Humming

WINGING IT: We've been SUPER busy this week. Imagine our delight this morning upon upping not absolutely having to rush off to a specific place at a specific time. Delightful!

Add to that the fact it was gorgeous outside. We decided to go a walking. Our original plan was to head up to the bluff along Queen Anne, but on autopilot, I headed toward the kids' learning center. Oops. 

Realizing my mistake, I started wending our way toward the bluff, and along the windy route, I looked to the right and spied a park bench at one point.

"Is that a park?"! I wondered aloud.

Indeed, it was. 

In fact, it was a park I'd first heard about when CJ was a kindergartner, seven-plus years ago. I knew there was a park on Queen Anne dedicated to neighborhood families lost on a flight headed back to Seattle from Mexico in 2000.

Rachel's Playground at Soundview Terrace.

 The tiles speak to remembrances of classmates lost.

Every single one of the passengers and crew on board perished aboard Alaska Airlines Flight 261. Eighty eight lives gone due to a damn 'jackscrew' and inadequate maintenance led to excessive wear and eventual failure of a critical flight control system during flight" per the official report. Sixteen years removed, it's heartbreaking and nauseating reading about the account and cause of the crash. I can't image how it is for the families for those involved.

Fortunately, CJ, Annabelle, and the dogs had none of the awful details as they were enjoying the park. They jwere able to enjoy the beauty and fun of the place. 

There were a number of tropical plants in the park. I noticed the hummingbirds approved and told the kids to sit on a bench and hold still.

 Within a minute or so, a hummer arrived!

SIGN ME UP!: This afternoon I received a direct message via Twitter. In my experience, usually those are instant-delete type garbage, but this one was different. It was a direct message from the Jane Goodall Institute, inviting me (and countless, others, I'm sure) to enroll in a free course for educators.

Here's the post the link led to ...  Of course I signed up. 

Empowering Youth Through Service in Education

Join us for an action-oriented online professional development course! This course will teach participants how to identify and implement a local service-learning campaign using the Roots & Shoots program model. 

At Roots & Shoots, our goal is to develop compassionate leaders to make the world a better place for people, other animals and the environment. Help us achieve that goal! Complete the course and mentor young people to lead change in their communities by mapping needs, collaborating with stakeholders, and designing practical solutions in the form of campaigns. Connect young people to Dr. Goodall’s message of hope while facilitating a sense of empowerment that comes from helping others!

This course is designed for K-12 formal and informal educators in the United States, but we welcome all professions from all over the world to participate because truly the materials and model is easily and often used by other audiences. If you are located outside the US, we encourage you to check in with the Jane Goodall Institute office closest to you; as they may offer resources and materials specific to your country or region. You can find a list of offices here.

https://rsonlinelearning.appspot.com/mooc2016/course

Busy Bees

WORLD CUP: To say today was a crafty day would be an understatement. We had so many projects going on, every horizontal surface in the house was covered. 

First up was transforming some plain blue paper cups into little Earth-themed cuties.

We also made some globe-like Jell-O Jigglers. First, we made the green Jell-O, and once that was set, we cut that up into little pieces, put it back in the pan, and poured the blue Jell-O over it. Once it all set up, we used a round cookie cutter to make the Earth shapes (and yes, I know the Earth isn't a perfect circle/orb).

Of course, there had to be some cookies in the mix. We dyed regular sugar cookie dough blue and green ... 

then we pieced together some of each color and rolled it into little balls.

 We smooshed the dough balls and baked them for a few minutes.

 Pretty little things!

Christian carved a watermelon globe. Here's an in progress shot. You're going to have to wait until tomorrow for the finished product.

We got a little work done on Chester, the fund-raising mascot. He has arms now! Isn't he cute?

And because we didn't have enough else going on, Annabelle wanted to show me how to make a bookmark. 

You start with a 6x6-inch sheet of paper.

That gets folded in half, and then folded again.

 And folded some more. ... 

 Eventually it's a little page corner cap!

 Naturally, Annabelle had to decorate hers.

We took about a 15 minute break this afternoon to go check out the Seafair pirates, who visited a Starbucks by our house.

Fortunately, these pirates were friendly. Rather than pillaging the Village, they were throwing collectible coins to the kids! CJ and Annabelle each got one.

MEANWHILE, IN HOUSTON: Here's something you don't see going down the freeway 
every day!

This NASA photo shows their crew capsule Orion cruising down the highway toward Houston over the weekend. Pretty cool!

Projects Aplenty

RECRUITMENT POSTERS:  On a too-long-ago visit to Kennedy Space Center, I fell in love with a series of posters they had on display there. I carefully photographed each one.

