Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows

TRANSFORMED: Yesterday's big news was CJ's acquisition of a white fedora.

It fit him so well in more ways that one, and if we had my druthers, we would have left it as is. But CJ had other plans. Big rainbow colored plans, in fact.

If you read yesterday's post, you know CJ is Super Obsessed with a Rainbow Fedora in the game Roblox. And he wanted one of his own, in the real world. So this morning, we were at the craft store by 9 a.m., laying in proper supplies, including glitter. ...

We had to do a little color mixing once we got home.

 And some very careful painting. ...

After all the colors dried, the hat got a light shower of silver glitter all over. And in the end, CJ had a custom hat he was VERY happy with. 

In fact, he was so happy with it, he wore it to the grocery store - along with his My Little Pony shirt with Rainbow Dash on it. 

I'll just come out and say it. He pretty much looked like he was ready to grand marshal a gay pride parade. And that didn't bother me, and he was downright proud of how he looked, so who cares what other people think. I caught a few people gawking. I'm sure it was just because they're jealous THEY don't have a sparkling rainbow fedora.

HISTORY BUFFS: We're working on a little artsy-craftsy project that has to do with things that happened 50 years ago. There are no shortage of things to research and write about.

Today, we learned that it was Feb. 20, 1962 when astronaut John H. Glenn, Jr. became the first American to orbit the earth. Glenn named his spacecraft Friendship 7, but the mission was known officially as Mercury-Atlas 6, because it was the sixth Mercury launch to use a modified Atlas-D rocket. 

Glenn orbited Earth three times, with each orbit lasting 88 minutes and 29 seconds. The entire mission lasted 4 hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds before he splashed down in his capsule. In all, Glenn traveled a total of 75,679 miles. 

In '62, the space race was in full swing. While both the Soviets and Americans put men in orbit, but NASA was eyeing a much further target – an interplanetary encounter. Enter the Mariner space probe program. ...

On July 22, 1962, Mariner 1 was launched, its destination Venus. However, the rocket veered erratically off course almost immediately and was destroyed by the Range Safety Officer.

Bugs were worked out and the nearly identical Mariner 2 was launched on Aug. 27. The operation went flawlessly, and less than four months later (Dec. 12), Mariner 2 passed within 22,000 miles of Venus.

Launch of Mariner 2, 1962 - photo courtesy NASA

Mariner 2 recorded the temperature at Venus for the first time, discovering a hot atmosphere of 900 degrees Fahrenheit. Also, Mariner 2’s solar wind experiment measured for the first time the density, velocity, composition and variation over time of the solar wind.

Fifty years later, Mariner 2 is still out there, making lonely orbits around the sun.

Artist Illustration courtesy NASA

MOVIE REVIEW: The kids hit a movie with their brother Kennedy today. Together, the three took in ParaNorman. CJ started making noises about seeing it a couple of weeks ago, when promo ads began in heavy rotation on TV. I don't know much about it, other than it's animated and at least somewhat comedic.

When they got home, I asked the kids to write a review of it for me. 

Annabelle's take: Today I saw the movie ParaNorman and it was a very good movie. It was about a kid who had the ability to talk to the dead, and his name was Norman.

Norman was very unusual, and people don't believe he could really talk to ghosts.
But he could. Nobody knew that Norman could see the dead, or even talk to them.

I'm not trying to spoil anything, but there is a happy ending, you might giggle or cry a little, like I did. The movie was overall good and it had a balanced amount of comedy and horror. I went to my 3rd favorite theater, and so it was great for me.

CJ's take: Paranorman was a movie about a kid named Norman and his ability to speak to ghosts. In the beginning of the movie, Norman is watching a horror movie with his dead grandma. Norman is late for school. In school, Norman walks up to his locker with the word "freak" and his friend, Neil has the word "fatty" written on it by the school's bully, Alvin. later in school, Norman does a play with Neil about how in 1712 a witch was taken to court, and when she was found guilty, she was going to get hung, but she made the 7 accusers die a horrible and gruesome death. The school did the play to celebrate the 300th anniversary of it happening.

Clothes Horses

FASHION PLATE: This morning we went to the mall. Yes, you read it right. THE MALL. 

My least favorite place on the planet (and yes, that covers *any* mall). We went because Rick needed a shirt for an interview and CJ and Annabelle just *love* going to the mall.

We were sooooooo lucky. We parked by JCPenney and we practically walked right in to The Perfect Shirt. Hooray! Mission accomplished. I was ready to leave!! But I didn't want to deprive CeeJ and Bee of the Full Mall Experience, so that meant we had to check out the food court. On our way there, we walked by a display of summer hats, and there I spied a white fedora.

