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?"

Down Yonder

PENDING: Sorry for the lack of report and photos for Aug. 4, 2011. We're on a field trip - to Vancouver, USA, for CeeJ and Bee's (and Rick's and Ken's) Grandpa's 70th bday.

We had fun today and I took photos, but I forgot my camera cord, so I can't share until tomorrow, sorry.

Yesterday Once More

WAY BACK WHEN: This afternoon we headed back to a spot of happy memories - Whittier Elementary, where CJ and Annabelle both went to preschool and had the awesome Miss Brooke as their teacher.

Not only did the kids enjoy the playground (that they were mostly too small to enjoy when they were students there), but Annabelle got to reconnect with a preschool pal. It was fun - we haven't seen him in two years, I think. Time flies.

Bee, CeeJ and the ol' school chum ran around the playground (they had the place to themselves), and when they got too hot, Bee and her bud sat down and had a protracted Pokemon play session. Good times!

MARSHMALLOW MADNESS: The kid had lots of leftover marshmallows from their camping trip. They were just calling out from the cupboard, "Come make fondant out of us!" And so, we did.

We employed some awesome Star Wars cookie cutters and made the cookies.Then, we made the fondant frosting tops. We broke a few rules (who says Darth Vader HAS to be black?). Of course, the most fun part is adding detail to the fondant.

IN OTHER NEWS: This morning, the Sponge Bob episode featuring the catchy dance tune "The Sponge" was on. CJ felt compelled to get up and do his spongy best.CASPAR: I haven't mentioned in way too long how much we enjoy Caspar Babypants music. The band is fronted by Chris Ballew, who's also the lead of the Presidents of the United States of America, which was a favorite band of Rick, Kennedy's and mine back in the day.
We were listening to Caspar in the car this afternoon, and when we got home, Annabelle crafted this Drum ALONG!!!!!! out of the CD cover, some masking tape, a Popsicle stick and craft foam. I think Caspar/Chris would approve. :)

Berry Good Times

BACK IN BLACK: We went on a short walk around the neighborhood today and what did we see? Some ripe blackberries on the bushes lining our alley! There weren't many - maybe half a dozen total - but it's a start, and we know there will be plenty more where that came from.CJ and Annabelle happily picked and ate all the ones that looked ripe.

HYPERBOLE HILARITY: CJ and Annabelle each had about two hours of free reading time this morning. They were both reading what might be their favorite blog (other than this one, of course - ha ha), "Hyperbole and a Half." It's hysterical. I think their favorite story is "The God of Cake," which is about a very determined four-year-old's hilarious campaign to get to the cake her mother had made for her grandpa's 73rd birthday. While reading it, CJ and Bee were both laughing so hard they were snorting.

MEASURING UP: Out of nowhere this morning, CJ says, "I wonder how my swimming is compared to Michael Phelps. ..." I told him that Phelps could arguably be called the best swimmer in the world right now. At that CJ noted, "Well, one thing is he doesn't need a life jacket. That's a point over me."

HAPPY CAMPERS: As promised, I'm finally posting some photos from the kids' recent camping adventure. As you will see, water figured largely into their activities. :)

To answer your question, no they didn't catch anything. ;)

They enjoyed time on a boat ... ... (here's CJ with a couple of his cousins) ...
... and they had tons o' fun being towed behind a boat on a biscuit/tube!
I'm told that CJ insisted that he was NOT going to ride the biscuit/tube, and told anyone within earshot. However, once he saw Annabelle and their cousin Ben having so much fun, he rethought his position. And what's better than a picture of that action? Why, a moving picture, to be sure!

(http://youtu.be/2YJJytniGdw)

(http://youtu.be/c33tNhR-P5I)

Buzzed

ASTRONAUT IN THE A.M.: So, I'm reading news online this morning and on King 5's Web site I see a headline that certainly caught my attention. It read: "Space Needle announces contest to send person into space."

