Back to It

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Here's one from the archives ... from our first week of Magnolia Prep, in September of 2009. My oh my, how things have changed! We now have a hardwood (not just plywood!) floor, there's a living room where that light wall behind them is, and the kids look SO much older now, don't they?

MAKE UP DAY:  We headed up to Shoreline today to catch up on some of the stuff we missed yesterday when we were at the Seahawks celebration.

I felt bad the kids missed school, since it's the ONE day a week they go. But I wasn't about to lie about where we were and what we were doing. In fact, I sent a photo of the kids at CenturyLink Field to the kids' science teacher. Apparently she put it up on the board during class, so they were there, in a way. ;)

The science teacher was kind enough to quickly but thoroughly go over what they'd missed in class, and tell them what they need to study for their unit final next week. They also got caught up on their Math Quest game.

Speaking of missing things, we missed the launch of a European Ariane 5 ECA rocket from French Guiana. However, NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio was watching and captured its trail with a camera. Pretty wild, watching a rocket launch from space. 

Meanwhile, on Mars, Curiosity has successfully made its way over the "Dingo Gap" sand dune on Mars. The photo below (rear view) shows the sandy soil it traversed.
                   
Using recent imagery from MSL, panoramacist Andre Bodrov has put together a super cool, interactive panoramic of the area. Check it out!

Mars Panorama - Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 530 in The World

REFLECTIONS:  I was so cold and tired last night, I did little more than share photos about the day. There are a couple of things worth mentioning.
- There were MANY times yesterday I regretted where I chose to have us sit because it was so darn cold. There were some seats that were in the sun for some of the day, but we didn't move. In retrospect, that's OK. There was a family in the seats in front of us, two parents, three kids. Daughters about 11 years and 3 months, and a son about 3. The parents were, shall we say, not very attentive to their kids' well being. For instance, the baby had on an adorable crocheted-in-Seahawks' colors headband, matching her mother's and her sister's, but NOTHING else on her little bald baby head. Did I mention it was 18 degrees where we were sitting? And the poor baby was in tights and a little cheerleader dress, poor thing. Her nose was redder than Rudolph's. And then there was the boy. He was understandably squirrely, and would stand up on his chair from time to time, which was super scary, because they were folding, movie theater type seats, and he'd stand back too far and the seat would start folding up and he'd start falling. The mother managed to notice ONCE, and told him in a half hearted way to stop, but she didn't watch him, so he'd be right back to doing it. So, it became MY job to be on high alert. And sure enough, at one point he stood too far back on his seat and he started to pitch forward. he was head first falling for the concrete when I said, "OH GOD!" lunged out of my chair (directly behind him, thank god) and grabbed him around the waist just before his skull hit the concrete. I held him in mid air for a moment, in shock. I'll never forget the look on the face of his older sister. She was just staring at me, slack jawed. I deposited the kid back on his seat, wordlessly. The mother had turned around at this point. Did she even say anything to me? No. She just lazily said to her son, "I told you not to stand on the seat." Meanwhile, the sister is still staring at me. Bottom line: I'm glad we sat where we did.

- Despite the fact that there were 700,000 to 800,000 people at the parade, there was no rioting, no widespread reports of untoward behavior. Fun was had by all. Congrats, Seattle, on a wonderful, community event.  Last night the town was still buzzing. We stopped at Full Tilt to get the kids ice cream (I know, like they hadn't been cold enough all day!) and the guy working the counter was an African American, with dredlocks and a doubly pierced nose. He asked if we had been to the parade, and we told him our story, and he told us about he and his friends riding their BMX bikes down to the parade all the way from Columbia City. That's dedication in the freezing temps! One of the things he brought up was what a unifying factor it was for the city. It was so much more than just a sporting event. It was about community and civic pride and connecting with your neighbors far and wide.Very true. And then this morning, there was a truck cruising our alley and it parked by our carport. I saw an elderly African American gentleman looking up at me in the house, so I went outside to see what was up. As it turned out, he was a scrapper, looking for recycling. But the first thing he said to me was, "Did you go to the parade yesterday?" And the two of us talked about how great it was for the city. Definitely one of those days where decades from now, people will be swapping stories about where they were and what they were doing during the celebration.