Amazing Day

KING-SIZED:  Yesterday was CJ's 12th birthday, and he had a fantastic day. 

He wanted to go to the Mariners' game for his special day, and we did it up right!

We got down to the stadium district plenty early, and scored an on street parking spot just a half a block away. AMAZING!  We killed a little time in a parking lot across the street from Safeco Field. There, big brother Kennedy gave the kids some lessons in bocce ball.

They played a little 'corn hole,' too.

Soon enough, it was time to head into the stadium.  It just so happened that yesterday was a day Mariners Kids Club members could apply to go on the field for batting practice before the game. CJ and Annabelle were lucky enough to get one of the coveted slots!

Boy, did they have big fun!

 They saw superstars like Robinson Cano and Nelson Cruz take some hacks at the ball.

And learned that Cano likes pink bubblegum. :)

They were thisclose to home plate!

 They spied Mariners' manager Lloyd McClendon on the field, chatting the the team trainer pre-game.

 And they saw third baseman Kyle Seager chatting with first baseman Logan Morrison. 

 And, of course, we couldn't forget Willie Bloomquist. 

After the Mariners finished BP, it was the Astros' turn. 

And while the Astros were cuing up, some of the Mariners' players came over and started signing autographs!!

Kennedy was thrilled to get his Opening Day King's Court shirt signed.

Mariners' closer Fernando Rodney was signing autographs, too.

 And he was kind enough to take a photo with the kids!

The Mariners' announcers were also on the field.  Here's Dave Sims ...

 And here are the kids with Rick Rizzs.

The game was entertaining, and close most of the way.

 But in the end, the Astros bested the Mariners, darn it.

However, CJ still declared the day the Best Birthday EVER.  Hard to argue with that. :)

PONDERING PRINTS: Now the proud owner of a vintage Polaroid camera (a birthday gift), CJ was curious this morning about how the Polaroid film works.

Fortunately, we were able to find a "How It's Made" video about The Impossible Project's production process for making Polaroid-compatible film. (That's the company we ordered film from for CJ's camera, incidentally.)
How It's Made takes us through how The Impossible Project manufactures its Instant Film for Polaroid cameras.

https://youtu.be/Vw4rttFGHiM

That led to us having a discussion about how photo prints are made in a darkroom.  Having spent many, many hours in the darkroom during junior high and high school, I explained the process to the kids, step by step, from retrieving the film from the camera to developing it so that you get your negatives, and then how you use a negative and an enlarger and photo paper to make a print. 

Later, we found a short video online that shows the process.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU4GZB7Xe6U


COLORFUL REMINDER: Tomorrow is Earth Day (although we all know that every day should be Earth Day).

NASA is asking people around our world to share photos and videos of their favorite places on Earth on social media – and tag them with the phrase #NoPlaceLikeHome.

You can read more about the event here: http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/on-earth-day-show-nasa-how-there-s-noplacelikehome