Friendly Friday

THIRD WHEEL: For about 6 hours today, CJ and Annabelle's BYF (best yoga friend) was with us. Having three of them here certainly changed the dynamic. For the first hour plus Annabelle and BYF played dress up. This time, the girls didn't dress up Kirby, but they did cajole CJ into getting his Mario costume on and they were both dressed as Princess Peach. As you can, no doubt, tell from the photo, CJ pretty much wasn't into it. ;) He was MUCH more interested in the SpongeBob marathon on Nickelodeon.

POP! GOES THE POPCORN!: The kids had an afternoon snack of popcorn. Just to make it a challenge, I suggested they try eating their popcorn with chopsticks. They had a blast with it for about 100 seconds before deciding it was too darn hard.

As is the norm, there were a few "old maids" -unpopped kernels. We've talked before about what would happen if we planted popcorn kernels. Today we finally moved beyond talk into action. Stay tuned - we'll let you know if/when we start hearing popping sounds coming our garden! :)

GAME ON: This morning CJ and Annabelle were both talking about a game they'd discovered last night on the Addicting Games Web site called Doodle God. They wanted me to check it out. I was glad I did. It's pretty fun. It's about combining elements and coming up with new things. It has some good math concepts involved.

Let Them Eat Cake

GEL GONE WRONG: Someone needs a haircut.

GRAFFITI ARTIST: This morning the kids were watching a show I am trying not to hate(iCarly), and on the show one of the characters had his name written graffiti style on his shirt. It doesn't take much to get Annabelle's creative juices flowing. She asked me if she could write on the pink turtleneck she was wearing.

Um, well, SURE. It's just a (rather raggedy) shirt that we, no doubt, picked up from Goodwill to begin with. If she likes it better adorned with her own artwork, why not?

I have to say, I thought her additions make it a MUCH cooler shirt.
Oh, and BTW, she wrote select letters backwards on purpose. It's a style thing. ;)

THAT DAMN CAKE: Today I finally finished the *&%^$ cake (a cartoony version of Washington State University's Martin Stadium) I've been working on for the past few days. HAD to finish it today, since the event it was for was tonight at 6:30. Kennedy was here at 8 a.m. ready to go to work, and he was quite the trouper. That cake would not have been delivered on time if not for his help.

Was it perfect, no. But it was definitely custom and pretty darn good - at least according to the manager of the upscale restaurant who happened to be a Cougar alumni. He LOVED it. ;)

Hopefully the bride and groom were OK with it. ...

FAST FORWARD: CJ declared today that he is going to get married as soon as he's an adult (18), so that he can have kids and they can meet his grandparents. I thought that was very sweet. :)

He also said that when he invents his time machine, he is going to travel back in time and give his great-grandparents the "immortal medicine" that he is also going to invent.

This has been a theme of his for the past couple of weeks - time machines, immortal medicine, and ancestors. Oh, and since Christian and I have explained that if no one ever died, the planet would not be able to support everyone living here forever. CJ's answer? Space colonies and artificial planets! So he's working on inventing those, too. CeeJ is a busy guy.

Short Stuff

MODEL CITIZEN: Today I got an email from Dr. Kenneth L. Rosenauer, Professor, English, Foreign Languages, and Journalism, Missouri Western State University.

Dr. Rosenauer wrote, "I'd like very much to use one of your images at MorgueFile: peanutbuttercookies.jpg.

Your daughter, perhaps? Whoever it is, though, do you have a model release or can you get one?

I'm hoping to use this image in a college copy editing textbook I'm writing for Oxford University Press."

Yes, that would be my daughter. :)

So, we got squared away on the "model" release and the photo of Bee making cookies will appear in a copy editing textbook, coming soon, to a campus near you.

WATER LOGGED: While picking up around the house tonight, Christian noticed one of the kids left a cup of water on our sweet ol' wood coffee table, leaving a small water spill/ring. He called out to the kids, asking whose water left the mark. "Oh boy. Literally," Annabelle answered.

EYES HAVE IT: At one point today, Annabelle said to me, "When I stare into CJ's eyes, sometimes, I can see myself. And then I think, 'That's how I look to him.' "

:)

THAT'S ALL, FOLKS: I'm still in the midst of Cake Hell, so this is a super abbreviated post. I will tell you that we did do math and grammar exercises today. Oh, and the kids watched "Dumb and Dumber" while I was whipping up about 10 pounds of buttercream. I'm pretty sure that last part won't win me any "Parent of the Year" awards. Oh well.

Of Cake and Cars

IDLE TIME: For most of today, I was elbow deep in cake batter (for a special project for a former co-worker of Ken's). Mercifully, Ken was here, and helped a LOT every step of the way. Between the two of us, we cranked out six half sheet cake layers from scratch (which is the equivalent of three full sheet cakes if you think about it). All of this coming out of my lil ol' Hotpoint Hallmark oven circa 1965-ish, one half sheet pan at a time.

Thankfully, the kids were mostly good about amusing themselves. They read and played video games and there was lots of LEGO action.

