Finally Friday

MEASURING UP: For whatever reason, before 7 this morning, CJ needed to know how many miles it is around the Earth. OK, let's find out.

As one source, we turned to a nice article on Universe Today. There, we learned that the circumference of the Earth is 24,901.5 miles (or 40,075 km) at the equator, and that if we were to drive nonstop for 24 hours a day at 100 km an hour, it would take us 17 days to circumnavigate the globe. It would take slightly less time if we were traveling around the globe from pole to pole, as the Earth's circumference isn't quite as great in that direction.

POSTER: Hanging next to our front door is a poster that once hung in Christian's grandparents' house. It depicts a couple dozen men (and one woman) who ruled Denmark, starting with Gorm the Old in 936 and up to Frederik IX who ascended to the throne in 1947. Several of the kings on the poster are named Christian and so CJ (Christian John) is just certain that he is the descendant of these noblemen. Along with that "fact," CJ figures that the Danish throne will someday his to occupy. And he's already making plans for this eventuality.
CJ plans on having "the best sword out of every king of Denmark, even the ones that are not on the poster. I'll find the best one and I'll change the metal to golden." He also plans on having a suit of armor like Christian the IIIs, and has decided he will wear what he's dubbed "the unworn crown" at the bottom of the text on the poster.

Because of his fascination with the poster, we've been learning about Danish history, nobility, and pillaging (the eldest of Gorm the Old's sons was killed while raiding and pillaging in Dublin, Ireland). In case you were wondering, CJ will issue an anti-pillaging proclamation when he assumes the throne.

SUNNY STROLL: We went for a short walk this a.m., which gave us a chance to check on the blackberries in the alley (coming along nicely, thankyouverymuch). And we went down to the mailbox to get rid of a sizable stack of envelopes filled with ticket to the Puyallup Fair. Once again this year I volunteered to be the Seattle Homeschool Group's contact/order taker, placer and filler for the Puyallup Fair's Educational Ticket Program. Based on my experience this year, I think it may be my last year in that role. I'm so glad to have these orders/envelopes out of my house now.NICE NEIGHBOR: On our way back from the mailbox, our neighbor to the north offered the kids some LEGO-like building blocks leftover from their Burning Man LEGO-like truck project. The kids were happy to have them, of course. PAIR OF PLAYDATES: This morning the kids had a friend over to play for a couple of hours and then around 3 this afternoon we went to their house (on the other side of Magnolia) and the kids enjoyed swimming in their nice big in ground pool. It was a fun day - the three kids all got along well and had a good time.

LEFTOVERS: Didn't get around to posting this short video last night. It's of a great fountain at about 4th and Pine. We encountered it between our bus stop and GameWorks yesterday afternoon.

Seems like it was a long week. I'm beat. See y'all Monday.

Party On

FIRST THINGS FIRST: The kids started the day with some self directed independent reading on the couch. I love it when they do that. :)

DEEP CLEAN: We spent about 2 hours putting the house back together this a.m. Amazing how badly things slide when we're working on a pinata and a custom cake.

DOWNTOWN: This afternoon's festivities involved continuing to celebrate Kennedy's birthday. Where better to do that than GameWorks?!

Since we were meeting Christian there after he got off work, the kids and I decided to bus it down and ride home with him to avoid paying the ridiculous $4 a hour for a parking spot down there. We caught the bus a half block from our house and rode it to Pike Place Market. Then we walked four blocks east and one block south and voila! we weere ready to have a grand ol' time at Gameworks!GAME ON: Thankfully, several weeks back I had bought four all day pass game cards for GameWorks via Groupon. We cashed those in today and CeeJ, Bee, Rick, Kennedy and Ken's GF played and played and played some more. It was so much fun!

Finishing Touches

DEADLINE DAY: We had two projects to finish today. First, since it's Kennedy's birthday, we pretty much needed to get his cake done, wouldn't you say? The good news was I had the fondant Scrabble board and its pieces for the cake topper, but we still needed a cake to set it atop. A really big cake, because a Scrabble board isn't exactly small. So I ended up having to bake four half-sheet cakes, which stacked next to and on top of each other, were wide enough to accommodate the board.

It was funny, all day long the house smelled so good, the kids were constantly begging for food. I did let them serve as official taste testers a couple of times.GOOD TIMING: Coming back from a mid-morning butter and powdered sugar supply run, we noticed the sprinklers were on at the park by our house. You know what that means! Cake and pinata deadlines be damned - we needed to take advantage of the free sprinkler shower! CJ and Annabelle ran around between three huge sprinklers on two soccer fields for about 20 minutes. It was just the break we needed before getting back to work.

