Cinco of May-o

REDSTONE REMEMBERED: While Cinco de Mayo, with Mexican origins, has become a big party day in the United States (tacos and tostadas for all!), May the 5th is an important date in American history. On this day in 1961, Alan Shepard became the nation's first astronaut. Launched in his Freedom 7 capsule atop a Mercury Redstone 3 rocket, Shepard completed a 15-minute sub-orbital flight, which reached a peak altitude of 116 statute miles. 

GIVING: We spent some time today on preliminary steps to help get a non-profit organization established to help benefit a local school. Annabelle was kind enough to draw up a mascot for the 'community chest' effort. His name is Chester, of course.

You'll note his shoes are green - the color of money. Let's hope Chester helps us get this non profit up and running in no time!

WAITING AND WATCHING: Tonight, SpaceX is scheduled to launch a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Japanese communications satellite at 10:21 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time.  While launches are cool and all, SpaceX has turned watching one into a double-your pleasure endeavor, as it's exciting waiting to see if their reusable rocket can stick the landing on a barge afterward. Fingers are crossed for success this evening!

UPDATE: The satellite is in orbit and they stuck the landing again! So awesome! Thanks to SpaceX, the age of the reusable rockets appears to be upon us!

I don't get tired of watching this clip from of a SpaceX rocket's epic landing on a droneship, "Of course I Still Love You."
Make sure you have the sound turned up when you watch the video. The rocket noise ahead of the arrival is cool! 
https://youtu.be/KDK5TF2BOhQ

Circuitous

     photo: Space Needle's official Facebook account
STAR WARS DAY: Just had to lead today's post with a nod to one of MPA's favorite 'holidays' of the year, May Fourth, as in "May the Fourth be With You," as in Star Wars.

LOVED the graphic the Space Needle posted (above) to commemorate the occasion. Today, Annabelle sported a Boba Fett dress and a Rey (from "The Force Awakens") hairdo, while CJ wore a favorite Yoda shirt. I wore my Star Wars pajama togs as about-the-town pants with pride. 

We love us some Star Wars. 

SCIENCE FAIRY:  For a couple of hours midday, the kids manned a booth at their learning center's science fair, 

They chose to share a banana piano as their project, an idea inspired by a similar display at the recent University of Washington Engineering Days event we attended.

The drive of the musical demo involving circuits is a Makey Makey circuit board. 

By using the simple programming and wiring, you can use the circuit board to create a playable piano with most anything that will conduct electricity - including bananas (given their water content)!

 CJ and Annabelle typed up some explanations for their exhibit, including this ...

And then there's this ...

 A little explantion was in order, of course. 

Things were a little busy at the science fair and I didn't manage to take a demo video of it. Doh!

So when we got home, I had the kids recreate it. They set their display up on the copper top bar in our kitchen and weird things began to happen. Why? They soon realized that was because the copper was conducting energy between *everything.* To combat it, we put some towels under the bananas. Problem solved and lesson learned. 

Here is a demonstration of their banana piano.

https://youtu.be/XJ-yyQzjwqc

LATER, THAT DAY: After the whole science fair fun experience, we had some R&R time, which almost always includes a tabletop game. I searched the cupboards for a Star Wars themed one, given, the "May the Fourth (be with You)" day, and remembered we owned Star Wars Operation. Perfect! And not only that, as an added bonus, really the game is about trying *not* to complete a circuit! If you touch metal on metal, you're done! 

Been Busy

STAYING AFLOAT: Apologies for the lack of a post yesterday. We here at MPA have been a touch busy. Yesterday it was 88 (!) degrees in Seattle, which is super hot for May 2. Lucky for us, we had reservations for a ride on an electric boat on and around Lake Union.

One of the first things we saw as Captain Christian piloted us out onto the lake was a woman on a stand up paddle board with her Boston terrier along for the ride. We all marveled that she managed to paddle along with her dog and use her smart phone all at the same time.  

Two of  the present-day constants in the South Lake Union skyline are the Space Needle and construction cranes.

We passed dozens and dozens of kayakers on the like. 

 And we got a good look at the Queen.

Our travels took us under three bridges, including the Ballard Bridge ...

 and the Fremont Bridge.

 Under the Fremont, we crossed paths with a long dragon boat crew paddling like crazy.

 Annabelle enjoyed the view ...

 as did Eric and Judy.

It was rather humid out.  In the photos below, you can see rain showers in the distance, likely over Bellevue.

Kennedy and CJ contemplated, with a ship from "Deadliest Catch" seasons past in the background.

We didn't get too close to steampunk looking Gasworks Park, as the guys at the Electric Boat company told us the water off shore there was very shallow - and that another Electric Boat customer they'd warned the day before apparently didn't believe them and did hundreds of dollars worth of damage to their rental.

 The clouds overhead sprinkled a few shimmery drops of rain on us.

All in all it was a lovely two hours of good company and great views in the heart of this pretty city.

APPRECIATIVE:  What has been keeping us busy for the past couple of days is getting ready to help host a teacher appreciate luncheon at the school CJ and Annabelle attend a few hours a week.

A few days ago, I hit upon a 'school cafeteria' theme, which, at first mention, might not sound too wonderful for a nice luncheon, but we had fun with it.

We used school lunch bags to make pretty (compostable) cutlery holders.

Those were tucked into one of many vintage lunch boxes we brought along as decorations.

We also had old school (ha ha) cafeteria trays for the teachers to use to go through the lunch line.

Their selections included multiple soups and salads parents brought in to share.

At the drink station, we had to have cartons of milk and juice pouches, of course. A few iced coffees were thrown in for good measure.

Fruity water was also available, and we used chalkboard tape to personalize little glass jars for them to use for drinking it.

Tables were decorated with flowers with school lunch thermoses for vases.

The dessert table included a lunchbox full of Smarties (regular and super sized!).

 And we made some cookies that looked like foods you'd find in a school lunch. 

Of course, we had music playing the background, all songs that had to do with school or learning in one way or another.

Apologies for the poor photos above - I was a little, um, busy, and forgot to bring my real camera, and these are from my new cell phone camera (which, apparently, is rather craptacular).

After we finished cleaning up, we had to head to another local school to return the green partitioned lunch trays to the kind cafeteria lady who loaned them to me. We took her a chalkboard jar full of flowers from the event as a thank you.