Monday Fun Day

BANNER DAY: There are all sorts of fun ways Seattle Seahawks' fans are giving their team a Super Bowl send off. Pemco, a Seattle-based insurance company, had a 100-by-40 foot banner made. This week, it's going on a tour 'round Seattle, so fans can sign it. It will be flown over the stadium in New Jersey on game day. We just had to get our names on it!

We chose to try to rendezvous with it this afternoon, at the REI flagship store. We'd never been there before, so it was a good chance to go check it out.

It's just barely west of Interstate 5 between Mercer and Denny, near Thomas and Yale. As we made our way there, the area began to look *very* familiar. I noticed a familiar pea patch across the street. (Yes, even our scarecrows are all about the 'Hawks up here.)

 I told the kids, "This is where Grandma and Grandpa (Richstad's) church was.

We ended up parking right next to it.  So that was a big, happy bonus to our field trip!

We walked a block to the east, and arrived at REI.

It was quite the oasis sandwiched right next to the freeway in the city!

They had a fun photo opp out front ...

Inside, we just gawked (including gawking at really big price tags!)

The Seahawks' banner was outside the store.

The kids got their names on it in silver, and we add a few friends' names, too.

HARD LABOR: We spent most of the weekend in West Seattle working our collective a$$e$ off on Rick's house. Brutal manual labor, ripping off nearly two inches and 100 years of ugly awful floor coverings. Thousands of nails, hundreds and hundreds of pounds of terribleness.

Getting it out meant we had to rip all the lower cabinets out, too, of course. Very Not Fun.

But when we put them back, you could almost kind of picture a nice kitchen in the not too distant future. There's still a LOT of work to be done, though.

TOTALLY '80s: This afternoon, we took a much deserved hour or so break and played a board game. Rick chose Trivial Pursuit Totally 80s. I thought Christian and I could/should kill him at it, since he wasn't even born until halfway through the '80s, but nooooo. He pretty much destroyed us.

Part of my problem is apparently I didn't watch enough TV in the '80s. I didn't know the difference between "Dynasty" and "Falcon Crest."

Rick's game piece was a Trapper Keeper, LOL.

GROUNDED: CJ, Annabelle and Christian spent three hours today at a new local establishment that teaches ground school for aspiring and experiences pilots, Modern Pilot. I got them each a one hour introductory lesson there as a Christmas gift.

Unfortunately, Christian forgot to take any pictures. Or even One Single Picture (despite me yelling "TAKE PICTURES" out the window to them as they left).  They all tell me it was great fun and the software and flight simulation mock up was really cool.  We'll all have to take their words for it.

CJ and Annabelle report they 'only' crashed the simulator plane a couple of times. Christian said he was 100 percent crash free.  They're all hoping to continue their schooling. We'll have to chart a course to make that happen.