EVE ACTIVITY: Poor Annabelle is ailing, and so we've tried to keep things pretty low key, but the morning of Christmas Eve we did strike out for a couple of hours of holiday fun.
Our first stop was Seattle Center, to catch a monorail ride! We were first in line, and so CJ headed right to the front seat, next to the driver. A bit later, a little boy and his dad showed up, and the little boy started crying, even though Annabelle gave up her front row seat so he could sit there. Turns out the little boy can apparently *only* sit next to the driver.
CJ, being the kind hearted kid he is, readily switched places with him. Part of me thinks that's really nice. The other part of me thinks the little boy needs to learn he doesn't always get everything he wants. ...
We took the short ride to Westlake, downtown. The shopping district definitely had its holiday glow about it.
But we weren't there to shop! We were there to catch a ride on the merry-go-round.
The carousel is temporarily located in a year-round plaza. The park has a permanent ping pong table! The kids gave it a go for a chilly minute or two.
From there, we walked a couple of blocks to the Sheraton, where the annual Gingerbread Village art competition is on display. This year's theme was "May the Holidays Be With You" - better known as Star Wars!!!! There were six separate displays, each one inspired by the first six Star Wars movies. The first one we encountered was from Episode IV, which we all know as the original Star Wars movie, from 1977.
Loved the nearly 'life' sized R2 unit, and the fondant characters on a cruiser were pretty well done, IMHO,
The "Empire Strikes Back" themed display featured a Han in 'carbonite' as its 'wow' piece. It was probably a good four feet high.
There was also a colorful, nearly ceiling-high rotating feature (that quit rotating while we were waiting in line).
And I suppose it wouldn't be an "Empire" art piece without having the infamous Jabba the Hut and Leia in a bikini scene. This feature rotated the whole time we were there. :)
The jungle planet from "Return of the Jedi" had lovely colors.
A tiny Han and Chewie scene was super cute.
Though we like to try to forget episodes 1-3 exist, they were acknowledged in gingerbread. The Phantom Menace display had some pretty columnar buildings ...
and a big droid army.
Episode 2, "Attack of the Clones" had a marvelous likeness of actor Ewan McGregor
Up top Count Dooku duked it out, and underneath, there was a cute little scene with Yoda.
Episode 3's display had a space-y looking globe.
Here are a few bonus shots from the scenes. Loved these AT-ATs!
But we thought Luke's legs looked a little wonky on this one.
The ice planet Hoth looked pretty cool in more ways than one!
There were Jawas, of course!
There was a little pod racing action.
We loved the Bith from the Cantina scene!
After the sweet show, we caught the monorail back to Seattle Center and checked out the model railroad display in the Center House (or the Armory, as it's now called).
Love the attention to detail in their little city.
Later, back home, we gathered 'round the telly to start a terrible holiday tradition ...
We found a copy of it on YouTube (there are many) and Chromecast it to the big screen ... and then sat back and recoiled in horror.
That's probably an understatement. Star Wars creator George Lucas had minimal involvement in the production (his name does not appear in the credits). Of it, he reportedly said, "If I had the time and a sledgehammer, I would track down every copy of that show and smash it."
TWENTY FIFTH: Santa came to our place overnight, much to the delight of CJ and Annabelle.
CJ was happy to have a new nutcracker for his burgeoning collection!
And the kids were pretty surprised to see a Book of Mormon under the tree ... until they realized it contained tickets to see the show at the Paramount in a week or so.
All in all a quiet, pleasant Christmas day with the biggest 'excitement' being a game of Batman Fluxx this afternoon.
Hopefully Annabelle is feeling much better before long.
SHIP SHAPE: Another fun, busy, pre-Christmas day for MPA. We worked around the house this morning, and then this afternoon struck out for points north. Eventually, we made our way to Mukilteo, where we had a lovely dinner with G&G and watched "The Snowman." When we were on our way back south from up north, imagine our surprise as we closed in on Lake Union and saw dozens upon dozens of boats bedecked in holiday lights! We made a minor detour to Gasworks Park, on the north shore of Lake Union. Though throngs of people were descending upon the place, we lucked right into a parking spot and hot (well, cold, really) footed it to the waterfront. There was a huge bonfire, Christmas carols were blaring and hundreds of people were merry-making. We weren't prepared for the scene or the frigid weather, so we didn't linger. Nor did we have a camera capable of capturing the beauty of the boats.
There were so many, and their lights were so pretty. My horrible cell phone photos don't do it justice. This short video (below) from the event a couple of years ago gives you a better idea of what we saw. https://youtu.be/8zC57HVo6RE
Lucky us! GLEDELIG JUL: For whatever reason, a video popped up into my Facebook feed today showing the staff at the U.S. Embassy in Oslo trying traditional Norwegian Christmas dishes. I showed it to the kids because they have a fairly wide swath of Scandinavian running through their DNA. But whatever your heritage, the short video is interesting and entertaining. https://youtu.be/8U2tQCWCErM
HO HO HO: In what has become a holiday tradition for us, today we visited Space Santa! And there's only one place he can be seen - up on the Space Needle's observation deck.
