Wonderful WiiKend

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR LANDMARK: On Saturday, we headed down to Seattle Center to revel in the Space Needle's 50th birthday celebration. There were promises of free rides, food and fun and they made good on those promises!

We headed to the funway, just north of the Space Needle. There, the kids took on the challenge of a neat-o ropes course. It was a little bit sketchy for them in a couple of spots, but they soldiered through, victorious!

They also rode a swing at the base of the Needle. Talk about a ride with a view!

And Elvis was on hand to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his filming "It Happened at the World's Fair" in Seattle. 

The kids also enjoyed some luscious cupcakes in the cupcake competition tent. (Bananas Foster is pictured below. I'm assured by CeeJ and Bee my banana cake is better. ;) )

And they had fun doing some art projects  and physical contests (a sack race and a tug of war) on the Mural lawn.

SUNDAY FUNDAY: Sundays are usually pretty low key around MPA, but this was no ordinary Sunday. A few weeks ago in one of the many Nintendo related emails I receive, we got notice about a preview of the Wii U console, which is set to be released around the holiday season. I thought CJ and Annabelle might be interested (har har!), so I signed them (and Christian) up.

Friday we got notice they were to show up at an event space on Capitol Hill from 1 p.m. to 2: 30 p.m. They were there early and left late and had a great time.

CJ had been counting down the days until his "Wii U Experience and when Sunday morning came, he was raring to go." Annabelle was stoked, too. 

 The kids test drove several upcoming titles, including Just Dance 4, New Super Mario Bros. U, Game-n-Wario, SiNG (a karaoke game), Wii Fit U Trampoline Target and Luigi's Ghost Mansion. They loved them all.

Though being Mario's brother is a full time job, Luigi had enough time to stop and pose with the kids. 

And here CeeJ and Bee are doing their best Mario impersonations - that is, before they ate the chocolate moustaches!

Here's what the kids had to say about the experience. Annabelle is first. ...

Yesterday I went to the Wii U experience, and the games there were very fun. these games included Luigi's Ghost Mansion, Game & Wario, Just Dance 4 (never gonna give you up!) and Super Mario Bros. U. all of these games included the Wii U tablet and used them in different ways as controlling a ghost, selecting a song/level, etc. etc.

The Wii U experience provided cookies draped in fondant, and drinks like berry lemonade. We had our picture taken with Luigi, got chocolate mustaches (yum!) and played lots of games. The games were very addicting, I mostly like Super Mario Bros. U because it was like New Super Mario Bros. Wii, but had baby Yoshis(yay!)!
Over all, i would give it a 10/10, i was very good an

And the cookies (and chocolate mustaches!) tasted very good, the berry lemonade too. The Wii U experience was crowded, but still fun. They had contests and trivia, both very fun. Like I said before, I give it a 10/10.

And CJ weighs in ...

I went to the Wii U Experience yesterday. There were lots of great demos, like Nintendo land, and Just Dance 4. There were foods too, such as the cookies, the water bottles, the lemon juice, and the chocolate mustache. For some weird reason, unrelated to the event, there was a Nintendo 3DS that was in the middle of the room, with New super Mario Bros. U in the 3DS, but it was still fun. Also, there was Just Dance 4, which had Never Going to Give You Up by Rick Astley, ( Is Ubisoft rickrolling us?) Rock lobster, and Moves like Jagger. Overall, I think that the trip deserves a 10/10 for the fun games, and the different use of the gamepad for every game.

THEY SEE ME ROLLIN': A great image from the Martian surface popped up in my Facebook feed this morning from several sources. It's Curiosity's three left wheels (complete with their 'JPL'-in-Morse code tread). The shot below is a combination of two images that were taken by the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) during the 34th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars (Sept. 9, 2012). In the distance, beyond the middle wheel, is the lower slope of Mount Sharp, the rover's eventual target.  
                           

The MAHLI camera is located in the turret of tools at the end of Curiosity's robotic arm. The main purpose of MAHLI is to acquire close-up, high-resolution views of rocks and soil at the rover's Gale Crater field site. The camera can focus on targets ranging from a distance of about 0.8 inch (2.1 centimeters) to infinity.