Working and Waiting

PUT TO THE TEST: This morning, we were very mainstream - up and at 'em early and hustling out the door for school just a few minutes after 8 a.m. Glad we don't have to do that every morning. :) 

We had to be up in Shoreline a bit after 9 for the kids to take the mandatory Measurement of Student Progress test for the state of Washington.  Today, they each took their grade level test for reading and math. 

Students pow-wowed in the library and then proceeded to the testing rooms, grouped by grade. 

CJ emerged about an hour and a half later, while Bee took two hours to come out. I was surprised it took her so long, really. However, she told me that she had finished early, but stayed in the room to read her book while another student was finishing up. She felt bad about leaving the girl in the room alone. I thought that was sweet. 

We went and grabbed the kids some lunch (pizza, pizza), and returned to campus to go for a half hour walk. We hit the trails in the woodsy area behind the school.

We saw all sorts of points of interest, including some cool shrooms.

And this crappy cell phone photo didn't do a good job capturing it, but we came across a distinctly crater shaped spot. 

It looked like it had been there for a long time, and we couldn't help but wonder what (or whom) created it.

We also encountered two tree trunks sticking up, completely denuded of bark and a good portion of the wood fiber beneath. This stand of woods is not a wetland at all - no beaver habitat whatsoever - so we had to surmise a human had done it.

Before too long, it was time for the kids to report for their afternoon (math) tests.  Annabelle was out in about an hour. CJ took about 90 minutes. 

Then, we were southbound. The kids have a new, 6-week session of 'social studio yoga' starting in West Seattle. We had a little time to kill, so we decided to stop downtown for a bit. Christian was summoned to jury duty this week, and we knew he was in a 'holding cell' waiting to be called as a potential juror. He had to report at 8:30 this morning, and by 3 p.m., when we got to downtown, he was still in a holding pattern. 

We decided to kill some time and hope he'd be released in time to go to West Seattle with us.

We stopped at Columbia Tower first, and killed a little time in the atrium of the city's tallest skyscraper. This is how they enjoyed the view, LOL. 

Next, we drove over right next to the courthouse on 5th Avenue and Yesler. In the photo, Yesler stretches toward the waterfront.

Out front of the courthouse, there was a huge steel sculpture. We searched the area for info about it or its artist but found nothing. 

At 85 feet high, it's pretty hard to miss. ... 

I poked around (more than I should have had to, IMHO) online tonight to find out about it. Turns out it's Songbird by John Henry.  Though the artist lives in Chattanooga, Tenn, now, his local history stretches all the way back to 1962, when he sold paintings outside the World's Fair on Seattle.