Fun and Games

FAMILIAR FAVORITE: Lately, the kids have become regulars at the Tukwila branch of the King County Library System. It's a pretty building - lots of natural light and modern furniture. And there are books, of course. But what has attracted CJ and Annabelle have been their teen activities after school. Friday, the kids play video games in a conference room with others their age. 

Now, I know, you might be thinking, "WHY THE HELL is the LIBRARY offering VIDEO GAMES?"

Well, this particular library is about a block and half from a high school, and it's in an area geographically where there's not much in the immediate vicinity/walking distance to do, and it's definitely a working class neighborhood, with a whole lot of kids without any supervision after school. The library has homework help four days a week, craft activities, and on Fridays, a little over an hour's worth of video games. Kids come in droves. Clearly, they feel welcomed and comfortable there. Is it a little noisy with all those teens there? Sure. But I love the fact that the library is a part of the teens' routines. They are developing positive feelings about frequenting libraries, and to me, that seems like a great thing.

MODELING: We have a cake project coming up that is going to involve a sculpture atop it. In the past, we have used fondant for small sculptural pieces, and gum paste for larger ones. Each of those options has pros and cons. Fondant won't really hold its shape - it tends to try to return to the marshmallow it once was. Gum paste will hold its shape, but it dries so fast, working with it is hard, and it tends to dry with wrinkles and cracks that aren't aesthetically pleasing.

We watch lots of cake decorating shows, and one thing we've seen them use over and over for sculpting is modeling chocolate.  We decided now it was time to try to add that tool to our aresenal.

I found a recipe online on a website called SugarGeekShow.com. The process to make modeling 'chocolate' seemed simple enough ... melting candy melts, mixing in corn syrup and color, and then letting it set up, kneading it, and so on. 

This morning we fired up the microwave and gave it a go. We carefully measured out a half pound of candy melts and one-sixth of a cup of corn syrup. Those were mixed and then the stuff was spread on plastic. 

We waited about an hour and kneaded the still pliable concoction. We tried sculpting it, but I think we were a little too eager. Our models were super schlumpy. We'll let it set up some more and try again tomorrow.

MINDFUL: On a recent trip to 'binwill' (the Goodwell outlet where everything is in big bins you have to dig through, Christian recently picked up a new-to-us game, MindTrap.

It's really all about riddles. Some involve math, others involve careful listening. Rather than play it in teams or a competition mode, we recently just pulled cards and read them, and talked about possible solutions. I think these kinds of challenges are good for brains of any age!