December Doings

DRAMATIC DEPARTURE: This NASA photo (by Bill Ingalls) is a stunning capture of the send off for Mercury, Apollo and STS astronaut John Glenn. His casket was on display in the Ohio State House prior to his memorial, which was held on Saturday, Dec. 17. 

The archival video of the service can be viewed on YouTube: https://youtu.be/RfrAmFaNBgc


GAMEY: As anyone who reads this blog regularly knows, we love to play games. All kinds of games, including tabletop strategy games. Solving problems, working cooperatively, facing challenges and being flexible, games are honestly probably the bulk of our math/logic education here at MPA. 

Last week, we tried a simple, fun game called "Repeat or You're Obsolete." A very not catchy title, the game is mostly about being able to remember lists. 

Here's a YouTube video from the young man/game inventor explaining it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22_MP7tq6W0

It was fun and challenging and easy/quick to learn. However, at the end, we all concluded we weren't looking forward to playing it again, so we'll pass it along.

We also just recently took our first go at the long-awaited "Labyrinth" board game, based on the 30-year-old movie starring David Bowie as the Goblin King. I pre-ordered it months and months and months ago. This week, we finally got to give the game a go.

It's fun - and confounding! We've played it twice and were nowhere near beating it either time. We aren't giving up, though!

ELFISH: Tis the season of holiday movies, and one of our very favorites is "Elf."

In fact, it's such a favorite that CJ was the title character from the movie for Halloween. 

A local, independent theater shows the film each holiday season, and this year we finally made it out there to see "Elf" on the big screen. Of course CJ recycled his Halloween costume for the occasion! 

Imagine our delight when we entered the theater an hour pre-movie and a song from the Pee Wee Herman Christmas Special was playing!

 And things got even better when Elvis from the '68 comeback special came on, with him singing "Blue Christmas."

It was *so* much fun seeing the movie on the big screen, and everyone in the theater sounded to be a big "Elf" fan- laughing uproariously at certain scenes, and singing along at the end. Big fun!