LEGO MANIACS: Mercifully, it was a warm, sunny day, which made painting our LEGO man a quicker process (less waiting between coats). First we painted his shirt black, then his head and hands yellow and we decided on red for his pants.

Once his body was painted, it was time for the detail work. I penciled his eyes and mouth on and then CJ preceded to critique it. "Let me tell you what you screwed up," he offered, cheerily.

We agreed that the mouth I'd sketched was too high on the face, so I drew another. It was better. I painted those (letting Annabelle fill in the eyes). Then it was time for me to paint some sort of Burning Man logo on the LEGO man's chest, since that is his final destination. I just went with something along the lines of the banner on Burning Man's Web site. I was really happy with how it turned out.

With the pinata done, it was back to the cake.

NOTE TO SELF: Don't ever make another Scrabble cake. So. Many. Details.

That said, we had a job to finish. The cakes got stacked and slathered in buttercream. I didn't feel like making more fondant, so I was planning to do a trick where you can use a Viva paper towel to smooth a crusting buttercream frosting so it looks like fondant. I've done it before and it works. But I had one problem - no Viva paper towels. And you really need those because they are very smooth - no texture to telegraph to the frosting. I really, REALLY didn't feel like going back to the store. So, I looked at my in-stock cheapest paper towels $ can buy and saw they had dots forming patterned circles all over them. I thought, hmm, I wonder if I could just emboss that onto the buttercream to make it look like a tablecloth. ... Turns out the answer is YES! Doesn't this (the blue 'tablecloth' under the board and game pieces) look festive!? ;)

BTW, in case you're wondering, the reason "FESTIVE" is in the 'on deck' position on the cake is because I remembered a couple of weeks ago Kennedy mentioned he'd played that word for his highest ever single word score in Scrabble.
DELIVERED: This evening, Annabelle and Christian delivered the pinata to the Burning Man bound neighbors. I wanted Annabelle to go with because she worked quite a bit on it, and she could explain it to them. ;)

When they returned to the house a few minutes later, Bee ran in jumping up and down and yelled, "They LOVED it!!!" She was very proud. :)

Apparently the gang said they were going to use it as their hood ornament, and after they beat it to a pulp, they'll torch it in the Burning Man tradition. ;)

Party Central

CUT AND STUFF: We started our day by carving into a papier mâché-d (is that a word?) pinata so we could fill it with with the fabulous Dollar Store treats we scored last night. Annabelle helped sort the items by size, so we could stuff them in the appropriate pinata parts (head, body or legs).

By Thursday, this pinata, a gift for a neighbor, will be making a long trek to Burning Man, the multi-day dance party in a Nevada desert. Given its destination, we filled it with sunscreen, lip balm, fluorescent foam visors, glow sticks, Pop Rocks type candy, single serving powdered drink mixes (to add to water), candy bracelets and necklaces, beaded necklaces, and, of course, some airplane size mini bottles of alcohol. It's going with a big flat bed truck that's covered in LEGO-like bricks, so we made it in the shape of a LEGO man. We base coated it today and will paint it off tomorrow, just in time for its southward trek.WORD OF THE DAY: After her ballet lesson today, Annabelle reported that she'd learned a new word/move - arabesque. She described it in the car and demonstrated it when we got home. I sure am bummed that her ballet teacher is retiring. She has just one lesson left with her. :(

SWEET VICTORY, YEAH!: On his lunch break today, Christian ripped down to Fry's in Renton and picked up what he believed to be the proper capacitors for the Sega Game Gear he and CJ are trying to resurrect. Tonight, after dinner, he and CJ got back to their task. They made short work of it. Within 15 minutes they were ready to give it a go. And ...Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It went from black screen to full living color!

CJ proceeded to play a series of games - many of them for the first time. So cool that they got the thing working again - for just a couple of dollars (capacitors are cheap!).

STACKS & STACKS OF LETTERS: Also in the home ec/craft hopper is our ongoing KENNEDY STOP READING HERE.........................................................................................................................

OK, he's gone, I hope.

We're making a Scrabble cake for Ken's bday.

Today, we made letters. Lots and lots of letter tiles. And we put those tiles on the edible Scrabble board we're still working on.
Hopefully it will be done tomorrow. In fact, it BETTER be, since that's Ken's bday and all!

