Easy Does It

TAKE 'ER EASY: We purposely 'underscheduled' today because I had planned on having to be home all day waiting for the Fed Ex truck to make a delivery that required my signature.

So, we started our morning by picking up the place, by working through a couple of math assignments and by reading down the stack, as I call it. (You know that's a sign that we have library due dates approaching.)

Imagine my pleasant surprise when the Fed Ex man knocked at the door 'round 10 a.m. bringing these ...

Sweet! Though the tickets are for a game I won't be attending, as a lifelong Pac 10 (well, now 12) football fan I still got a thrill out of just touching them. : ) Word to the wise - if you want to go to the Rose Bowl, hop right on the Tournament of Roses official site on or before the last day of the Pac 10, er 12, season. That's how I scored Christian face value tickets that I know are legit.

But back to our day. We did math and read a number of books, including "Stuff," a cautionary tale about hoarding, and we watched a "Reading Rainbow" episode featuring the book "Mama Don't Allow," a book by Thatcher Hurd. The show demonstrated how learning to play a new instrument can be fun, but it's not easy. The show included a visit to an alligator farm and an interview with a professional jazz saxophone.

The last book we read today was "My Hands Sing the Blues - Romane Bearden's Childhood Journey." The very first page featured a striking collage - appropriate, as collage is what made Bearden a famous artist.. I immediately thought, "We'll make some collages after we read this."

We hadn't hit page 3 before Annabelle chimed in, "Can we make collages when we're done reading this?"

Of course. :)

And so afterward, I spread out all sorts of things on our kitchen island (feathers, shells, stars, stickers, magazines, foam, felt, silk, satin, and more) and asked the kids to create some kind of scene. Annabelle went to town, creating a collage she called "Sun and Moon Share the Day."

CJ went to town - in his own way. He carefully selected a few items to cut out and combine (one character from the front of a parenting magazine and three coins from a National Geographic). He carefully cut a surprised shaped mouth on the character and placed the coins in its hands, as well as one on its hat, since there were three coins and only two hands. He glued it on a sparkly black background and titled it "The Legendary Coins."

As I hung the collages up on the kids' bedroom door, CJ said, "Sorry about the lack of creativity,"  sounding sincere, right before he bounded off to play Minecraft.

BOXING: I recently bought a new crockpot (since my old one has exposed wires hanging out its front). Annabelle was thrilled not so much by the crockpot but by the box it came in. She asked if she could have it (of course). She punched a couple holes in it and wriggled into it and waddled her way over to me, declaring "It's a tadpole costume. I just put my head in it. And my torso. And squeezed my arms in too. It's a giant killer tadpole. It's gigantic, and so it scares you."

She waddled over to the bathroom door, to wait for CJ to emerge, with high hopes of startling him. Happily, he was not scared to death. Unhappily, he was unimpressed. Back to the drawing board for Bee.

ZIPPER: This afternoon, after returning a whole stack of library books, we hit the Discovery Park playground. There, the kids enjoyed the zipline, running around, and some swinging.

HARD HAT AREA: Poor ol' Phobos-Grunt, the ill-fated Russian mission to send a probe to a moon of Mars, is still incommunicado in orbit. But not for long. For, you see, it's expected to start crashing down to Earth in parts, come Jan. 6 or so. Tass doesn't mince many words in their story outlining what's to come:  http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c154/299727.html

 
FRAMED: When we were leaving the kids' science class on Wednesday afternoon, I saw these words on a license plate holder: "Test your beliefs: Read, reason and research."

Writing Campaign

CONNECTING CLASSROOMS: Today, CJ and Annabelle signed up to participate in The Great Mail Race. 

Recently, the Shoreline school where they take classes received a letter from a fourth grade student, Ricardo, of San Francisco. Ricardo is participating in The Great Mail Race, a program started in the late 1980s by North Carolina school teacher Sarah Wiggins.

Wiggins started the program in hopes of improving writing skills and forging new worlds of experience. Ultimately, CeeJ and Bee's school is hoping to have students contact a class in all 50 states.

From Ricardo's letter we learned that he attends Cleveland Elementary and his school's mascot is the Peace Sign. How 'bout that?!

To participate, CJ and Annabelle were each asked to pick out a state. CJ said, "Las Vegas!" without hesitation. ;) We set him straight on the whole city/state thing. He ended up picking an elementary in Vegas - Berkeley L. Bunker Elementary, to be specific. Naturally, we were curious right off the bat whom the school was named after. Turns out Bunker was a senator from the Silver State. The elementary named after him is home of the Broncos, and based on their Web site, it looks like "Dare to Dream" might be their motto.  One thing that caught my eye on their site is there's a "Report a Bully" link right on the front page.

