MORE MANIPULATING: We continued our fun with Photoshop project today. The only composite we completed was "Buzzes" - a famous NASA stock shot of Buzz Aldrin on the moon, but CJ and Annabelle introduced Buzz Lightyear into the equation. Good fun.

We took a photo of Buzz Lightyear, knocked the background out and then moved him over to join Aldrin on the moon. As soon as Buzz Lightyear had landed CJ said, "He needs a shadow!" I was impressed by that eye for detail. So the kids learned how to 'borrow' Aldrin's shadow and attach it to Lightyear's feet.

CHECK UP: Today we finally took the time to check on the carrot seeds we planted more than a week ago in our Root-Vue planter. And, guess what ... we've got signs of life! Lots of 'em, in fact. Around a dozen sprouts were to be found!

We're looking forward to seeing what develops. Stay tuned!

GLOWING ORB: This burning orange disk hung in the blue sky today. We came to recognize it as the sun. Hooray! We had to honor its rare appearance by going up to "hilltop playpark" (Ella Bailey Park). There, the kids rode their scooters, Kirby was a freak on a leash, and fun was had by all.

Here, CJ enjoys a sparkling view of Elliott Bay and Mt. Rainier as he rolls 'round the park.

ROCK ME, AMADEUS: Thanks to a Twitter post from a math teacher, I became aware that today is Mozart's birthday.

Given that, we had to focus some time and attention on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart this morning. We started by watching a BrainPOP video on the classical composer. From it, the kids learned about Mozart's childhood (he was a musical savant on tour for most of his youth). We learned about his work (oer 600 compositions - symphonies, sonatas, operas and more), and his life (including his marriage to Constance, with whom he had six children, only two of whom survived to adulthood).

We listened to "Eine Kleine Nachtmusic" (a VERY cool visual representation of the song is embedded in the link in the title preceding), as well as Requiem in D minor, Mozart's last composition before he died at age in 35. (In fact, Mozart didn't live to finish it - another composer put the final touches on it.)

One other thing I learned today: The composer's baptismal name was Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart.

SAD DAYS: The 27th of January marks the first of three somber remembrances in one week. Forty-five years ago today in 1967 the astronauts of Apollo 1, Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee, and Ed White were killed on the launch pad in a horrific fire. Together, we read a very well written Scientific American story on the loss.

I walked on that pad - in their footsteps - back in November. While it's also the scene of great triumph (gloriously successful moon missions), for me, the sadness was what was smothering there. Likely the fact that the launch pad is so dilapidated, forlorn and neglected looking today contributes to that melancholy.

Off in a quiet corner, away from the pad, I spied these three benches, engraved with the fallen astronauts' names.

The risks of the mission weren't lost on those three, as evidenced by this 'joke' photo they staged for their supervisors.

As sad as the anniversary is, I was "glad" to see that Apollo 1 was at the top of today's Yahoo! searches. Gone, but not forgotten.

Jan. 28 will mark the anniversary of the shuttle Challenger disaster, while Columbia was lost on Feb. 1.

A historically awful week for the American space flight program, to be sure.

Shopping

MANIPULATION: The kids have a show and tell type night at their north end school next week. For the two event last year, they made some Yoshi statues and wrote and illustrated some really great books ("Gingy and the Windy Day" and "Lolly Learns a Lesson").

This go 'round we kept it simpler. They are just doing a 'Fun with Photoshop' display. They had a couple of things they've created in the past to show - including this cute composite Annabelle did of her Pillow Pet bumblebee and some flowers - which we'll be using.

But most of what will be displayed is brand spanking new. Not surprisingly, most of today's creations were inspired by video games. Perhaps you noticed Donkey Kong atop the Space Needle leading today's blog post? In the first version the kids were working on, they were using an animated DK image they found online, but none of us liked the way that looked, so we ended up doing a photo shoot of a stuffed DK toy they have. Annabelle posed the toy around one of our kitchen lamps.

Then, CJ had to eliminate Annabelle (sorry, Sis!) and the rest of the background, isolating DK, and move him over onto a stock Space Needle shot we had.  

During all of our Photoshopping, the kids used either a track-ball or a Bamboo tablet. CJ MUCH preferred the track-ball. The pen and tablet gave him fits.

Once Donkey Kong was done, we worked through a number of other photos, including this 8-bit dog from the first video game Rick and Ken ever played: "Duck Hunt." Instead of being in an 8-bit field like he is in the game, CJ inserted him into a real world field.