DON'T WE WISH?: I keep forgetting to post that the other morning CJ woke up a few minutes before 6 a.m. and announced, "Wow. I feel like I've been asleep for two days!"

Must be nice.

In an email, I reported CJ's quote to Christian, who leaves for work about 5:45 a.m., and he replied, "Wow. I feel like I've been asleep for two hours!"

Summer's Zenith

SO THEY SAY: On the ad for the product, kids' voices sing, "Zoo Pals make eating fun!"

I would think the maker would probably appreciate this photo. Annabelle doesn't just eat off the plates, she wears them. Sometimes while eating. Needless to say, that slows the eating down.

ON THE INSIDE: Today, Christian and CJ finally sat down and cracked open the Sega Game Gear with an eye toward fixing it.
The units are notorious for having bad/leaking capacitors. Awhile back we happened upon a great YouTube video showing how to replace the bad capacitors.

Christian ordered the parts and today, CJ methodically removed all the bad capacitors and Christian soldered new ones in their places. The process took a couple of hours. Once they were done, it was time to power up the unit. "I'm going to cross my fingers," CJ said.And then (insert drumroll here) ... he turned it on.And it didn't work. :(

CJ took it pretty well. By now he's kind of a veteran of working with oldish electronics and he knows it can be sketchy.

Christian reviewed all their steps and he's pretty sure he's figured out the problem. He thinks two of the capacitors are the wrong type. So, he's got a parts list and it's back to the drawing board. Stay tuned. ...

MEANWHILE, IN THE KITCHEN: While the electronics project covered the dining table, the kitchen island was (partially) covered in fondant. KENNEDY IF YOU ARE READING STOP HERE. :)

We are working on a birthday cake for Kennedy, whose birthday is on August 24. He's a really good Scrabble player, so I thought we would make him a Scrabble cake. It seemed like such a great idea initially - before I was faced with drawing that playing board grid out of royal icing. And making 100 letter tiles, etcetera. The first step in making a wood grain fondant is twisting two different colored ropes together, then rolling that out and painting a bit on top of it. Tomorrow, we'll be writing on the tiles and lots of other detail work. Oh, and I suppose I should bake some cake to put it all atop.

WATERY WEEKEND: We had all sorts of fun this sunny weekend.

On Saturday, we spent some time on a beach at the foot of our hill. We watched cruise ships depart for Alaska. CJ and Annabelle pretended they were surfing. And we even got buzzed by a super rare "Flying Fortress" - the B-17!
On Sunday, we went down to Lake Union Park, about 6 minutes from our house, to the east. Our first order of business was taking advantage of the free Sunday sailboat cruises the Center for Wooden Boats offers.

We signed up for a 3 p.m. cruise on board the Admirable, a 1900 gillnetter salmon fishing boat that spent most of its early years in Alaska.

CJ and Annabelle each got a chance to operate the boat's tiller.
It was a lovely day on the lake - in fact, it was the hottest day of the year, 87 degrees.
After the sail, the kids spent nearly an hour enjoying the fountains in the park, spraying up from the sidewalk.After that, we walked over to the beach area.

Good times!

On the Move

HE'S BA-ACK: As I'm clearing the dishes out of the kitchen sink this morning, I had an eight legged surprise. I swear the thing popped up out of the drain. Which, of course, immediately made me think it was THE FACE EATING MONSTER SPIDER that I flushed down the bathtub drain day before yesterday.

Though it's clear this was the same type of spider, this one was about half the size of that first one. Needless to say, it went to a watery grave, too.

BOOK LOVERS: We started the day with a pair of great picture books. "Older Than the Stars" by Karen C. Fox, illustrations by Nancy Davis, does a nice job of explaining the Big Bang in a way people of any age could understand. The book explains that the iron in our blood may have once been part of a volcano, calcium in our bones may have been part of an ancient oyster shell, the oxygen we breathe may have also passed through a dinosaur's lungs and every particle in our bodies was once part of a star. Super cool stuff. The book has a nice Web site: www.olderthanthestars.com

At the end of the book there's a timeline of the universe from 0 seconds (the instant of the Big Bang) through the first three minutes to 13.75 billion years later (now-ish). (A PDF version of the timeline can be viewed here: http://www.charlesbridge.com/client/client_pdfs/downloadables/Older_than_Stars_Timeline_large.pdf)/. The book also has a glossary, with vocab like atom, carbon, electron, minerals, neutron particle, proton, solar system and such. We spent several minutes going over (and over!) what each term meant, and then I had the kids stand up and I quizzed them about the words. Below, they discuss carbon ...To follow up on the talk of atoms, we went to BrainPOP and watched a video about atoms. They also took a review quiz and did respectably.