"Is this something you'd be interested in?" I asked CJ, knowing the answer in advance. 

He answered in the affirmative. 

Why his fascination with fedoras? It's rooted in Roblox - he and Annabelle's favorite online game/social networking site of the moment/month.  (In case you're wondering, 'What's Roblox?' according to their "About Us" page, it's "a leading user-generated gaming site that makes players the architects of their own 3D worlds, drawing over one billion page views and 21 million in-game hours each month. The site is ranked #1 in the US for total engagement time within the 8-14 year old segment.")

Christian and I find it fascinating that on Roblox, CJ is a complete fashionista. He changes his outfits, accessories, his hair, his smile and so on several times a day, often consulting one of us for our opinions on his options, whereas in real life he'll wear the same t-shirt 5 days in a row if we let him. 

On Roblox, there is a voluminous catalog of clothing and accessories players can buy, and for weeks now, CJ has had his eye on the coveted rainbow fedora 

Usually he uses his Robux (the money system on the site) to buy his wardrobe items, but some items are priced ridiculously high. For instance, the rainbow fedora is $11,500 Robux. That translates to about $100 Real World dollars. Which is, IMHO, ridiculous and I'm certainly not funding that. 

I will, however, fund a sharp looking real life fedora (just $15).  

CJ was thrilled with his fedora and wore it all day, even in the 95 degree heat. And now he has Big Plans for it. Tonight we bought fabric paint to transform it into a real life rainbow fedora. Stay tuned.

INTO THE WOODS: This afternoon, Rick had a job interview down in Kent, and the kids and I tagged along - no, not to the interview, but just to the general vicinity, as I looked it up on Mapquest and saw there was a good sized park next door. 

And so, CJ, Annabelle and I spent an hour plus in shady Scenic Hill Park. The kids played on a play structure with a little girl, whose mother was fresh from teaching fourth grade in Sweden. We had an interesting conversation about Sweden's school system. 

After the play ground, we struck out into the woods, at the "Pine Loop" trailhead. 

We were hiking blind, as there was no map of the trail. We had no idea how long it was, how many legs there were, or anything.

We took note of what was growing (lots of fern, cedar, pine trees, some blackberries, a crab apple tree or two, and more), as well as tons of creepy crawly things. (I've never seen so many ants in my life. They were literally crawling all over the trail by the thousands.) We noted holes in the ground that might be homes for field mice or maybe even snakes.

The kids were a bit concerned at not having a trail guide of any kind, and I couldn't blame them. I did tell them that we had a couple things going for us, though. One was we knew the area was bordered on the south by a school, and to the north was a community swimming pool. I told them as long as we could hear the shrieks of the swimmers, we could always find our way to civilization. 

After just a couple minutes of walking, and taking a path to the south, we happened upon an outdoor classroom. I bet teachers from Scenic Hill Elementary get good use out of the spot!

From there, we continued heading west, away from the parking lot where we started. We walked and walked and walked. And, the voices from the pool became fainter, and we encountered many a spider web across the trail. I asked the kids how the spider webs could help us navigate. They weren't sure. I told them that if we were breaking spider webs it meant a) we were the first people through the trail in awhile, and b) that also meant that clearly WE hadn't been on that path before. 

With no pool voices, the kids grew more nervous. I told them to do a 360-scan and see if they could see anywhere where it appeared the trees cleared. That could mean there's civilization/a building there. They spied a spot to the southwest, so we headed that way. 

However, civilization it wasn't. Instead, the clearing was a cliff. The world dropped away, revealing a pretty partial view of  a valley and some mountains in the distance. The kids weren't too into the view, tho. They'd hoped we'd find a parking lot, I think. :)

Undeterred, I asked them to continue along the cliff's edge for a bit, so we could take in the sights. We walked another couple of minutes and came to a clearing with a fabulous surprise. A tire swing in the middle of the forest! Woohoo!

By the looks of it, it was quite obviously not official Parks Department equipment, but we took our chances. ;)

The kids said they felt like they were swinging out over the edge of the cliff while on it. Cool!

After the swing, we started making our way back to the parking lot. We took a couple of wrong turns (the spider webs let us know!), but soon we heard the pool partiers' voices and before too long found our parking lot - at the exact same moment Rick was emerging. How's that for timing?!

Perfect Pitch

PHOTO: NASA

SPACE SCHOOL: In checking the handy-dandy this-day in history calendar I made at the beginning of the month, I was reminded that today marks the anniversary of the Hubble telescope taking deep space photos that let us know that Uranus has rings. 