We also had some fun with one of CJ's favorite Internet memes - the Troll Face. CJ found a face that was a big enough file, then we found a Fremont Troll photo that would work.

CJ isolated the Troll face and put it on the Fremont Troll, but it just didn't look cohesive enough. I suggested CJ experiment with some of Photoshop's filters to make the two images fit together better. He settled on a "Stamp" filter that was bold black and white, like the Troll face, and fiddled with the settings a bit to make it acceptable to him.

And last but not least, ever since we saw a silly sign outside a pet shop saying something about "Raiders of the Lost Bark" CJ has wanted to do a composite of Kirby on that movie poster. Well today was the day!

CJ was the one who thought to change the headline on the poster. Before his work, it read "Indiana Jones - the new hero from the creators of JAWS and STAR WARS."

CLASSY: The kids had music this morning. We always get there a few minutes early so they can play around on the instruments.

In LEGO class, CJ continued to work through a kit that's actually a collection of projects (building small animals ranging from a fish to a seahorse and more), while Annabelle put the finishing touches on her rescue helicopter. 

Before class, the kids had a half hour of fun in the gym, where they played prison ball (sounds fun, eh? It's every-man-for-himself dodgeball) and scooted around on square skateboards. Good times!

Measuring Up

BABY IT'S COLD OUTSIDE: After a one-week absence due to snow and ice, we were back to the kids' classes up north today. Specifically art for Annabelle and then science for both of them.

The weather unit continues in science class. Today, each student got a thermometer, and they were able to experiment with them in warm water, ice water and room temperature water. I was happy that the lesson centered on measurements on the celcius scale. 0 = freezing - how easy is that to remember? That, and it's what the overwhelming majority of the rest of the world uses.

The kids each got to make their own thermometers, coloring different zones to delineate temperatures and the 'mercury' was represented by red construction paper.

Toward the end of science class, the Worst Shriek You Ever heard blared. Based on my decades of experience, I knew it to be a fire alarm. ;) CJ and Annabelle, bless their homeschooled little hearts, thought it was Armageddeon.

We all trudged out side as I explained to them it was a fire drill. Nothing to see here - just an exercise to make sure people know how to safely vacate a building.

It was a longish drill, tho, during which the littlest kids in their class really started shivering in their t-shirts in 40-something degree weather.

I was thinking the 'all clear' sound was way overdue about when I heard the sirens in the distance. Their wail grew closer - a fact that wasn't lost on the kids. I pointed out to CeeJ and Bee that we didn't see or smell any smoke and the school *probably* wasn't on fire. Of course, me being me, at that point I also felt compelled to share with them the fact that once when I was about their age, we had a fire drill and, I'll be damned, turned out the school WAS on fire thanks to cafeteria ladies out of control. ...

Fortunately, in today's case, the alarm was tripped by a preschooler who found the red box on the wall just too enticing.

Meanwhile, back to science class. I have to give MAJOR PROPS to the kids' science teacher. While we were outside wondering and freezing, she gathered the kids around and continued to teach. After all, the unit we were working on was weather, and we were out in it. She had the students scan the skies and note the various types of clouds. Fortunately, cirrus, stratus and cumulus clouds were all visible at that time.

When we finally got the all clear signal, we went in and continued the lesson on clouds, happy to be inside and warm.

Visiting Hours

BACK AT IT: We were back at the hospital in Clackamas a little before 8 this morning. It's quiet around there then. We beat the rest of the family there by a bit, so we continued the Monopoly game which was left untouched in our absence (a fact that made the kids very happy).

This morning, the kids started piling houses and hotels on their properties, which is when the game starts to get brutal.

We all visited with Gma around 8:30 a.m. Annabelle was happy to present more artwork for Gma's gallery (all of which was Annabelle's artwork). Bee was especially proud of a colored pair of elephants.

After our early a.m. visit, we went back to the hotel, the kids had a swim and we checked out by 10:30.

BACK TO THE BOARD: After checking out, it was back to the hospital for some unfinished business. The kids dove right back into the Monopoly game. Poor Uncle Jim, who had miserable luck rolling the dice, was bankrupt first. I went broke not too long thereafter, so it was down to just CJ and Annabelle.

They duked it out, but finally CJ landed on a property that Annabelle put a hotel on and we declared it a game, as his cash was wiped out and nearly all his properties had to be mortgaged.

The real estate bubble burst, it was time to hit the road. And what a miserable trip north it was. Windy and so, SO wet - raining sideways (right toward the windshield) a good part of the trip.