Win a SPACE FLIGHT!? Eep! But wait, it gets better - I read on and see that Buzz-freaking-Aldrin, pilot of the Apollo 11 lunar landing module and second man on the moon, was going to be at the Space Needle at 10:30 a.m. to help announce the contest.

That was all it took to light a fire under our backsides. It was 9:30 at the time, and we scrambled and were in the car by 9:45. We got lucky on parking and walked up to the Needle by 10 ... to hear Buzz ALREADY TALKING. Great, clearly the news report had gotten the time wrong. Good news is he had *just* started and we hardly missed a thing. Since there wasn't much pre-publicity (and some of what there was was wrong) we were one of just a handful of non-press people there, so we got to stand right next to the velvet rope, stage right and listen to Aldrin talk about the history and future of flight. A NICE way to start a Monday, I'd say.
His story of landing on the moon - with just 15 seconds of fuel left - was the most compelling part, IMHO. I have a tiny snipped of his speech (poorly filmed, might I add) on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyJR45scD3Y
Unfortunately, Buzz didn't do an official meet and greet with the public. The (very nice) security man told us that doesn't happen much anymore since stupid moon landing disbeliever Bart Sibrel and Buzz had a (very one sided) altercation a couple years back (that's one small punch for man, one big right jab for mankind!).

But after all the speeches were over, and Buzz gave some radio interviews, one of the security detail pointed out the kids to him and he turned around and smiled and waved right at CJ and Annabelle and gave them a thumbs up at a distance of less than 10 feet, so that was their astronaut encounter for the day. :) During Buzz's speech, a man was dangling from the Space Needle unfurling a banner.Not surprisingly, the banner was an advertisement for the Space Race 2012 contest.

Naturally, after the astronaut encounter, the kids had to visit the fountain. It was nice - they practically had the place to themselves!SUPER DUPER: While the kids were away on their camping adventure, they got a special delivery - a box from Japan containing a (insert choir of angels singing here) Super Famicom system! This game console was released by Nintendo in Japan on Wednesday, November 21, 1990. (The U.S. equivalent is the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.)

The console looked to be in good order, but it didn't come with an RF (radio frequency) adapter or power supply. We were told by the Japanese seller the Super NES RF adapter we have should work with it and that we could find a power supply for it at Radio Shack.

Unfortunately, neither of those things turned out to be true. But five stores and a little MacGyvering later, BINGO! It's alive!!! CJ and Annabelle were so darn happy (and so were Christian and I, of course).
The console came with three games, including all Japanese versions of Donkey Kong 3 and Star Fox, so CJ is in import gamer heaven right now.DISCOVERY OF THE DAY: A cool Web site where you can download high-resolution NASA related posters. I love the one for STS-132 - "our" Atlantis flight! Love it that they're mixing two of my favorite things - baseball and the space program. And how clever they're with the Astros! :)

FAIRY DUST: Annabelle FINALLY lost her upper right tooth - a year and a day after CJ lost his upper right tooth. (I know this because I came across a photo of CJ's loss during the Great Archive Project this past weekend.)

Annabelle was eager for the Tooth Fairy to come, but not so thrilled with the Tooth Fairy taking her pearly white away. I told Annabelle the Tooth Fairy probably has plenty of teeth and suggested she leave a note requesting her tooth be left behind. So she did just that and whipped one out in about two minutes.

I love her illustration to go with the note - it shows her (gap in teeth) laying in bed, with CJ in his bed next to her, and the Tooth Fairy (with her tooth topped wand) standing over them, reading a note. Too cute!OVERHEARD: Today, between one of our five stops on the Great Super Famicom Mission, CJ and Annabelle were playing in the backseat. Their play involved them each being a character of some sort and lots of dialogue. At one point CJ said to Annabelle, "I don't know where you're going with this."

AND OBVIOUSLY: The family made it home from camping in one piece. :) By all accounts, they had a grand time. Hopefully tomorrow's blog will include some photos/video of their adventure.