Annabelle chose Rhode Island straight away. Then, the city of Ashaway was selected, because it starts with an A, like her name. Ashaway is an unincorporated village that had just 589 households in the 2000 census. Ashaway has a single elementary school - the aptly named Ashaway Elementary. According to their school's Web site, their mascot is the cougar, and they're "Roaring with Pride and Ready to Learn!" Hopefully, they'll be roaring and ready to respond to Annabelle's inquiry.

The kids have to write a letter to a class at their assigned schools with a little info about themselves and their school, and encourage them to participate in the Great Mail Race.

After they got their packets of info, the kids each got to color their chosen state in on a U.S. map, and put a pin in the map where their city is.

MUST BE NICE: CJ was up late, Late, LATE last night. Past midnight. And then he was up before 6 a.m. today. Upon upping he remarked on his short sleep but then added, "You want to know the funny thing? My body doesn't feel any different even though I stayed up almost all night."

Must be nice.

SHORT STUFF: This blog post is going to be succinct. I have to finish the monthly reports for the kids' Shoreline school tonight. It takes me hours to do it, because I have to go back through a whole preceding month's worth of blog posts, taking notes about what we actually did for education for the month and then report on it, subject by subject. While it is a chore, it's well worth it - doing that is what allows the kids to participate in those classes and use that facility for free, which saves us hundreds of dollars a month.

Air Apparent

AIR EVERYWHERE: In science class today, the kids enjoyed learning more about air. Though you can't see it, it can provide resistance and pressure and it takes up space. Fascinating stuff!

To help illustrate these principles, the kids constructed parachutes and played around with them, noting how the air resistance is what works to keep things under the parachute from plummeting as quickly.

Please ignore the Crisco can on the counter behind CJ. Thank you.

In another experiment, the kids engaged in Hypodermic Wars! Just kidding. :) But seriously, they used a barrel and plunger (those are the technical terms, apparently), as well as some plastic tubing connected to another barrel and plunger to engage in some force air shenanigans. The plungers were a poppin'!

SANTA'S WORKSHOP: Somehow, the fact that this week is the kids' last classes before the holiday break escaped me - until about 6 this morning. So, what to do about spreading some seasons greetings? Whip up some more melting snowmen, I guess.

Our vintage oven and Kitchen Aid were both going to town before sunrise. We managed to get snowpeople families done for Bee's art teacher and the kids' science teacher in time. (In fact, I was accessorizing the snowpeeps in the school library while Annabelle was in art class.)

DECK HANDS: After dinner the kids and Christian resumed trying to get our decorations up. Geez. When/how did we acquire 13,812 ornaments? Seriously, we're nowhere near done.

While they decorated, I played catchup on the computer and served as DJ Xmas. This is one of the songs I served up was 12 Days of Christmas by "Straight No Chaser." We all loved it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fe11OlMiz8

FLASHBACK: Tonight KCTS (our Seattle PBS affiliate) aired some of the more memorable episodes of "The J.P. Patches Show." The program ran from 1958-1981 (amazing!). Though CJ and Annabelle never saw one of his television broadcasts before tonight, they know JP Patches from his action figures at Archie McPhee and some live performances around town. In fact, CJ and Annabelle were present for Patches' final public appearance, which took place on Sept. 17, at the Fishermen's Festival at the foot of our hill.

I was laughing harder at the show than the kids, for sure. My gawd, it looked to be hugely unscripted and was frenetic, a la SNL in the John Belushi years. Funny stuff.

It's wild to contemplate that Julius Pierpont Patches, the Mayor of the City Dump, predated the Space Needle, Starbucks, Microsoft, the Seahawks, Mariners and Sonics, grunge music, the 747 and so many more Seattle milestones.

Show Time!

SMALL STUFF: Because of all the fondant we make, we probably buy two- to three-hundred times more marshmallows than the average household annually. And since we're so frequently trolling the marshmallow aisle, we get to see the seasonal stuff they trot out from time to time. New to us this year are adorable little marshmallows shaped like gingerbread men. They even have a little ginger and cinnamon flavor to them.

I gave the kids a bag full of edible ink markers and asked them to decorate some of the puffly little things. CJ kept his design simple. Annabelle spent nearly an hour in all, giving each of her gingermallows a different look and a backstory.

SPLASHY: There was another splash test of NASA's 18,000-pound Orion space capsule today, so you know we were tuned in for it. Oh, how we do love watching a capsule make waves!

The test took pace at NASA's Langley Research Center, in the Hydro Impact Basin. Today marked the eighth and final test of the year.

Orion is slated to be the next deep space exploration vehicle, carrying astronauts into space and back.