Happily, today I learned the posters are now available to the public (for non-commercial uses). You should check each and every one of them out here: http://mars.nasa.gov/multimedia/resources/mars-posters-explorers-wanted/?linkId=25534068

PARTY PREP: June seems to be a month with one party after another. Today, we began prepping for an end of  year celebration at the kids' learning center. It's a many-faceted endeavor.

For one, we're working on helping with an Earth-friendly themed snack table. We're going to be baking Earth cookies, making some Earth cups filled with popcorn, carving a world map on a watermelon, and today we turned some little orange citrus thingees into Loraxes. Or Lorex. Or Lorii. Or Loricies. (What *is* the plural or Lorax?)

 The Lorax is a character from a Dr. Seuss book of the same name. 

And on another front, we're trying to establish a non-profit organization (recognized by state and federal governments) to benefit the school. It's a bit of a process/project (understatement!). A 'community chest' if you will, Annabelle made a mascot for the group.
His name is Chester. We're currently working on making a 3-D version of him.

Below are his papier mache feet.

 And here he is with his new nose, eyes and mouth.

Hopefully he'll be done in time for his world premiere on Thursday!

Whirlwind Weekend

RACE-Y:  Boy, have we been busy. 

Saturday morning, we were up bright and early, and headed to Magnuson Park, in the northeast part of town, on the shore of Lake Washington.

What drove us to that destination? Why, the Lard Butt 1K.

 You read that right. ONE KILOMETER. That's about 6/10ths of a mile, A couple times 'round a quarter mile track. 

OK, OK, so it's not the most arduous 'fitness' event. But it might have been the most fun. CJ desperately wanted to join when I read him an ad about it, so we signed him and Christian up. Annabelle and I cheered from the sidelines. (And can I say, the walk from where we parked to the car was MUCH farther than the 1K event!)

There were probably a couple of thousand people on site, many wearing humorous costumes.

 We met Fatsquatch.

 Fatsquatch helped start the race waves. First up were the "show offs," or the people who actually had the audacity to RUN the race. It was funny, when the show offs took off, the balance of the crowd booed them heartily.

The next waves were all "waddlers," or people walking the 'race.' There were three donut stations on the 'race' course, to help people find a way to finish. 

Christian and CJ (pictured below), availed themselves to donuts at each stop.

Out of nowhere, Godzilla showed up and started chasing waddlers. 

 A T-Rex showed up to challenge Godzilla.

 Near the finish line, Annabelle checked to see if the guys had brought her back a donut. They didn't (a mistake they corrected soon afterward).

CJ gave T-Rex and Godzilla high fives at the finish line. 

 Here is CJ's write up of the event. ...

Any time you enter a local or regional running event, you tend to feel very athletic, ready to run a 5K and lose some weight. The same cannot be said for the Lard Butt 1K, which is a running (read: waddling) event, which, according to the website, is dedicated to the below-average athlete and weekend warrior in all of us. The Lard Butt 1K is intended to be an opposite to most other running events, with water stations being replaced by donut stations and having a beer garden in the event area. The participants in the event were divided into 3 primary categories: The "show-offs," or people who would actually run the 1K; the "Legends," people who weighed over 250 pounds (self identified), and "waddlers," or people who didn't fit into any other category. In the "race," you are less likely to sweat while running throughout a long race, and more likely to sweat while wolfing down donuts.

The Lard Butt 1K is great fun for any wannabe weekend warrior, and I would, in all seriousness, recommend visiting the next Lard Butt 1K.   

         

Random note from the race site, out of nowhere, right in the middle of it, a parks worker in a city vehicle showed up, driving through the crowd. I didn't understand why he would be driving through the middle of a race, and thought it super dangerous, with people of all ages walking in all directions, everywhere.

I guess he changed his mind about where he was going, because at one point he backed up and SMACK right into a big park sign HARD.  Sure glad it wasn't a person or one of the many pets on site. Geez.

Eventually an organizer went over to him and obviously asked him WTH?!

Eventually, the worker, his truck and the park sign a little worse for the wear, went and parked in the middle of the field for some inexplicable reason.  Very strange.

After the 'race,' we took some time to explore a little bit of the park, a great site, and we don't get out there often.

BET YOUR BOTTOM DOLLAR:  Friday night, we drove down to Kent in order to see an elementary school's production of Annie, Jr. I'll let Annabelle tell you more about it. 

This year, my brother Rick’s school did a rendition of the play “Annie” for their annual school play. The students did a great job acting and they were very good at singing. I thought the voices were recorded, because they were so good! The play had five scenes and there was one song per scene on average. The play was very well done even though it was short. I can’t wait for next year!

TIS THE SEASON: June means graduation for man. Saturday, Christian's niece had her college graduation party. Christian and CJ headed to Portland for the fun, while Annabelle and I stayed home and held down the fort.

We did send some sugar their way, though, in the form of cookies in shapes that held some significance to her.