So, we decided to learn a bit more about the planet. The first thing I did, of course, was find Hubble photos of Uranus. As you can see above, it’s beautiful!           

From a NASA Web site, we learned that Uranus was the first planet discovered by telescope – how ‘bout that! 

CJ wanted to know how Uranus got its name, so I thought I’d do a search for a video about the pale blue planet.  Lucky us, I found the discovery of the day – “Space School.” It’s a series of videos by the Science Channel (Discovery Channel/Discovery.com. We watched their short video with great interest and learned a lot. You can check out the Uranus video here: http://science.discovery.com/videos/space-school-uranus.html


Uranus is one of the gas giants - its surface isn't solid. However, its core is. In fact, it might be filled with diamonds, say some scientists. 

I asked the kids to each write five facts they learned about Uranus. Here's what they came up with. ... 

CJ: I just recently watched a video about Uranus. Uranus is not actually  blue, its atmosphere caused it to look  blue, because its atmosphere is blue. In 1881, Uranus was discovered by sir William Hershel when he was using his telescope. Uranus was named after the father of the Greek god Saturn. Uranus turns on a different direction because a asteroid hit it, causing it to turn in a different direction.The only thing NASA sent to Uranus was Voyager 2, which took 9 years to reach it. On Uranus, a day lasts 18 hours, and a season lasts 21 years.

Annabelle: Today I watched a video about Uranus. It had a few facts about Uranus and here are some of the facts. Uranus seems green-blue because we are not viewing its surface, but we are viewing it's atmosphere. There has only been one spacecraft to Uranus, and that spacecraft is Voyager 2. Uranus was discovered in 1781 by telescope. Imagine having a telescope that could see that far! Uranus is named after the Greek god, well, Uranus, the father of Saturn and master of disguise. Uranus is in a orbit on its side, we don't know how this happened, but scientists suspect it was a meteor. Days on Uranus last only 18 hours. Better do what you want to do quickly on Uranus!

ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER: This afternoon we read a picture book called "Light Up the Night." I'll admit, the red rocket on the cover was what drew us in initially.

Turns out the book was about a young child who starts out describing his universe as just that - the universe. Then with each subsequent page, his world (or continent or country or city or neighborhood and so on) got smaller, with the larger environments listed and re-listed in front of the smaller ones.

I told the kids that in structure, the story was somewhat like "there was an old lady who swallowed a fly" in reverse. In the old lady/fly story, the objects keep getting bigger.

I then challenged the kids to write their own sequencing-size story.

Here's Annabelle's:

There once was a monster who swallowed a gnat! I don't know why he swallowed the gnat. It'll make him fat!
There once was a monster who swallowed a spider. He swallowed the spider to catch the gnat. I don't know why he swallowed the gnat. It'll make him fat!
There once was a monster who swallowed a swallow. He swallowed the swallow to catch the spider, he swallowed spider to catch the gnat. I don't know why he swallowed the gnat. It'll make him fat!
There once was a monster who swallowed a cat. He swallowed the cat to catch the swallow, he swallowed the swallow to catch the spider, he swallowed the spider to catch the gnat. I don't know why he swallowed the gnat. It'll make him fat!
There once was a monster who swallowed a dog. He swallowed the dog to catch the cat, he swallowed the cat to catch the swallow, he swallowed the swallow to catch the gnat. I don't know why he swallowed the gnat. now he's fat.

And here's CJ's:

I live in the universe,
In the Milky Way galaxy.
I live in the universe, in the Milky Way galaxy, where the solar system is.
In the Milky Way galaxy, there is Earth.
I live in the universe, in the Milky Way galaxy, where the solar system is, in that is Earth.
In Earth, there is the West Coast.
I live in the universe, in the Milky Way galaxy, where the solar system is, where Earth is, where the West Coast is.
In the West Coast, there is America.
I live in the universe, where the Milky Way galaxy is, where the solar system is, where Earth is, where the West Coast is, where America is.
In America, there is North America.
I live in the universe, where the Milky Way galaxy is, where the solar system is, where Earth is, where the West Coast is, where America is, where North America is.
In North America, there is Washington.
I live in the universe, where the Milky Way galaxy is, where the solar system is, where Earth is, where the West Coast is, where America is, where North America is, where Washington is.
In Washington, there is Seattle.
I live in the universe, where the Milky Way galaxy is, where the solar system is, where Earth is, where the West Coast is, where America is, where North America is, where Washington is, where Seattle is.
In Seattle, there is my home.
I live in the universe, where the Milky Way galaxy is, where the solar system is, where earth is, where the west coast is, where America is, where North America is, where Washington is, where Seattle is, where my home is.

