Friday!

OPEN WIDE:  Our day started off at the dentist for the kids. 

Fortunately, it's a happy visit for them. Their dentist office and staff (Lakeview Kids Dentistry) is terrific.  The kids love going there, in part because there are monitors on the ceiling so they can watch cartoons or movies. They each got good reports, as well as the standard 'floss more' directive.

From there, we were southbound, for our Friday Winco-in-Kent shopping trip, which is south and east of Seattle.

We were already east, and beautiful Lake Washington was visible from the dentist's office, so I thought we'd drive along it instead of the same ol' boring I-5 trip.

Honestly, I'd forgotten just how friggin' BIG Lake Washington is. It kept going and going and going. 

We made one stop along its shores - at petite Day Street Park.

It was pretty but LOUD, what with cars and trucks whizzing overhead, west to east and east to west over the I-90 Bridge.

There was some pretty impressive ivy growing up one of the supports under the brdige. 

After our stop, we kept heading south. And south. And south. The lake felt like an ocean. Turns out Lake Washington is the second biggest lake in state, after Lake Chelan, on the Olympic Peninsula.

FROM SCRATCH: This afternoon the kids worked on high tech Father's Day cards. Instead of putting Crayola to paper, they created little animated Scratch videos. 

Here's CJ's (if the embed doesn't work, follow THIS LINK: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/10866647/

 

Click on the green flag to launch it.  

And here's Annabelle's - http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/10866629/

EYES IN THE SKIES: No, I'm not talking about the NSA (though many other people have been this week, now, haven't they?). 

We run out onto or deck or into our yard regularly to catch a glimpse of the ISS flying overhead (if you've never done that, you really should. Repeatedly. Go to spotthestation.gov to sign up for email alerts when the ISS is headed your way).

Of course, if we can see them, they can see us. Thanks to the magic of the Internet, you can follow a life video feed from the ISS. 

At various times you'll see a map showing the ISS's path in orbit, internal shots of the station when the crew is on duty, exterior shots of the ISS, and Mission control communications. 

Two words of warning: 1) Be patient, the video can take a second or twenty to load initially and 2) there are 'loss of signal' periods, during which you'll see nothing other than a blue screen.
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/9408562



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