Playing Catch Up

STILL HERE: We've been busy here the past few days, but you wouldn't know it by our posts (or lack thereof). I've had some weird stupid cold thing that has left me wiped out in the evenings when I usually post to the blog. 

This weekend we knocked a number of things off our 'to do' list around the homestead, and then Sunday night the kids whipped up an extra large chocolate chip cookie for Valentine's Day!

We've played games, including one called "Reading Between the Lines," where game players had to solve reading comprehension problems to progress. 

We've taken the dogs for multiple walks, including down to the waterfront, and to Meridian Park. At the latter, we enjoyed the gazebo, and a large playground with art all around.

We watched most of the 140th Westminster Kennel Club competition on Monday and Tuesday nights (much to Kirby and Laika's chagrin. They barked repeatedly at the competition, so to speak). Imagine our surprise and delight when the dog show finalists were announced and among them were a bulldog named Annabelle and German shorthair pointer named CJ!

As soon as I saw CJ win the working class, I predicted to the kids the dog would take best of show honors. He was such a beauty!  Congratulations, CJ (and better luck next year, Annabelle).

YOUNG WILLIAM: We'll be checking out William Shakespeare's "First Folio" here when it visits Seattle, and so we're learning a bit more about the author's life and times.

We started with a four-part documentary called "In Search of Shakespeare," which aired on PBS over a decade ago. 

I'll let the kids tell you a bit about what we learned today. ... 

CJ goes first ... 

William Shakespeare was an iconic English playwright whose writings significantly influenced theater as we know it. I recently watched the first part of a 4-part documentary miniseries called "In Search of Shakespeare" by the BBC. It was hosted by a man named Michael Wood, and the first episode is about Shakespeare's life up to the age of 19.

Shakespeare's father was a wealthy illegal wool dealer who made a name for himself in the countryside. His son, William Shakespeare, was able to get an education, a luxury that many children did not have. Shakespeare acted in his school's plays, which got him interested in theater. However, William's family was Catholic, in a time when England's royal family had recently changed the national religion to Protestantism. It became a sin to go to Catholic church, and when William was about 14, the wool industry went into a recession, which heavily affected his family. Shakespeare eventually got married, at age 19, but soon afterward, things went very badly for his family. One of his cousins declared in public that he was going to kill the queen, and the queen's spies noticed this. As a result, Shakespeare's aunt and uncle were tortured and executed, and the same would have happened to his cousin had he not committed suicide.

I look forward to seeing the next parts of the miniseries and learning how he wrote the plays he is known for.

And here's what Annabelle had to share ...

I recently watched a documentary called “In Search of Shakespeare” that talks about the mysteries of Shakespeare’s life. Many people know about Shakespeare’s career as a playwright, but did you know his childhood wasn’t that great? He had a good education until his father’s business of glove-making suddenly dropped. His father was also, at some point, mayor of Shakespeare’s childhood town. His family got in serious trouble after his cousin (on his mom’s side) allegedly said he would go to London and kill the queen. This lead to many of his family members being imprisoned and tortured. He also was a Catholic, even though the national religion was changed multiple times and eventually, going to his church was considered a sin. He even had a priest who you would only go to if you were in a hurry or wanted a more Catholic wedding marry him and Anne Hathaway. This was only his teenage years, and I can’t wait to see the next part and what other mysteries might unfold! 

Nice that the PBS Web site has an educators' guide to the show: http://www.pbs.org/shakespeare/educators/