We also read the charming "Wheedle on the Needle." First published in 1974 (I remember it well!), it's a cute story about a creature named Wheedle who had lived in the Pacific Northwest since before the Westward expansion. When a lot of people came, Wheedle got annoyed by all the noise and was driven out of his stomping grounds. He chose to live atop Mt. Rainier. It worked for awhile, but before too long, the noise became bothersome there, as well. He decided to travel to where all the noise was coming from - Seattle - and wound up trying to get some sleep atop the Space Needle. He had brought clouds along with him, and Seattle-ites grew tired of all the rain. Finally a deal was struck and the Wheedle was able to sleep atop the Space Needle. His nose glows when he's asleep, which explains the red light atop the Needle. The kids liked the story and the character. Wheedle went on to fame outside of the book's pages, serving as the Seattle Supersonics' mascot from 1978 through 1985.

In reading the Wikipedia article , I learned that a bit of a war was waged over the Wheedle, and that a second edition published in 2002 scarcely resembled the original book. Fortunately, author Stephen Cosgrove won the right to his book back from the publisher in 2009, and the third edition (2010, which is the one we read), retains the essence of the original.

MOVING DAY: We spent a significant amount of time today helping Kennedy move. We met him at his new apartment (about two blocks away, at the bottom of our hill!) We also went to his old place once to help him load some larger items. There, Annabelle amused herself with some Pee-Wee Herman Colorforms. Meanwhile, CJ actually helped pack some of Ken's clothes. DO UNTO OTHERS: From the backseat of the car today I hear CJ proclaim, "If I ran a church I would tell everyone that they should be nice to everyone, because you never know, god could look like anyone. He could be in disguise, so you should be nice to everyone because they might be god." No idea where he got that idea or what made him think of it at that moment.

Shortly thereafter, Annabelle started talking about Noah's ark. She had the "facts" down. Not sure where she gleaned them, as we haven't discussed the ark at all, either.

Splish Splash

ARMED TO THE TEETH: Before 8 this a.m. I hear the 'clink' of the silverware drawer opening. A familiar sound, but usually it's me opening it.

However, today the sound was produced by Annabelle. I watched her walk from the kitchen to a cardboard box she was working on for a craft project. I must have clearly been aghast at what I saw because Bee said, "You said I could use knives now!!"

Yikes.

STAIRWAY TO NOWHERE: For a while now I've been wishing I had a stair stepper instead of a Health Rider for exercise. It occurred to me yesterday that I climb three sets of stairs to reach the car when we go somewhere. I announced my plans to the kids this a.m. that I'd be going up and down our steps for a bit. I thought 10x sounded like a nice number, but when I told CJ he replied, "I'm going to do it 300 times."

Oh, OK. ;)

He actually did pretty well, lasting 10 trips up and down before he said his legs felt funny. I did 13 and only stopped 'cause we had to head out.

WATER WONDERS: Today we had a noontime date with CJ's BFF from kindergarten. We'd arranged to meet at the big fountain at Seattle Center. We parked in our usual (free!) spot about 3 blocks away, and took a bit of a different route over, as I wanted to check out a fountain we'd noted before but never gotten a close look at. It was in the courtyard of the (now defunct) Intiman Theater. This is "Fountain of the Northwest," dedicated on April 21, 1962. The artist who created it is Jamed Fitzgerald. How excellent that it still looks so amazing 48 years later.

We happened to catch it at a time when a rainbow was evident. Between the Intiman fountain and the big show, Annabelle discovered another low-slung, circular fountain. "Look! It's a whirlpool!" she declared. And she was right. The bowl filled up, drained and then filled again.
Cool! We all agreed it would be fun to play with some toy boats in this fountain.

Of course, we also visited the big fountain in the center of it all. CeeJ and Bee are in the foreground.

Come evening, we met an out-of-town visitor at the Pike Brewery/Pub for dinner. Afterward, we walked down to the waterfront and wandered around like tourists for awhile. CJ and Annabelle talked us into buying some dessert for them at one tourist trap.