SELF PORTRAIT: Annabelle is always drawing. Last night, I noticed she was drawing a self portrait.
I love it! PREPPERS: CJ and Annabelle's education took place almost entirely in the kitchen today. Lots of math (measuring, timing, and more), lots of language arts (carefully reading recipes), and lots of manual dexterity (chopping, dicing, slicing, spreading, stirring, whisking and such). They had hands in making Chex Mix, a pumpkin spice cheesecake, Wisconsin wild rice stuffing, cranberries, two kinds of deviled eggs and more. Tomorrow it's 'just' the turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, onion ring green bean casserole, and Katz's pastrami! ANNIVERSARY AND ANTICIPATION: It was 20 years ago yesterday (Nov. 20) that the first component of the International Space Station, was launched on a Russian Proton rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazahkstan. The ISS has been such a boon to civilization. The orbiting laboratory has been a multi-national effort, and science on board it has benefited the entire planet. (You can always read up on the latest ISS accomplishments on this NASA page: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/results_category) Speaking of awesome NASA stuff, we are counting the days down until Monday, when their Mars Lander InSight is set to touch down at noon Pacific time. Yesterday, we learned one of our favorite illustrators/comic writers, Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal, will be covering the event live. Below, you can read his InSight strip in anticipation of the event.
While we can't all be at Jet Propulsion Lab during the landing, you can watch it all go down (in a controlled manner, hopefully) via NASA Live: https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive In fact, if you want to learn more about InSight before Monday, check out the mission's final pre-landing update on Sunday at 1 p.m. InSight Mars Lander news conference Also, if you're in Seattle, both Pacific Science Center and The Museum of Flight will be hosting landing watch parties.
BANDITOS: Friday night, we headed south to Tacoma for a concert we'd been looking forward to, Twenty Øne Piløts.
Last time we saw them, we risked life and limb and our car, driving 8 hours each way in the ice and snow, in February of 2017. Though we hit some traffic on the way to Tacoma, this drive was a LOT easier and quicker than that trip, that's for sure!
Below, the kids give you their reviews of the concert. Annabelle is up first.
On November 16th, 2018, my family drove to the newly refurbished Tacoma Dome to see Twenty Øne Piløts for their "Bandito tour" stop. The concert was extremely different from their Boise, Idaho show that we had seen during the "Emotional Road Show" tour. The Tacoma Dome has been recently renovated, which provided us with a clean and comfortable venue for the show.
The show began with Max Frost, a solo artist whose songs mostly seemed to be empty lyrics layered over popular music. The chords were exact replicas of many notable songs, down to the tempo and additional effects. While his act wasn't very notable, the second opening act was AWOLNATION, who rocked the Tacoma Dome with songs like "Sail" and "Handyman". The sound during their act seemed a little quiet, though it was quickly rectified during Twenty Øne Piløts' act. Twenty Øne Piløts started with songs from their newest album, "Trench". They used the lights and equipment in the Tacoma Dome to their fullest, even having a bridge from the main stage to a smaller island in the middle of the crowd. The smoke effects did a great job of both setting the mood and ensuring that the lasers were visible. The entire crowd was participating in the singing of some of their most popular songs, including "Ride", "Stressed Out", and "We Don't Believe What's On TV".
The concert lasted multiple hours, with amazing stunts such as disappearing from the stage and back-flipping off of pianos. I even met some fellow fans my age at the concert, showing just how large the community of TØP fans is. I had a wonderful time at the concert and would gladly go again, though I found it a slight bit underwhelming compared to their Boise concert.
And here's what CJ had to say about the show.
As of the time I'm writing this (17 November 2018,) musical duo Twenty
One Pilots is currently on their Bandito Tour, to promote their latest
studio album Trench. Among the stops for the Bandito Tour was a
stop in Tacoma, Washington on 16 October 2018, at the city's Tacoma
Dome. I was fortunate enough to attend the concert, which was not my
first Twenty One Pilots concert. Previously, I had seen them on the
Emotional Roadshow Tour, on 8 February 2017 at Boise, Idaho's Taco Bell
Arena.
Before Twenty One Pilots began their set at 9
P.M, Awolnation began playing at about 7:45 P.M. Awolnation is a band
from Los Angeles, California, best known for their 2011 hit "Sail."
Twenty One Pilots began their set with the song "Jumpsuit," which was
the lead single from Trench. The majority of their setlist afterwards consisted of songs from Trench and Blurryface, with seven other songs being represented (two of which were covers: Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls, and Hey Jude by the Beatles.) For the cover songs, Twenty One Pilots brought out Awolnation back on stage to contribute to the performances.
Notably,
at the mid-point of the show, Tyler and Josh made their way towards
"Stage B," a small stage in the middle of the Tacoma Dome. They
proceeded to play four songs on this stage.
In case you're wondering why the kids have yellow duct tape on olive drab clothing in the photo above, check out the video below. I was amazed by the sight of about half of the sold out crowd sporting their own riff on the look. . I've never been to a show where that has happened.
SPACE CAKE: We spent several hours this weekend working on a Birthday Dreams donation. The eight year old boy wanted a space-related cake, and reportedly loves "anything NASA," so we made a NASA cake. :)
After this photo, we put his name and an "8" on the front of the cake. And, for good measure, we made him some Space Shuttle cookies! We haven't made those in forever! It was fun!
ON EASY STREET: We celebrated Christian's birthday today, since he is working tomorrow, on his actual birthday. We started the day with what has become a birthday tradition in our family, breakfast at the quirky cafe inside Easy Street Records in West Seattle. All of the menu items are based on music/musician references. For instance, Annabelle had a Beck omelette, I had New Wave-os Rancheros, Christian had Reverend Horton Hash, and CJ had Blueberry Hill pancakes.
You can't be in a hurry when you go there, but the food was great, as always. Also, CJ walked out with Led Zeppelin II, so he was happy.
