Chasing a Dragon

D&D DISPLAY: On Wednesday, we made a last minute, super quick trip to the Renton Historical Museum. It was our first visit there. We'd been meaning to go all summer to see their exhibit "Hero's Feast," about the game Dungeons & Dragons. We went on the day it closed. And had to fit it into about a 25-minute window.

While the game Dungeons & Dragons is a world-wide phenomenon, it has a special link to Renton. Wizards of the Coast is the company who create the game, and they were founded in Renton.

I am not going to spend a lot of time here typing about our visit. Instead, the photos will do most of the talking. I took a bunch, because Christian wasn't able to accompany us, and I knew he'd be interested to see what it was all about. 

 They had a D&D game set up. It looked like our dining room table does from time to time. 

 This vantage point gives the dungeon master's view. 

They had some artifacts from the early days of D&D on display.

This D&D set up is a little more elaborate than most gamers'.

D&D is definitely a cooperative, collaborative effort. I think that's one of the reasons it's so popular.

Unfortunately, due to things that had really nothing to do with the game, D&D has been viewed with an unfairly suspicious eye by many. 

Once upon a time, D&D was definitely thought of as a guys-only endeavor. That's definitely not the case any more.

Today's Annabelle's birthday and (don't tell her), one of her gifts is a 3-session art and writing class with one of the women mentioned on the poster below.

The exhibit featured a magnetic board where people could place characters, items and such.

 Annabelle was drawn to a table where visitors could draw their own D&D character.

 Here's a collection of others' drawings.

 And here's a close up of Annabelle's.

The exhibit wasn't large, and it wasn't spectacular, but it was a nice overview of the game, its history, and its appeal. I'm glad we went.

SHAKE DOWN: On Thursday's to do list was talking about earthquakes. Worldwide, October 17 is Great ShakeOut day, where earthquake preparedness is taught. 

I shared this graphic with the kids. We talked about where we'd stand in our house if an earthquake hit. When we were at the grocery store, we looked around and talked about where would be safer zones. 

MOMENTOUS WALK: Friday morning, we watched some history being made. We tuned in to watch NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir perform the first all-women space walk. 

One of their tasks was replacing a power controller on the International Space Station's exterior. 

This will be Koch’s fourth spacewalk and Meir’s first. The two women are close friends. What a cool experience for them, and it's a milestone long overdue, IMHO.

Monday Sun Day

OUTDOOR SCHOOL: Monday it was so lovely out that I ordered the kids outside while they were studying up on some Japanese. 

I think it's good to mix things up when studying instead of just sitting in front of a computer at a in a dark-ish room.

PRODUCTION LINE: Annabelle (also known as Miss Bee) has been plugging on labels for our honey jars.

 I like her design!

CONDITIONAL: This week's psychology curriculum is focusing on behavioral psychology. This includes classical conditionaing, which is learning that one stimulus signals the arrival of another stimulus. (Think of Pavlov's dog salivating at the sound of a bell. It learned that response after having a bell run before feeding. Soon, the dog would salivate at just the bell, instead of the bell followed by food.)

One of the bits of homework today was watching a low-tech but pretty funny video about classical conditioning. We felt bad for laughing at it, but we did. 


BACK AT IT: With the weekend over, we were back in the gym on Monday. Annabelle gave the climbing wall a go.

Activation

JUMPING IN: So, on Thursday, we joined a gym.

Likely, that congers up images of weight machines and treadmills.

This gym is not that.

It's more like American Ninja Warrior meets a bouncy house.

I had seen a couple of posts before about what I thought was just a trampoline place that had a great program for homeschoolers. Thursday morning, I woke up determined to actually find out who and what that was. Turns out the place is called DEFY, and lucky for us, there's a nearly big, brand new one just a couple of miles from home.

I saw that their homeschool deal was just $10 a month per student for visits any time between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., Monday through Friday, September through the end of May. Even though we hadn't even seen the facility yet, I went ahead and took the plunge, figuring even if we went just once a month, it would be worthwhile.

Thursday afternoon we visited the place for the first time and were absolutely blown away by it. It's cavernous, clean, well-maintained, with cool graphics, fun music and attentive employees. And there were only like a dozen other kids there when we dropped by at around 1.

We spent about 90 minutes there the first visit, with the kids exploring the space's various features.

There are balance challenges ...

and things to swing from.

There are LOTS of trampolines of varying shapes and sizes and springiness.

There are obstacles to conquer.

And there are opportunities for a little friendly combat.

I might have been the first mother ever telling her kids to hit each other harder. ;)

The first day we went, the kids practically had the place to themselves.

Friday midday we stopped by again. Totally different scene - apparently it was a teacher workshop day and school was out and so there were around a bazillion kids of all ages there. Annabelle initially wanted to turn around and leave, but CJ wanted to stay, so stay we did. Turns out even with the huge numbers of people there, there was enough to keep the kids busy. I had to basically order a very sweaty CJ out of the place after 45 minutes, because we had things to do.

I definitely feel like the place is $10 (per person) per month well spent!