most excellent. We had to buy that. It's ever so much more fun than tile and grout! We've got the plant on the windowsill by our computers in the living room, where it has high visibility. Hopefully, we'll see it capture some food and do its thing. Hopefully it doesn't eat Kirby.

Naturally, the plant reminded us of Audrey II from "Little Shop of Horrors."

This was one of those days where the kids got a Krispy Kreme donut for lunch. Yes, you read that right. A donut. For lunch. I think the only thing worse than a donut for lunch would be lunch AND a donut. Who needs that many calories, right? In my (weak) defense, they had an apple and whole grains for breakfast. And some carrots for an afternoon snack. And lean beef and pasta for dinner.

Plus, if you have a KK donut for lunch, you get a Really Fancy Hat. One you can customize, even. Bee tried to obliterate all KK references in favor of her future bakery's name - The Busy Bee.Did I mention we didn't do much schoolin' today?

And now, for your viewing pleasure, a couple of leftover shots from yesterday. ...

Before you enter the Space Needle elevator, basically you're forced to pose for a photo. I love this shot because it's so horrible. ;)
They both *totally* have that "can we please get this over with?" look on their faces - like a driver's license photo!

And here's another gratuitous Space Needle shot. We were wandering the Seattle Center grounds and I looked up and discovered this sculpture I'd never seen before, near where the Fun Forest used to be.

Getting Centered

Annabelle's altered play program cover. She scribbled out the child on the cover and drew herself.

42: We started the day with a biographical story. "We know him," CJ said upon seeing the cover of Jackie Robinson - A Life of Determination" from the People of Character series. It told the story of how Robinson, born in 1919, began his life as a child born to a sharecropping family in Georgia. From an early age, it was clear that Jackie was an exceptional athlete. He was a standout in high school and afterward, at UCLA, where he became the first African-American to earn varsity letters in baseball, football, basketball and track. Unfortunately, he couldn't finish college due to financial constraints.

After UCLA, he moved to Hawaii and played semi pro football until WWII broke out. He was a second lieutenant in the Army from 1942-1944, when he got into trouble for refusing to move to the back of a segregated bus. He was arrested and court martialed, but received an honorable discharge.

After the Army he played in the Negro Leagues, but wasn't there for long. In 1945, he broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball by joining the Dodgers.

After we finished the story, I told the kids that we'd be going to see the play "Jackie and Me" at the Seattle Children's Theater today. That made them happy. :) CJ said he wanted to play the part of Jackie. I said that was nice, but the cast was already set. He took it well, saying, "And P.S. I'm white skinned. And I'm not a grown up."


Good points.

We got to the theater a good half hour early and our reward was front and center seats. Score! The play had a lot more dialogue and a lot less humor than other plays we have seen there, but no surprise - the subject matter was serious, and there were some poignant moments (sniffle, sniffle).


The kids paid close attention for the entire 2 hours of the play. When the lights came up, some cast members came back on stage to take questions for the audience. That always makes me a bit Nervous, because I know CJ and Annabelle's hands are going to shoot up first and who knows what might come out of their mouths. I was just leaning over to CJ to ask him to run any questions he might have by me when I hear, "You, there in the front row!" says the man on stage. Yup, CJ's hand had shot up first. CJ's question wasn't about baseball, or civil rights, or Jackie Robinson. No, no, no. He asked, (paraphrasing slightly and shortened significantly), "Don't you think that if you visited the past, there's a chance that it could change the future?"

That's right, CJ was worried about the cosmic ramifications of the pretend time travel in the story. That's my CeeJ. After the play, we had to go move the car to another spot (for fear of getting a ticket). Then we headed back to the center. We popped into the Children's Museum. There, the kids first hit "Cog City," which is all about levers and tubes and conveyor belts. From there, they made a beeline to the International Village, bypassing every other country in favor of the Japan exhibit. They both definitely have a thing for the Japanese culture.

We also checked out a new exhibit exploring sizes ...And they're just starting to build a new permanent exhibit featuring LEGOs. From the Children's Museum, we ripped on over to the Space Needle. Here's a photo of the kids on the way up.And here are the Pacific Science Center arches as seen from the golden elevator ...We enjoyed beautiful blue skies and not-too-bad wind on the observation deck.
There was a gorgeous view of Lake Union (see the lovely new South Lake Union Park?).We could see ships and ferries on Puget Sound ... And, of course, we had to check out downtown and the stadiums. After descending the Needle, we ventured to the fountain for the kids' first splashdown of 2011. CJ quickly made some friends and he played with the boys for over an hour. It was great! (In the photo he's the one semi sitting up, in the middle.)Annabelle hung with the guys, too, as well as flitted about by herself.Here's a video of the fountain fun. Annabelle has a pink shirt on and CJ is shirtless, with long pants on. ...