I knew we needed gas and some lunch for the kids, so I told them we could stop in Lacey (just north of Olympia) at a restaurant called Izzy's. I told them we all used to go there semi-regularly when we were commuting between Seattle and Vancouver before making the final move to Seattle. We stopped there, because Rick was in college in Oly at the time and it was a good place for us all to meet. CJ and Annabelle had no recollection of the place but when I explained to them it was a place you could go down a line and pick any kind of food you like, they got very excited. "That sounds like at a party!" Annabelle exclaimed.

Indeed, they were in heaven at Izzy's. Annabelle got to have fried chicken, mac and cheese, jo jos and pizza all on one plate. CJ had spaghetti, chicken and pizza. I had cautioned them ahead of time they should take tiny portions because they didn't want to be piggy, get too full and/or throw away food. Also, if they weren't full, dessert was an option. They were all over that, going very light on the lunch and wasting nothing. I was pleased with them. :)

For dessert they each had a steaming hot lil lava chocolate cake with a dollop of ice cream on top. They both declared Izzy's The Best Restaurant Ever. So, at least that part of our trip was good.

During the drive, Annabelle and CJ read several articles in Science News. CJ focused on ones about fossils and minerals, while Annabelle was less discriminating, reading everything. CJ also used my phone to do some research on the Great Star of Africa. He asked me about it and I told him I knew it to be a really big diamond but that was about the extent of my knowledge.

We found out that it's also called the Cullinan Diamond, that it was discovered in 1905 by miner Thomas Evan Powell in the Premier Diamond Mining Company site in Cullinan, South Africa. It weighed in at 530.4 carats. It is now in the possession of the British monarchy, one of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom.

The nine largest pieces of the Cullinan diamond (after it was split) are pictured above.

BACK OUT: We were home about 30 minutes before it was time to pile back into the car (ick) and head to the University District for the first meeting of CJ's second session of acting class. He was happy to see his 'old' friends and afterward he declared the class "GREAT!"

On the Road Again

WATER WORLD: Another weekend, another road trip. This time, it was a trip down to Clackamas, Ore. (which is where you'll see a not-so-angry Angry Bird and pig resting comfortably above). Clackamas is not your typical tourist destination but since Grandma R was going to be hanging out at a hospital for a few days there, we wanted to be in the vicinity. So we packed up and headed out.

We hadn't planned on leaving until later in the day Sunday, but for whatever reason, on Sunday a.m. I remembered that Clackamas is home to the North Clackamas Aquatic Park - which is a pretty darn nice indoor water attraction. There's a big wave pool, three big slides, a fountain, a diving board and more. It's not exactly Great Wolf Lodge, but at only $5 or so apiece for the kids, it's a screaming deal (as opposed to GWL, which is a couple hundred bucks for the family to get in on the action there). 

The kids enjoyed about three hours of action there before we checked into our hotel and enjoyed the pool there, as well. :)

WAITING ROOM: We logged a good number of hours in hospital waiting rooms on Monday. Fortunately, the spaces were comfortable, if not downright inviting. In the second waiting room we hung out in, there was a nice selection of board games. First the kids played Candy Land with Uncle Jim. (CJ won handily.) 

Next up was Monopoly. I'd forgotten what a great game that is for teaching math (all that adding and subtracting involved with buying properties, paying taxes and fines, calculating rents and such). We didn't have time to finish the game today. We're hoping it's still sitting right where and how we left it when we return to the hospital in the a.m.

YEAR OF THE DRAGON: On Saturday afternoon on a whim, we decided to attend the Tet festival at the Seattle Center. I saw some photos SC had posted on its Facebook page of a morning Dragon dance complete with a gazillion firecrackers and just knew the kids would totally dig it, so we headed town there for the 4:00 p.m. Lion dance and firecrackers.

It was frigid, with ice and snow still covering the ground. Fortunately, though, it wasn't raining or snowing. There were a couple hundred people in attendance, the vast majority of Asian heritage. A little after four the drum beat began and a couple of lions and a colorfully masked man began dancing around.

Just a couple minutes into their dance, the string of thousands upon thousands of firecrackers was lit and it was a nearly deafening, explosive display. CJ was jumping up and down with glee. :) If you look at this photo, you can see all the spent red shells.

While standing at the plaza where the celebration took place, I spied the Space Needle from a vantage point I'd not before seen it. It amazes me, every time we go to Seattle Center, I see the Space Needle in a new way.