Lazy Day

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME: It happens once a year, just like clockwork. A birthday. Today was mine.

The kids made me cards. CJ's was sweet and entirely text based. Annabelle added a couple of self portraits. Loved its geeky sentiment :) "Nominal" is one of our favorite words, because that means everything's going right during a rocket launch!

I slept in a bit (until 8:30, the glory!) and we went for an hour-long walk in the fog. It was so thick, we couldn't even see Queen Anne from Magnolia - a rarity.

We wound our way around our neighborhood, and wound up at Ella Bailey Park (a/k/a "Hilltop play park" in our household).

While there, we noticed many a mushroom growing. In size and shape, these looked like little crab shells, just a couple inches or less across. I've never seen mushrooms like these before in all my many years in the Pac NW.

And the mushrooms photoed below had bumpy 'roofs.' I could totally picture gnomes living underneath them!

Anyone out there a mushroom expert? I'd love to know more about these. I just know they're not portobellos. ;)

WORKING IT: Early afternoon we spent some time on homework for our class, "Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Science Matter." Our tasks included figuring out which major macromolecule type is most abundant in each ingredient of the Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip recipe. Fascinating stuff, I tell you! We baked chocolate chip cookies tonight with a whole new appreciation of just how bad they are for us. :)

We also received our statement of accomplishments today from our completed Coursera class "From the Big Bang to Dark Energy." Not only did we pass the class that seemed impossible at many points, but we each earned certificates "with distinction" for getting over 90 percent cumulative, based on coursework and the final. Go MPA!

BRAIN GAME: I decided my fancy birthday dinner would be take and bake pizza. The place we were picking it up is located right by one of our favorite spots in Seattle, Chuck's, so of course we stopped in. 

There is a board game library there, and new to the shelf was the Cranium game. 

We gave it a good go for an hour and a half, while watching the Red Sox beat Detroit.  It's a fun hybrid of charades, Trivial Pursuit, Pictionary and more.

The game we were playing called for teams. We took a Boys v. Girls approach.

I was pretty happy when we played to a tie by the time we were ready to leave, however some people are highly competitive and don't take not winning very well, LOL!