All in all, it was a fun 5 hours at Seattle Center.

EARTH AND SKY: High above our heads, and very early this a.m., Endeavour, piloted by Commander Mark Kelly, made a Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver, or 'backflip.' It had to rotate 360 degrees backward in order to enable space station astronauts Dmitry Kondratyev, Paolo Nespoli and Cady Coleman to take high resolution pictures of the shuttle’s heat shield. About a half hour after the flip, shuttle Endeavour docked with the ISS for the last time ever.Meanwhile, back on earth, yesterday the shuttle Atlantis made its final journey from Orbiter Processing Facility-1 to the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It's a step in the shuttle's processing for the STS-135 - the FINAL space shuttle flight ever.
Photo credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller

Body Doubles

BODY LANGUAGE: I had to pull the roll of floor-protection paper out of the basement this morning for a home improvement project (the unending re-do of the shower upstairs), and while I had it out, I thought it would be a good time for the kids to do a little drawing. Specifically, I thought they'd have fun tracing around each other. And they did. :) After they traced themselves, they helped each other cut their own bodies out. Then they taped them up to the wall. It was Annabelle's idea to have them holding hands. :) I asked them each to grab a marker and write six words on their bodies describing themselves and six words on their sibling's body describing their sibling.
Here's what they came up with ...

SCREWY SCHEDULE: Instead of music this afternoon, we had an appointment to head to Shoreline for a curriculum check in. I was supposed to bring all of the materials I have checked out of the program's curriculum room. I had one whopping book - a Japanese for beginners manual. The checker-in-er was surprised - and a bit relieved, I think. There were multiple DOZENS on the floor next to her from the parent preceding me. I have to admit, in a way that made me feel like a slacker. ... Should I have more books from there for my kids? :/ On the other hand, I don't like stockpiling stuff. Our house is small, there are only so many hours in the day, and how many books can we possibly use at one time?

While I was checking books in, the kids were enjoying their first ever open gym time with their school mates. We've never been there on a Tuesday afternoon before, and that is one of the times the gym is open for Home Education Exchange students. CJ was absolutely THRILLED when some older boys suggested playing dodge ball. To date, he's only read about in books and seen it in cartoons or movies. The teams paired off and the balls started flying and it was a free for all. Of course, CJ and Annabelle were sketchy on the rules, and boy do they need some Dodge ball 101 lessons. CJ was throwing chest passes, not slinging the ball. :0 I think I need to get him and a rubber ball together with a brick wall sooner rather than later.

The kids also had a chance to clamber on the neat climbing wall for the first time.
THE JEFFERSONS: Miraculously, we practically flew down I-5 to Columbia City after our appointment in Shoreline this afternoon. I haven't seen traffic that light on I-5 through Seattle since the 1980s. Maybe it's the high gas prices?

Anywho, we had some time to kill before yoga and the sun was shining, so we made a quick stop at Christian's work to say 'hi.' Here's a picture of the kids in a section of an old wooden water line. ...

We also had time to stop at Jefferson Community Park. We hadn't been there is a couple of months, and though it's still a work in progress, man oh man, is it a gem.

The playground is enormous, with an abundance and variety of things to climb and slide and twirl on. CJ and Annabelle got this spinner going so fast, they were both 'flying.'
Today was the first chance we'd had to explore the expansive grassy areas beyond the playground. For months now, I've been wanting to see what the view from the cliff side there was. It was as great as I thought it would be. ...
There were several spots to stop and enjoy the view on the bluff, including a couple of rocky sculptures and concrete knee walls.
From various points you could see the Space Needle, the stadiums, the Sound, the Port of Seattle, and even good ol' Magnolia (the peninsula in the distance here):
This park tells a story. Seriously! Embedded amidst the green grass are swaths of concrete stamped with words that tell of the history and future of the grounds. For instance, one pad lets you know you're standing 326 feet above sea level...

The concrete tells the story of what's underfoot.

And what brings people to the park these days ...

and there's much, much more. We didn't have time to read the whole story today, but we'll certainly be back for more!

WINGS: Yoga was even more enjoyable than usual for the kids today because teacher Nicole designed a lesson around an idea CJ suggested last week. He wanted a theme of creatures who are feathered and/or fly, and that's what he got. They did special bird and ghost poses. They drew pictures of flying animals (real and imagined) and so on. In the funny coincidence file, right before we went in yoga, "Silly Love Songs" came on the radio, and I told the kids that it was a single by Sir Paul McCartney and Wings, from the "Wings at the Speed of Sound" album.

BOOKMARK IT: Borders stores (if there are any left by the end of the summer :( ) are offering a free book to kids for reading over the summer. Follow this link to a PDF.