In the video of the splash test you get to see three different angles. One is straight on, the other is from the side and the third and final view is the at-water level cam, which the kids love. When the capsule goes in, the wave it creates inundates the camera. Oh, how CJ and Annabelle love that. They squeal every time, meanwhile I'm telling them to hold their breath! ;)

We all got a kick of this photo NASA Langley's Media Team posted to Twitter ...

You can read lots more about Orion on NASA Langley's Hydro Impact Basin's pages: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/exploration/hib.html

HITTING THE BOARDS: Tonight was CJ's "Theater of Possibility" play. First, he had rehearsal for about 90 minutes, then there was a potluck for the families for about a half hour, followed by about 90 minutes of performance time. Here's a photo of him waiting in the wings. ...

CJ was one of the lead characters in the first of three mini plays presented tonight. His play was a drama about a boy named Tyler who is fixated on videogames to the expense of his schoolwork.  

CJ did a great job - he nailed all his lines, enunciated well and even acted a little. ;) I was proud of him.

He was pretty proud of himself, too. :) 

Annabelle got in on the act during some audience participation parts, so she was happy as a clam, too.

THERE IS ANOTHER: We read some breaking news on Spaceflight Now tonight. Looks like billionaire Paul Allen (formerly Microsoft, now of Trailblazers, EMP/SciFi Museum and Vulcan fame) is getting into the space business in a big way. He's teamed up with aircraft designer Burt Rutan, Elon Musk of SpaceX, and former NASA boss Mike Griffin. Under the name Stratolaunch, they're working together to develop an air-launch rocket system. It looks wild - and like it would work!

illustration credit: Stratolaunch Press Kit. Check out the video of the proposed craft: http://youtu.be/sh29Pm1Rrc0

It would use two jumbo aircraft the size of two 747s side by side to carry a liquid-fueled SpaceX booster rocket and capsule to 30,000 feet, where it would be deployed, firing hardware and burning fuel to launch humans and cargo into orbit.

It's exciting to watch this new era of spaceflight unfold. Maybe Buzz Aldrin is right. Back when we saw him at the Space Needle a few months ago, he predicted the commercialization of spaceflight would be like the barnstorming era of airplanes. Time will tell.

Sweet Weekend

BIRTHDAY GIRL: Saturday afternoon the kids had a birthday party to attend. CJ's BFF from kindergarten has turned 9 now. I'll admit that made me feel a bit old. Before you know it, they'll all be in high school.

One of the activities at the party was decorating either a gingerbread house or train. Annabelle opted for a train. Everyone else at the party went for the traditional house. 

CJ was one of the first decorators done. His design (below) was rather austere. Apparently he's a minimalist when it comes to architecture and landscaping. At one point I heard him explaining to the other kids at the table that some element of his design "is defying the laws of physics." Nice. :)

ROADIE: Right after the party, we hit I-5 southbound, for a special cookie delivery. It was an uneventful drive, and Kirby enjoyed having everyone in such close quarters. :)

We delivered about four dozen Christmas cookies to G&G in Vancouver. 

It was nice to see the cookies go to new homes. These snowmen were starting to look at me funny. ...

REHEARSAL: Today, a lot of our time and energy was spent having CJ run through his lines. His big "Theater of Possibility" finale is tomorrow evening, complete with a live show for friends and family.

I was pretty pleased with how well he knew his lines today. I think it probably helps that the character is so close to him (a young boy who would rather be playing video games than doing just about anything else).

Other educational endeavors included work in their new math books (reviewing place values mainly), and watching a video from the library. Last week when we were there, CJ implored me to check "What's in the Bible" out. So, I did. He asked to watch it today. So, we did.

I'm trying to think of some nice things to say about it. By VeggieTales® creator Phil Vischer, it was more current than I thought it would be. One of the puppets, sitting in the backseat of the family car, made a crack to his mom about Carrie Underwood and letting "Jesus, Take the Wheel."

I also appreciated that the video shared that the Bible's 66 (give or take, depending on your religion) books had 40 some writers, and that it was written over the course of 1,600 or so years. I think this kind of info about authorship and era is important when you're pondering the nature and historical accuracy of a document.

Oddly (IMHO), much of the DVD was narrated by puppet pirates. And cowboys. And a humorless old 'woman.' I guess the producers thought pirates, cowboys and humorless old women would appeal to kids. And since they've made mega bucks making Christian-centric videos for children, I definitely have to assume they are right. But to me, the pirates and cowboys just seemed odd choices for narrators of a Bible-themed presentation.

CJ gave up on the video rather quickly, declaring it a disappointment. Annabelle hung in there for about 40 minutes or so, until Christian and I pulled the plug at 5, since the Seahawks were on Monday Night Football. (Insert crack about our priorities here.) 

BEAUTIFICATION: We are *finally* getting some Christmas decorations up around here. Today, our beloved vintage aluminum tree went up. Annabelle enjoyed hanging baubles from its branches.