But before we could go up, we had to pose for the obligatory terrible tourist photo in front of a blue screen. Nice of Kennedy to hold his 'little' brother. We'll see how many more years he can do that. :)
We lucked out - it wasn't raining and wasn't terrifically windy while we were up this early afternoon.
We walked the whole 360-degrees, of course. We started looking toward the south, with a view that included part of downtown and Puget Sound.
We could see that the roof on Safeco Field was open today, letting the green green grass get a little sunlight. We can't wait for baseball season to start!
We headed around the bend to the east, and the South Lake Union neighborhood (also known as Amazon land. Construction cranes are a constant sight down there now.
To the north we could see Queen Anne hill and beyond.
Looking down from the Needle's north side, we could spy the colorful roof of Experience Music Project Museum and the adjacent playground.
And to the west, more Puget Sound vistas, with our neighborhood, the Magnolia peninsula, in the distance.
Inside, a camera let us take a look around in a climate controlled environment. The operator (Annabelle in this case) could zoom and pan. She zeroed in on the iconic pink elephant sign pretty quickly.
The kids each enjoyed a hot chocolate.
But Santa was the big draw.
On the way down, Annabelle had a window 'seat' (stand), so she filmed a quick video of our descent. Part of what you can see is the Chihuly Garden and Glass at Seattle Center.
FUN AND GAMES: After the Space Needle visit, we returned home and had a mini Christmas celebration with Kennedy and Abby. As one of their gift to the kids, they came up with a fun tournament with prizes/presents. The game involved playing a round of Mario Kart and drinking Mountain Dew. These are two of CJ's gifts, so he was quite happy. :)
Annabelle wasn't quite as adept at it, but she was a good sport and won fabulous prizes, too!
SUNDAY MONDAY: And before too much more time passes, I should mention our weekend fun. We drove down to Vancouver, USA, to have a holiday celebration with family. It was lots of good food and fun. Our gift to the kids' cousins was a bunch of little prizes (everything from lottery tickets to gift cards to cash to candy to ramen) wrapped up in a huge ball made using two rolls of plastic wrap. This YouTube video shows how one is made (skip the guy's long intro).
We'd never done a plastic wrap prize ball before, and weren't sure how it would go, but it was really fun! We spent the night at a lovely place, The Heathman Lodge. It definitely lives up to the 'lodge' portion of its name. The lovely portico/entry area has a huge pond complete with big koi and a pretty wooden canoe.
There's even a totem pole amidst a small forest of evergreens.
There was also lots of wood everywhere, inside the lodge. Even Santa was wooden!
There was a lovely pool, which the kids had to themselves on the two occasions they swam. The only thing a bit off was this one moose ... He was in a painting by the elevator to the pool. Look at the creature on the right side here. We decided it had the head of a camel, the eye of a chinchilla, the tail of a corgi and 'horns of a devil,' per Annabelle. Overall, a rather unfortunate combination to our eyes. But we looked forward to seeing it every time we passed by!
BIG BUMMER: Surprising and disappointing news showed up in my inbox this morning. The headline read: "NASA Suspends 2016 Launch of InSight Mission to Mars, Media Teleconference Today." We're really bummed, because that mission was set to launch this March from southern California, and we'd planned to drive down there for it.
This artist's concept from August 2015 depicts NASA's InSight Mars lander fully deployed for studying the deep interior of Mars. The mission will launch during the period March 4 to March 30, 2016, and land on Mars Sept. 28, 2016.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Why the suspension? I'll let NASA tell you: "The decision follows unsuccessful attempts to repair a leak in a section of the prime instrument in the science payload."
More specifically, the instrument that has repeatedly failed in tests is the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), a seismometer provided by France’s Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES). The instrument was designed to measure ground movements on Mars - as small as the diameter of an atom! The delicate instrument requires a vacuum seal around its three main sensors to withstand the harsh conditions of the Martian environment.
Earlier this year, the vacuum seal leaked in a test. It was repaired, but during testing on Monday of this week, in extreme cold temperature (-49 degrees Fahrenheit/-45 degrees Celsius) the instrument again failed to hold a vacuum. Darn it!
Given that the launch is so relatively close, NASA officials determined there is insufficient time to resolve another leak, and complete the work and thorough testing required to ensure a successful mission.
And to make matters worse, the relative positions of the planets are most favorable for launching missions from Earth to Mars occur only for a few weeks every 26 months. So it's going to be 2018 before another attempt is possible.
Delaying a Mars mission a couple of years is not without precedent. “In 2008, we made a difficult, but correct decision to postpone the launch of the Mars Science Laboratory mission for two years to better ensure mission success,” Jim Green, director, Planetary Science Division, said in today's press release. “The successes of that mission's rover, Curiosity, have vastly outweighed any disappointment about that delay," he noted.