Rose City Ramble

Image courtesy: NASA

UP, UP AND AWAY: I was up before the sun this morning, eagerly awaiting the launch of Endeavour. The dog woke me up at 3:30 and so I used that "opportunity" to check in with the shuttle, which was set to launch at 5:49 a.m. Pacific Coast time. Everything still looked good and the astronauts were being strapped into their seats. I went back to bed for an hour and got up at 5 to watch the last of launch preparations and the countdown.

Christian headed down the stairs about 5:30. Annabelle came out of her bedroom about 5:45 and CJ followed almost instantly. So, we were all in our places in plenty of time for the 5:56 launch.

After Endeavour took off, CJ said, "Wow, Mom, you sure do have a thing for space shuttles."
Why yes, yes I do!

Endeavour has a many important missions under her belt. Per NASA, "The STS-49 mission in 1992 sent Endeavour to retrieve a stranded communications satellite called Intelsat VI and attach a new engine to it. But when the satellite balked at being caught the way astronauts planned, the crew and ground controllers improvised a spacewalk calling for three astronauts positioned in the cargo bay and actually grabbing the bottom of the satellite with their gloved hands." I remember that dramatic mission. I also remember Endeavour's 1993 mission to repair and service the Hubble Space Telescope. And in 1998, Endeavour carried the first American section of the International Space Station into orbit and conducted the program’s first construction mission. That's a pretty big deal.

This, Endeavour's last mission, is scheduled to last 16 days. The astronauts will rendezvous and dock Endeavour with the International Space Station on Wednesday morning.

POINTS SOUTH: By 6:30 we were on the road, heading toward Portland. We had a rather ambitious to do list. First, swing by Grandma and Grandpa's for a quick (30 minute) howdy do. from there it was on to Portland, where Christian and the kids dropped me off to visit with a friend and her new (ADORABLE!) baby, while they headed toward the famous Voodoo Doughnut.

The inventive doughnut hotspot has been featured on everything from the Tonight Show to No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain. Unfortunately their flagship store is under remodel right now, so the kids had to settle for their satellite location at 1501 N.E. Davis.

Though they had exotic menu options include the Bacon Maple Bar, the Voodoo Doll, Captain My Captain (a yeast doughnut topped with Captain Crunch), the Grape Ape, and much, much more, the kids settled for good ol' chocolate bar type doughnuts.

They came to pick me up from my friends, met the (ADORABLE) baby, and from there we were off to Ground Kontrol, a retro arcade in Portland. A two-story arcade with some 60 classic video games and 27 pinball machines, Ground Kontrol was founded in 1999 by two record store employees who loved classic video games. In 2003, five lifelong pinball and video game fans joined up and purchased the arcade, moving it to bigger and better digs in Portland’s historic Old Town/Chinatown neighborhood the following year.

CJ and Annabelle were happy to find some of their favorites there, like Double Dragon, Contra and The Simpsons, to name three.
CJ had a good day on Star Wars, blowing up the Death Star multiple times.

The four of us squared off in a modern day version of Pac-Man.Guess who won. (Yes, of course, CJ.)

We were fortunate, all of our Portland points were close to one another today. As a bonus, the kids even got to see the ornate gateway to Chinatown.

McMENAMINS TIMES TWO: Another stop on our P-Town tour was the newest McMenamins property - the Crystal Hotel.

The Hotel, on the National Register of Historic Places, is located across the street from the Crystal Ballroom (another McMenamins location, and a popular concert venue. The ballroom's music was the inspiration for the hotel's 51 guestrooms, each inspired by a song or performance from the Crystal Ballroom's past 100 years.

We went to Zeus Cafe. It was not your average McMenamins pub food, to be certain. For instance, instead of being heaped into a basket on grease-absorbing paper, the food was served on fancy schmancy plates, with points for presentation.
The restaurant had lots of beautiful woodwork, ornate trims and finishes and unique paintings. There is also lots of beautiful stained glass. Afterward, we beat feet for the border, wanting to get out of Stumptown before the horrid commute from Portland to Vancouver.

We decided to make one stop on the way home to break up the drive and give us and Kirby a chance to stretch our legs. We decided Olympia would be our break point. And as (no coincidence) would have it, one of our very favorite McMenamins is in Olympia - the historic Spar Cafe. So we had a light dinner there (they have pizza for $1.25 a slice on their happy hour menu - score!).

It was pretty amazing sitting in downtown/old town Olympia watching a parade of logging trucks rolling right through the city street with full loads. Guess there's a reason we're called The Evergreen State, eh?DRIVE TIME: We arrived home twelve hours after we left (right down to the minute). It was a long day, but a good day. Kirby was a trouper, just happy to be along for the ride.