MR PERFECT: From our living rooms we watched a broadcast of sports history being made. This afternoon, Felix Hernandez pitched a PERFECT game for the Mariners. Nine complete innings. No walks. No runs. It had only been done 22 before in Major League Baseball history, and today was the first time ever a Mariners pitcher had done it. 

I have never seen a pitcher more on than Felix was today. He was definitely in a zone and it was something to behold.  Here's the last out (after a short commercial, no doubt ...)
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Puzzled

TARDY HARVEST: This afternoon we FINALLY plucked a half dozen cute lil carrots from the Root-Vue growing center. We started them from seeds way back in mid January and they've been living on our kitchen counter ever since then, if you can believe it. I have been dutifully watering them for seven months now! Funny how things become a part of the scenery.

THE WHOLE WORLD IN THEIR HANDS: During a trip to Target today, we scored a $1 Big Blue Marble puzzle from their bargain bins.

This afternoon, I instructed the kids to assemble it. I was surprised at how long it took them. I think part of the problem was that it was a circular puzzle and had a number of kind of unpredictable and odd shaped pieces. The other problem was that they were being lame. ;)

After about a hour, they managed to get our Earth in order.

It only took them two seconds to get the 'bonus' four-piece moon together.

PRETTY LEGOS: Annabelle had a gift card burning a hole in her wallet today, so we spent a little time perusing the toy aisles at Target. We were to about the last aisle when she spied her object of desire: A LEGO "Friends" set. It's a new product line from LEGO, with a tagline of "the beauty of building."

With lots of pink and violet bricks, all female characters (that aren't like the traditional blocky LEGO men) and building kids like a riding camp and a beauty shop, it's clearly targeting little girls.

As soon as he saw it, CJ started railing against it, muttering something about LEGO being sellouts and stereotyping girls and signing a petition against it and on and on.

I suggested he simmer down and told him I thought LEGO should be able to make any color LEGOs they want to, and that if it gets more girls playing with LEGOs, well that's probably not a bad thing.

And so Annabelle bought herself "Emma" in a poolside type scene.

Forgive Emma's listing to her left in the photo. It's just that her ice cream cone is so damn heavy.

Another Brick in the Wall

RITE OF PASSAGE: A piece of the kids' childhood is gone. It has been relocated about 300 feet to the west, to be exact. We passed along an outdoor climbing structure toy to a neighbor across the street.

If I'm not mistaken, we inherited the toy from my cousin John's family and it has served us well. But at least week's neighborhood barbecue, a 3-year old neighbor took up residence in it and her mother said to me, "If you ever want to get rid of that, let me know." 

I told her that mostly it was used for drying laundry at this point and that we'd happily pass it along to her. And so this morning, that's what we did (after I gave it a good cleaning and CeeJ and Bee gave it a goodbye).

CHILLY: This a.m., Christian worked on trying to get our beloved Honda (with its quarter million miles) to be cooler on the hot days. So what did he use in his battle? NASA TECHNOLOGY! Oooh baby!!!

I'm happy to report the CR-V is as cool as Atlantis in orbit. ;)

WATER WORLD: This afternoon we took the time to make a long-overdue connect with CJ's BFF from kindergarten at one of our favorite spots - the International Fountain at Seattle Center.

Here the three are, with CJ and Bee in the foreground. 

After an hour plus at the fountain, we walked over to a quieter spot at the center - a wading pool between Key Arena and the Vera Project.

INSULATED: This not-very-fun weekend Christian and I spent installing insulation in the addition. Totally not fun. Did I mention it was not fun? 

As I was cutting some foam board insulation for part of the wall in Annabelle's new bedroom, it somehow occurred to me that the material would make fun shields for the kids. So, I cut them each a shield.

Annabelle chose to decorate her shield with a double heart with a peace sign around it and four happy faces and four suns. Very non-warlike, if you asked me. :)

CJ chose to put a radioactive icon on his shield. "Anything that touches the front will melt."

That's more like it. 

HISTORICAL: A couple weeks back I took the time to do a 'this day in history calendar.' I have been referencing it, and tonight, after the fountain, as we were sitting at McMenamins for happy hour, it occurred to me that today was Berlin Wall construction day. 

And so we had a makeshift history lesson.

Fortunately, I was seated in West Berlin as I constructed the wall.