Though I was tempted to stay home and power through the baking, a little before 4 p.m. I decided I really needed to get them out of the house and take them to yoga. And so, we hopped in the car and an HOUR later we were at yoga.(CJ took this photo of Bee. Before shooting it, he told her, "Say, 'Car!' "

Not sure what the trouble was but from Interbay to SODO we were stop and go - but mostly stop. Of course, that's when the sun chose to come out, too, and my car no longer has air conditioning. Good times. :/

We got to yoga five minutes late, but better late than never. The kids enjoyed their class (tell me THIS doesn't look awesome) ...

... and I got a short walk in, which gave me a chance to admire flowers that are finally blooming all over Seattle. FLOATING OVERHEAD: While I was baking cake today, far above the Earth, a pair of NASA astronauts were going for a space stroll. Per a NASA press release, "Expedition 28 Flight Engineers Mike Fossum and Ron Garan completed a six-hour, 31-minute spacewalk at 3:53 p.m. EDT Tuesday, retrieving a failed pump module for return to Earth, installing two experiments and repairing a new base for the station’s robotic arm."

Atlantis is so photogenic. Check out this shot, taken by the ISS crew. Image: NASA
You can see the Raffaello multi-purpose logistics module, packed with supplies and spare parts, at the rear of the cargo bay.

In the Neighborhood

CRABBY: We started our day with a jog (big people) and scoot (in the kids' case) down to Terminal 91, Port of Seattle Property bordering Puget Sound. On the way down to the sound, we saw plane fuselages loaded onto trains. We speculated that they were coming from Boeing's Everett plant, just north of us, going somewhere to get their wings & stuff. We chose to go down to the port because Christian looked up the tide tables and it was low tide. Turned out to be a good choice. The water was waaaaay out there.Don't know that I've ever seen it that far gone. Seagulls were everywhere, no doubt looking for brunch. We saw clam squirts all over - it was like a watery Fourth of July.

At one point, Christian, Bee and I were walking eastward and I looked back for CJ and saw him crouch down to turn over a rock. Not sure why he chose to do that where and when he did it, but lo and behold if his rock flip didn't unearth a live rock crab of sorts. We've seen lots and lots of dead crabs down on that beach over the years, but this was our first live one. Exciting!

The kids both squealed when the tiny crab ran 'toward' them, as if its pincers could snap any of their vital body parts off. ;)

HOME RUN DERBY: It's a rough patch of summer for me - three whole days of no Mariners baseball (sniffle sniffle). What's a girl to do? Well, watch the All-Star game festivities, of course.
Knowing tonight is the MLB home run derby, I decided we needed to have our own home run derby this afternoon. We headed up to Bay View Park, wiffle balls, batting tee and plastic bat ready for action.

We headed for the dusty (especially for Seattle standards) baseball diamond and I explained that we'd be using the rules the MLB Home Run Derby uses - you get 10 balls. If you hit a home run it's a point and anything less than a home run is an out, period. I drew a line in the dirt that would be our home run marker - an arc from the first base line to the third base line, a few feet in front of the pitcher's mound. The kids each hit two rounds and did pretty well, batting around a .500 home run ratio each time.Tonight, we had peanuts, Cracker Jack, garlic fries and Venezuelan hot dogs for dinner while we watched the real home run derby. Mmmm, nothing like ballpark food. :) And so much cheaper at home!

360 DEGREES OF COOL: I happened across a link today of a camera panning the entire 360 degrees of space shuttle Discovery's flight deck. It is definitely worth taking a look. My first thought upon viewing it is, "Geez, make sure you don't bump into anything!" So. Many. Buttons.

Speaking of Discovery, I have so many more photos of neat-o places Bee and CJ's names went touring 'round Cape Canaveral, as well as great shots of our shuttle cookies making the rounds. I think I'm going to compile an album and then post a link. In the meantime, here's a shot of them in the window of Discovery (their names are in the lower RH corner). How cool is THAT? :)

WEEKEND REWIND: We worked and played around the house most of the weekend, but Saturday evening we did venture out to the Ballard SeafoodFest. It's your typical street fair - food booths, artists and commercial vendor booths, a beer 'garden' (blacktop surrounded by chainlink). The kids enjoyed the jumbo slide (a whopping $3 a pop).They also partook of a Karate demonstration.DINE WITH THE ASTRONAUTS: I get several emails a day from NASA, and one of them pitched a fun idea - dining virtually with the astronauts of the last shuttle mission. Neat idea! Here are the details, from a NASA press release ...

NASA Invites Public To "Virtual Dinner" With Final Shuttle Crew
HOUSTON -- The public can share a virtual dinner with the final space shuttle crew on Thursday, July 14 by preparing grilled chicken, barbecue brisket, baked beans and southwestern corn at home using NASA's recipes.

Food scientists at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston prepared the special "All-American Meal" for the STS-135 shuttle crew, as the iconic American spacecraft makes its last voyage. The four shuttle astronauts, and possibly the six International Space Station crew members, are scheduled to eat the meal on the fifth day of the STS-135 mission.

"Since the mission is in July, we thought it would be fun to have a typical summer meal often enjoyed in our backyards with friends and family," said Michele Perchonok, NASA food scientist and manager of the shuttle food system.

For the special space recipes or "formulations" as they are called by NASA food scientists, plus more information, video and imagery, go to: All American Meal .